Erasure Poetry of ‘The Danger of a Single Story‘
By Olesya Shanabrook
This digital media piece is about what it means to be a woman in today’s society. This piece is also about my take on erasure poetry with a mix of feminism. I emphasize the words by highlighting them instead of spotlighting the words by redacting others.
Process
The process was challenging because I had to make my tripod using two rulers and a drawer. On top of that, I had very little experience in making erasure poetry and animation. The idea-making part was hard because there are so many social justice issues happening in the world right now. So I chose the one that affected me the most: feminism. I expressed my take on feminism by using Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s speech, “The Danger of a Single Story” with erasure poetry.
Meet the Pair
MENTEE OLESYA SHANABROOK & MENTOR KARINA JOUGLA
Olesya’s Anecdote: I remember the first time I met Karina. It was in the New-York Historical Society. Not only was it a beautiful place to meet someone with all of these colorful lamps lit around us, but I felt very nervous to meet someone new. But little did I know that Karina turned out to be this amazing, interesting mentor who sometimes is my confident about my social life outside of Girls Write Now. I’m quite happy that I got to spend a year with Karina, who can share my laughs and my opinions. Thank you, Girls Write Now and Karina.
Karina’s Anecdote: Olesya and I are both new to Girls Write Now this year, so it has been such a pleasure having her as a mentee as we’ve helped each other navigate the ins and outs of the program. I have been so impressed with Olesya’s endlessly creative ideas for prompts and topics to try next. She has a gift for describing common emotions in completely novel, beautiful, and unexpected ways. Our pair sessions always go by too quickly—once we closed down a café but wanted to keep writing and talking, so we took our conversation to a donut shop.
Olesya Shanabrook
Olesya Shanabrook is a class of 2020 Girls Write Now mentee based in New York, NY.
