Los Angeles Disappeared
Sarah Nichols
Blackout Contest Second Runner Up
Social Material:
The Shards, Bret Easton Ellis
Additional Context:
I used Bret Easton Ellis’s 2023 novel, The Shards. I think it’s a masterpiece, and wanted to make found poetry with it. Last year, I completed a long blackout/erasure project, and was looking to start a new project. I turned to Ellis’s work—not only The Shards, but Less Than Zero and Lunar Park, too. I don’t remember when I made this particular piece. Because the novel is set in 1981, I used ads from a copy of a Seventeen magazine from the 80s for some of the collage work, along with a piece of a Triple A map of Los Angeles.
The novel has a kind of dream like evocation of horror and dread, and Los Angeles is such a repository for our dreams, and my dream of Los Angeles is very much a noir Los Angeles, and I wanted the piece to reflect that.
The Shards, Bret Easton Ellis
Additional Context:
I used Bret Easton Ellis’s 2023 novel, The Shards. I think it’s a masterpiece, and wanted to make found poetry with it. Last year, I completed a long blackout/erasure project, and was looking to start a new project. I turned to Ellis’s work—not only The Shards, but Less Than Zero and Lunar Park, too. I don’t remember when I made this particular piece. Because the novel is set in 1981, I used ads from a copy of a Seventeen magazine from the 80s for some of the collage work, along with a piece of a Triple A map of Los Angeles.
The novel has a kind of dream like evocation of horror and dread, and Los Angeles is such a repository for our dreams, and my dream of Los Angeles is very much a noir Los Angeles, and I wanted the piece to reflect that.
Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of eleven chapbooks of poetry and nonfiction, including These Violent Delights (Grey Book Press, 2022), and Press Play for Heartbreak (Paper Nautilus Press, 2021.) She has completed a full length erasure/collage manuscript, and continues to create new blackout poetry projects.
Social Media: Instagram: @middleageglam Twitter: @onibaba37 |