Ali e t o lo ss

Erasurist art is essentially a kind of rewriting. It is rooted as much in contemporary philosophy"s Deconstructionist turn as in Duchampian found objects and Situationist détournements. One of the earliest examples of textual erasurism in contemporary poetry is Ronald Johnson"s 1977 "RADI OS", a partial obliteration of the first four books of John Milton"s "Paradise Lost" preserving only a few words from each page of the source-text. "Ali e t o lo ss" subjects Lewis Carroll"s "Ali(c)e T(hr) o(ugh the) Lo(oking Gla)ss" to a similar treatment, revealing the lyrical backbone of the source-text, isolating some of its vital semantic «organs» while simultaneously responding to the deep and complex forms of Elisabeth Waltregny"s photographs, which were themselves inspired by Lewis Carroll"s specular worlds. Each poem is composed of words taken from one of the twelve chapters of Alice in the order in which they appear, the line breaks indicating the «gaps» in the source-text.