A Little White Shadow
I've lately been loving A Little White Shadow, by Mary Ruefle. She took a book by the same name, published in 1889, and strategically whited out swathes of the original text. What is left behind comprises poetry.
It's not quite the same as radi os, in which Ronald Johnson pruned a new text from the first four books of Paradise Lost. That was a single coherent piece, while A Little White Shadow is all bits and shards.
And it is not entirely like A Humument, which is more visual.
I was also reminded of John Clark's film noir-inspired mystery novel portraits, which you can buy by the page from his Etsy shop.
I don't read a lot of poetry - there are only so many hours in a day - so perhaps this seems more fresh and new to me than it does to readers who are less naive. But I've been loving it, so there it is.
