95 Books In 2006, George W. Bush read 95 books. We will do better.

Alex Leslie and Liz Bachinsky’s Blackout at the Candahar erasure project has got us all thinking about the poetics of erasure over here, so it seemed like a good time to pull Radi os off the shelf and give it a whirl.

In 1976, in the storied tradition of erasure poetics, Ronald Johnson pulled an 1892 edition of Paradise Lost off the shelf at a Seattle bookstore and began removing. In the introduction he writes “It is the book Blake gave me.” Were I so motivated I’d have also dug out some Milton to compare to Radi os, but I’m not, and in truth I’m not certain that it matters. Radi os is the Paradise Lost that the 20th century deserved. It is the Paradise Lost I’d have rather read in that first year English survey course. Elegant and elegaic.

-Nikki