Last week I wrote about Graham Rawle’s technique of using found text to create a full novel out of collage. For this week’s challenge, I’d like to take another page from Rawle’s repertoire. For 15 years, Rawle published a series called “Lost Consonants” in the the UK’s Guardian newspaper. The way he tells the story, Rawle pitched the series idea to the editor, who agreed to a six week trial. After the initial six had run, no one said anything to Rawle and so, figuring no news was good news, he simply sent in the seventh, eighth, ninth and so on for the next 15 years, his work accepted, published and paid without comment. By the time the series ended, Rawle’s original contact at the newspaper had long moved on. At any rate, the nature of the series is as follows:
This week’s challenge is to create a sentence that would have fit into the Lost Consonants series. Can you think of a sentence from which the removal of one letter would change its whole meaning? For inspiration, see more of Rawle’s examples below or at his website.
Erika Szostak is an ex-Angeleno and an English doctoral candidate. She thinks everyone could do with a little more poetry in this life and likes the books with the orange spines.