Gary Barwin’s visual poem Genesis is a two-part tribute to Amanda Earl, done in the style of her Vispo Bible, which warps and layers text to create flowing, totemic imagery. Barwin’s versions take up the Hebrew text of Genesis, and his results reflect the typographic geometry of this written language. A limited edition of 60 leaflets have been produced, the two-part poem printed on glossy photograph paper then tucked into tent-folded black card stock. You can view the visual poem online following the link below, and copies of the leaflet are available in The Blasted Tree’s online store.
Poetry Chapbook - Tourner by Chris Warren
A visual abecedarium by UK poet Chris Warren, Tourner collects the ghostly afterimages of letters turned upon themselves while dissipating as if into a fog, fading letter-forms built up in layers of typographic architecture. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of 60 chapbooks of Tourner, each a stack of 3.25” x 3.25” printed cards secured with a steel binder clip and black spine band. Disassemble, rotate, re-arrange, and rebind the images to conjure your own eerie abecedarium! Chapbooks are available from the online store, and the collection can be seen following the link below.
View Tourner
Poetry Leaflet - We Didn't Consent by Hann Jade
A visual poetry leaflet incorporating collage, illustration, and text, We Didn’t Consent is by Calgary-based poet Hann Jade. Charged with the innocence of childhood and a fascination with morbidity, this visual poem is as grotesque as it is relatable. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of 60 leaflets sealed into glassine bags with a red thread pull-string. Read the poem online following the link below, copies of the leaflet are available in our online store.
VIEW We Didn’t Consent
Poetry Leaflet - The Antibodies by Dona Mayoora and Terri Witek
The Blasted Tree presents a collaborative visual poem by boundary-defying multimedia artists Dona Mayoora and Terri Witek. The Antibodies is a triptych of imagery layered over concrete that speaks to the issue of parity. We have produced a limited edition of sixty leaflets featuring the triptych in full colour, folded and tucked into 3.25” x 5.5” grey paper sleeves. Copies of the leaflet are available from our online store, and you can see all three visual poems by following the link below.
VIEW The Antibodies
Poetry Chapbook - The Enfolding by Kevin Stebner
Kevin Stebner’s typewritten concrete poetry combines an Escher-like mastery of geometric space with precisely-executed typographic patterns to render scenes and objects inspired by pixel art and video game architecture. The Enfolding contains a selection of 17 visual poems arranged to suggest a narrative and printed in black and sea blue. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of sixty chapbooks, each 7” x 7” and hand-bound with black thread. View The Enfolding by following the link below, and copies of the chapbook can be found in our online store.
READ The Enfolding
Poetry Poster - night demo IV (tear gas) by Tara McGowan-Ross
In celebration of our 100th print publication, The Blasted Tree is pleased to reissue our very favourite poem, “night demo IV (tear gas)” by Tara McGowan-Ross. Part protest chant, part concrete poem, “night demo IV”—which originally appeared in McGowan-Ross’ 2016 collection Girth—has be redesigned using collage and photocopier techniques to resemble a demonstration advancing down a street. The Blasted Tree has produced an edition of one hundred 11” x 17” posters, available by donation in our online store.
Read Night Demo iv (tear gas)
100% of the proceeds from posters sales will be donated to Lambda Literary, an organization supporting LGBTQ books and authors.
Poetry Longsheet - SAINTLYLIMB by Jun-long Lee
A four-part poem by Jun-long Lee on illness, compassion, and the body as a vessel, “SAINTLYLIMB” works at the painful hinge of flesh and spirit. “I look at the sinless,” Lee declares; “pure watching makes the hands clear (the hands fat with light).” The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of 60 longsheets on cream linen paper, available now from The Blasted Tree store, and “SAINTLYLIMB” can be read online by following the link below.
Read saintlylimb
Poetry Chapbook - UMO by Sacha Archer
A sound poem based on an erasure, UMO is Sacha Archer’s third chapbook published by The Blasted Tree. After treating a children’s book about an elephant to the prisoner’s constraint via a process of selective erasure (an artist’s book project undertaken in 2018), Archer was left with a long poem entirely composed of words without ascenders or descenders. This sound poem has been printed on grey paper and bound into tall and skinny chapbooks (4.5” x 11.5”) in circus red cover stock. A limited edition of 60 chapbooks is now available from The Blasted Tree Store, and you can read the poem online following the link below.
READ UMO
Poetry Leaflet - Common Stock by Tom Prime
“Common Stock” is a selection of three visual poems by Tom Prime, each with an MS Paint-meets-early-internet aesthetic belying their serious meditations on personal worth, calculation, and sexual trauma. This selection has been produced as a set of three leaflets, each printed on white card stock and bound in a 9” x 6” black envelope with a metal clasp closure. A limited edition of 50 copies of “Common Stock” is available in The Blasted Tree’s online store, and you can read each of the three poems using the link below.
Read Common Stock
Poetry Chapbook - Without Form by Ben Robinson
Without Form is a meticulous erasure of the Holy Bible, only its chapter and verse notation spared by repeat Blasted Tree contributor Ben Robinson. This ambitious visual poetry project encompasses all sixty-six books of the Bible—over one thousand pages—published in print in its entirety and animated for easy online viewing. The Blasted Tree has made each biblical book (“Genesis,” “Exodus,” etc.) into its own chapbook, some upwards of fifty pages long, others just a single page, all bound into white card stock and a tissue paper flyleaf with white thread and an ultra-minimal dust jacket, every cover unique, and only one of each chapbook produced. View the animated poem as an amorphous field of numerals by following the link below, and copies of our limited edition chapbooks are in The Blasted Tree Store.