Make it a habit each night

by Gary Barwin and Dani Spinosa

make it a habit each night is a collaborative collection of visual poetry — accompanied by a suite of multimedia Special Features — derived primarily from the Adler J2/J4 Typewriter Manual (1966). Gary Barwin and Dani Spinosa’s remix of the instruction manual format playfully intervenes in conventional notions of gendered labour, mechanization, and capitalism. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty 5.25” x 4” chapbooks printed full-colour on newsprint paper and staple-bound into cardstock covers. View make it a habit each night along with its video and audio Special Features on The Blasted Tree’s website, copies of the chapbook are available in our online store.

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Close Wreading

by Bruno Neiva

In Bruno Neiva’s Close Wreading, the thirteen poems analysed in Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgment by I. A. Richards are reanalysed using only words from the original poems. Each of Neiva’s responses are small poetic morsels, averaging a half-dozen words each. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty chapbooks bound into cloud grey parchment covers with a metallic grey flyleaf. Close Wreading can be enjoyed online or purchased from The Blasted Tree’s online store.

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Al-Hashashin

by Yusra Usmani

Through a short series of lyric verse and prose poems, Al-Hashashin chronicles how the legendary Hashish Eaters militants filled their young recruits with religious fervour and intoxicants before sending them on suicide missions. Yusra Usmani reveals how closely akin the beauty of spiritual language is with its terrible power to enrapture and exploit: “One hand bible, one hand gun / Thy will be done, Thy will be done.” The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty hand-bound chapbooks printed on linen paper and bound into ivory parchment cover stock.

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Act 3: Vegetable Love

by Tom Prime

A new chapbook of visual poetry by Tom Prime, Act 3: Vegetable Love delves deeper into the materials and processes of collage established in earlier iterations of Prime’s work. These mixed-media poems combine office supplies and printouts into chaotic, overlapping compositions of text, paper, and ink. The Blasted Tree has produced 9” x 8.5” hand-bound chapbooks, each with a unique front cover and randomized thread and back cover colors, released in a limited edition of fifty copies.

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Previous versions of some of these visual poems appeared in Common Stock, published in 2020 by The Blasted Tree.

Ditto

by Nick Montfort

Ditto by Nick Montfort is a short poetry collection consisting of three poems all composed using a similar method (something akin to transcription) whereby text is meticulously copied from a hyper-specific locale or context. From the kitchen to the public urinal, Ditto combines a keen eye for text with a wry appreciation for its many mundane uses. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of sixty 5” x 3.5” chapbooks, each bound into black cover stock with an iridescent film flyleaf. You can read the collection online following the link below, and copies of the chapbook are available now in our online store.

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Translating the Westron Wynde

by David Martin

Westron Wynde is a 16th-century song that has been adapted, distorted, or simplified into many derivative versions. Poet David Martin compiles and expands upon these derivations, adding new translations of the original lyrics in many different languages, ciphers, and systems of notation. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of sixty 4.25” x 5.5” chapbooks printed in colour and bound into handmade paper covers in tobacco brown. Copies of the chapbook are available now from The Blasted Tree’s store, and the series can be read online following the link below.

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two ten six

by katie o’brien

A new series of visual poems by repeat Blasted Tree contributor katie o’brien, two ten six was made by applying the zalgo or “cursed text” effect to existing poems. Zalgo text generation involves combining numerous typographic characters with Unicode symbols to add diacritical marks above and below letters. Using this technique, o’brien has overwritten their earliest poetry manuscript to create something entirely new. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of sixty 7” x 7” chapbooks hand-bound with black thread into purple covers, available now from our online store.

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RAPE

by Charlotte Jung

With this short series of visual/found text poems, Charlotte Jung shines a light on the disturbing frequency of rape and the near-banality of its prevalence. RAPE is a feminist script exploring the phenomenon of rape through a clinical engagement with the term itself, evoking the numbness we feel in place of the horror we should feel when confronted with the truth about rape culture. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of 60 copies of RAPE, each bound with red thread into light grey high-cotton covers with the title debossed in. Copies of the chapbook are available now from The Blasted Tree’s store, and the series can be read online following the link below.

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