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 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.
VIEW Without form
Objet Littéraire - Purple Rain: 100 petals for Kate Siklosi by Kyle Flemmer
An unconventional objet littéraire celebrating the creative kinships fostered between like-minded visual poets and publishers. Over the summer of 2020, The Blasted Tree's Kyle Flemmer collected and pressed 100 petals as they fell from the vines of his Clematis Etiole Violette. Each petal is numbered with archival gold ink, preserved in a small plastic sleeve, and accompanied by a letter printed on ivory linen paper. The resulting objet is presented in a dark purple envelope, itself numbered in gold, available now in The Blasted Tree Store.
View Purple Rain: 100 petals for Kate Siklosi
Poetry leaflet - oleander 7 by Catherine Vidler
Zigzagging lines draw your eye through this kaleidoscope visual poem of natural and diagrammatic imagery. One of her many experiments with symmetry and synecdoche, "oleander 7" is by repeat Blasted Tree contributor Catherine Vidler. An edition of sixty 4.75” x 4.25” leaflets featuring the floral poem have been produced on glossy photo paper set into card stock covers. “oleander 7” can be viewed online and copies of the leaflet are in The Blasted Tree Store.
view oleander 7
Poetry Chapbook - What the Barn Can't Kill by Jerrod Schwarz
Within a body of agribusiness texts — abattoir equipment manuals, butchery textbooks, and rancher’s almanacs — lie the bones of a slaughterhouse poetics. In What the Barn Can’t Kill, Jerrod Schwarz extracts those bones through a process of digital erasure, revealing a haunting collection of visual poems, hidden until now behind a locked barn door. The Blasted Tree has published a limited edition of sixty chapbooks printed on recycled newsprint paper and bound in hand-stamped covers, each one unique. View the collection in the gallery below, chapbooks can be found in our online store.