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.
Poetry Chapbook - Peaceful by Kevin Stebner
Peaceful collects a new series of concrete poetry made from dry transfer lettering by repeat Blasted Tree contributor Kevin Stebner. The typeface used in this collection is “Salim” – a bold version of Arabic script, #3283 in the Letraset catalogue. “Salim” in Arabic translates to “safe” or “peaceful.” The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty 7” x 7” chapbooks hand-bound with white thread into olive green covers, available now from our online store.
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Poetry Chapbook - 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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Poetry Leaflet - "VOID" by Darian Razdar
“VOID” is a short, five line poem by Darian Razdar about sensory perception and deprivation. The poem is strongly imagistic, that is, if you consider ‘imagery’ the right word to describe verse shrouded in total darkness. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty hand-stamped leaflets printed with white archival ink on matte black paper. Read the poem following the link below, copies of the leaflet are available in our online store.
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Poetry Leaflet - Rainmancer by Kaitlyn Perrin
“Rainmancer” is a minimalist poem about how dreams seep into our reality, connecting our daily lives to parallel universes. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty 4.25” x 4.25” leaflets printed on metallic grey paper. This is The Blasted Tree’s first collaboration with Kaitlyn Perrin since publishing her chapbook Chewing Around the Rind in 2015, one of our very first publications!
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Poetry Chapbook - 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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Visual Poetry Broadside - Punctuation Panorama by Michael Betancourt
With vector design software and a keen eye for typographic form, Michael Betancourt crafts intricate, interlocking visual poems composed of elements of letters and punctuation marks. Punctuation Panorama is a new typoem in the tradition of designers like Hansjorg Mayer and Norman Ives, a lineage founded in physical media and honed by contemporary computer application. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty 11” x 16” broadsides featuring the typoem, and copies can be purchased from our online store.
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Poetry Chapbook - 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.
Nonfiction Chapbook - 36 Answers to Questions That Generate Interpersonal Closeness Between Strangers by kevin mcpherson eckhoff
Grounded in research developed by psychologist Arthur Aron (et alia) on how meaningful inter-personal relationships are formed, kevin mcpherson eckhoff’s 36 Answers… blends conceptual and confessional writing practices to gently complicate the poetics of intimacy. Both prose poem and essayistic memoir, eckhoff’s responses to the “36 Love Questions” meditate on the entanglement of love and one’s personal narrative. The Blasted Tree has produced a limited edition of fifty chapbooks printed on white linen paper and hand-bound with gold thread into dark olive green linen cardstock covers, available now in our online store.
Read 36 Answers to Questions That Generate Interpersonal Closeness Between Strangers
Poetry Leaflet - Behold the Dead by Ben Berman Ghan
Behold the Dead is a poem that traces the tension between built and natural environments, a dance of life and death weaving together all our bodies. Ben Berman Ghan’s flowing poetic form is complimented by an original watercolour painting of a stream applied to each leaflet by Blasted Tree publisher Kyle Flemmer. Behold the Dead is printed and painted on heavy weight, cold press watercolour paper in a numbered edition of fifty 5.25” x 8.5” leaflets, available now from The Blasted Tree’s online store.