Applauded as a witty and eccentric pioneer of Canadian poetry, Joe Rosenblatt is also a talented visual artist. Though several books have included Rosenblatt's black and white sketches to supplement his poetry, The Voluptuous Gardener is the first book to celebrate Joe Rosenblatt as an artist in his own right. The voluptuous gardener may well be a gardener in Eden, surrounded by the pleasure and innocence of a new world, but also dangerous temptation. The garden is populated with gentle beasts and the beast within us, sleepy cats and the brutal world of insects. An introduction by Michael Bell outlines the evolution of Rosenblatt's artwork, highlighting the archetypal nature of his images and the uneasy mixture of innocence and perversity.
About the Author: Joe Rosenblatt has been Writer-in-Residence and visiting lecturer at University of Victoria, University of Western Ontario and has traveled extensively for readings in Italy (many of his works have been translated into Italian), Sweden and Finland.
His work in the 60s and 70s included The voyage of the mood, The LSD Leacock, The winter of the lunar moth, Greenbaum, Bumblebee dithyramb, Dream craters, Virgins and Vampires, Doctor Anaconda's solar fun club and Losely tied hands: an experiment in punk. The unity of organic forms and the interconnectedness of natural life is a theme which permeates the body of Rosenblatt's writing signalling the collision of conventional and visionary forces which produce a hybrid science of poetic biology. For Rosenblatt this is a fecund energy - the mystic form made flesh, a divine bestiary.
In 1976 his book Top Soil won the Governor General's Award for Poetry. He has appeared in more than 50 anthologies and literary magazines.
Of his 17 books to date, recent titles include: The Sleeping Lady ( Exile, 1980) Brides of the Stream (Oolichan, 1983) Poetry Hotel (McClelland & Stewart, 1985) winner of the B.C. Book Prize, Escape from the Glue Factory (Exile, 1985) The Kissing Goldfish of Siam (Exile, 1989) Bed & Consenting Dreamers (Oolichan, 1994) A Tentacled Mother (Exile, 1995) The Rosenblatt Reader (Exile, 1995).
