My Mail Art Project is One Year Old Today

It was a year ago today that I announced my mail art project: I will send original, hand drawn postcards to you for ten dollars each. My postcards have become more detailed and complex over the past year, but the price is still just ten bucks. Here are some samples:

To see all the post cards and to learn more about the project, click here.

Russell Smith writes about my Sunrise with Sea Monsters blog

Novelist and columnist Russell Smith has written about my Sunrise with Sea Monsters blog in his arts column in the Globe and Mail. Have a look:

A blog is a hobby; a blog is a notebook; a blog is a forum; a blog is a piece of art. A blog is unpaid, and so can rewrite our idea of what a journal is, what publication is. It reminds us that, in the age of culturecrat jargon such as “viability” and “private-public partnerships,” we can give away art entirely for free and that art can infiltrate a larger culture and therefore be worth something all on its own.

Here’s a blog I like: It’s called “Sunrise With Sea Monsters,” and it’s a project of the Canadian poet and editor Paul Vermeersch (who is also a colleague of mine in the small-press publishing trenches). It is a poetry journal: He asks poets to contribute poems whose only constraint is that they be titled Sunrise With Sea Monsters. This is the name of a rather odd 1845 painting by J.M.W. Turner, currently on display as part of a Turner show at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

To read the whole column, click here.

A new poetry blog: Sunrise with Sea Monsters

From 2010 to 2014, I curated a poetry blog called They Will Take My Island. The sole premise was that I would invite people to write a poem called "They Will Take My Island", a title taken from a painting by Arshile Gorky.

Click here to visit They Will Take My Island

My latest online project is similar, and draws its inspiration from J.M.W. Turner's painting "Sunrise with Sea Monsters", and so far contains poems by Gary Barwin, Sylvia Legris, Pearl Pirie, Michael Holmes, and James Lindsay. More to come!

Click here to visit Sunrise with Sea Monsters

Ebook of DON'T LET IT END LIKE THIS TELL THEM I SAID SOMETHING only $1.99 this week only

This week only, my publisher ECW Press is offering the ebook version of my 2014 poetry collection for only $1.99.

Click here for details. 

20% Off in my Etsy Store until this Friday

Hey, it's Cyber Monday! I'm having a 20% sale on my Etsy store (not including postcards or books) from now until Friday. Just enter the coupon code LASERSALE20

Click here to visit the store.

Dennis Lee launches new edition of Riffs on Nov. 19th

I was honoured to be asked to write the introduction for the new edition of Dennis Lee's Riffs that is part of the Brick Books Classics series celebrating the 40th anniversary of one Canada's most venerated poetry publishers.

The launch for the new edition will take place at the Monarch Tavern in Toronto on November 19, 2015. The event will start at 7:30 and will feature a reading by Dennis Lee, after which I will interview the author and take questions from the audience. I hope to see you all there!

CLICK HERE FOR THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE.

When religious people come knocking at your door, do not turn them away! Consider it a business opportunity.

You don't have to be rude to religious proselytizers who come to your home to share their beliefs with you. You can invite them in, just charge them for your time. I've decided to charge $500 an hour, and I've drafted a written agreement for just such an occasion. As a public service, I'll include it below as a downloadable PDF, but here's just a taste.

Now they can try to save your soul, and you can put some money away for a rainy day. It's win-win! You can get the full document here.

High-quality prints from my mail art project are now available, made to order.

I'm now offering prints of any of the hand-drawn postcards I've made for my mail art project. 

High quality digital prints can be made to order for any of the images from my mail art project. The prints are 13" by 19" (with a white border), printed on heavy-duty archival paper, and signed. The cost is $70 (CAD) per print, plus shipping, and they can take a few weeks to arrive. Please send a query to info@paulvermeersch.ca if interested. 

Here are a few recent examples from the series:

Careful Whispers

Plague Doctor with Talk Balloon

The Shootout!

For a full library* of images from my mail art project, click here. 

*New images are being added all the time, so visit regularly.