An earlier, much smaller edition of casemate poems appeared as a limited-edition book produced by Waterloo, Ontario publisher Widows and orphans in 2004 as casemate poems, later translated and published in Belgrade. As Blades himself wrote of that original edition:

The two suites of casemate poems were written during two one-week artist-in-residence stints in 2003 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. These were public, interactive, residencies with visitors passing though the casemate workspace with two concurrent artists-in-residence scheduled for any given week.

During his residency, Blades had a typewriter set up on a table facing the open doorway of the casemate. It was always primed with a sheet of paper. In the tradition of writers in storefronts, as Blades finished composing each poem, it was attached to the casemate wall. Blades also took photographs inside and from within the casemate looking outward: images of the casemate itself, of his art in progress, photographs of the weaving looms, of the potter and pottery turned.

In this volume, Blades poems and photographs are combined to produce a work that reflects the immediacy of their composition while enabling the reader to experience Blades' writing at their own pace.

Joe Blades lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. On the editorial board of revue ellipse mag, he is President of the League of Canadian Poets, producer–host of the Ashes, Paper & Beans radio program, and founding publisher of the independent 25-year-old Broken Jaw Press. The author of seven poetry books, including Cover Makes a Set (1990), River Suite (1998), from the book that doesn’t close (2008) and the forthcoming Casemate Poems (Collected), two of his books were translated and published in Serbian editions in 2005, and several other book translations are in the works.

Joe Blades' profile page

“To read Canadian poet and artist Joe Blades’ book of poetry casemate poems means to get knowledge about one very specific way of understanding poetry today. […] Blades’ poetry is written by activating different layers of human knowledge and by articulation of this knowledge, for example, in narrations of history and geography. He moves in time (historical perspective) and in space (for example, actual events in the world at the time, such as the attack on the World Trade Center, or pointing to the contemporary racist attitudes of specific countercultures.”—Dubravka Ðuric

Dubravka Ðuric