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.

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Rosenblatt has been Writer-in-Residence and visiting lecturer at the University of Victoria, University of Western Ontario and has traveled extensively for readings in Italy(many of his books have been translated into Italian), Sweden and Finland. In 1976 his book Top Soil won the Governor General’s Award for poetry. His work has appeared in more than 50 anthologies and literary magazines. Of his 17 books to date, his most recent title is The Voluptuous Gardener (Beach Holme, 1996), though in the early 90s he also published A Tentacled Mother, Bed & Consenting Dreamers and The Rosenblatt Reader with Exile Press.

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