The Show
 Joseph
F. Keppler and myself are doing a show of visual poetry at Mocambo
Coffee from November 1 to November 27. We'll be travelling up to Victoria
from Seattle again on November 27 to do a reading together to wind up
the visual show.
Collaborative and
Individual Work
 The show will key on collaborative work Joe and I have been doing together for several months. Joe has been doing visual poetry for many years and has a distinctive style with a wide range of influences from visual poetry and visual art from Japanese calligraphy to abstract impressionism and conceptual art. His magazine Poets.Painters.Composers. has been influential in the blending and synthesizing of arts in Seattle. And he has had photography and steel sculpture shows here also; he's a very diverse and intensely thoughtful artist and it's been fascinating to work together with him on new pieces for the show in Victoria. The show features this collaborative work as well as individual work by Joe and myself.
The Venue
 Mocambo Coffee is where I organized and hosted the Mocambopo poetry series until the move to Seattle in March of 1997. Joe was the first feature reader at the first Mocambopo in June of 1995. Tanya Kern and Rod Zimmerman are the organizers of the event now. So it has been a high profile literary venue in Victoria for three and a half years now. Claire and John Yoo, the owners, also organize art shows at Mocambo Coffee every month. The place has been very active in the arts in Victoria.
The Idea
 Several threads run through the show. All of the work was done on the computer. The prints and the paper are rather special, however. We've decided not to frame any of the work but to mount it on foamcore. This is partly for economic reasons, but also it highlights the work itself and the paper and the pageness of the work. But the pages are often 13"x23", and the paper is from watercolor to Indian and Thai parchment paper and other special papers that are particularly suited to the pieces. So the show presents very unusual pages that mix digital work with a strong emphasis on letters and language together with what we hope is a very high energy visual aesthetic. I think we've collaborated on a startling and audacious poetical exhibit.
The pieces are themselves about a variety of subjects from the political to the philosophical and poetic, involving pieces like Rwanda (our first collaborative piece), Now, Being, aA, Truth, Bird, and Life Story. Poetry often encompasses a great deal briefly, is intensely into the less is more. This work is down to the word and the letter. That's the less. The more involves the whole visual dimension.
Time and Place:
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The show runs from Nov 1 to Nov 27.
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Joe and I will be reading at Mocambopo on Friday, November 27.
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at Mocambo Coffee, 1028 Blanshard, Victoria, B.C., Canada, V8W 2H5. The evening begins at 7:30.
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Beer, wine and Mocambo's coffees, pastries, and sandwiches will be available.
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For more information and for the prices of the work, email me at jim@vispo.com. You can visit my Vispo Web site at
vispo.com.
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