Next month the Montreal chapbook press WithWords will publish The Fruit Man and Other Poems, by Jason Camlot, illustrated by me, J. R. Carpenter. Not only do Jason and I have the same initials (JC), as you can see, our names (Camlot and Carpenter) are quite close alphabetically. If we had gone to grade school together I would have sat behind Jason in class. If I had gone to grad school, Jason might have been one of my professors. But neither of these is the case. I’m not quite sure how we actually met, but I do know that before we ever met our poems appeared sequentially in a number of alphabetically ordered anthologies including: 100 Poets Against the War (Salt) and Future Welcome: The Moosehead Anthology X (DC Books), both edited by Todd Swift.
When Jason first asked me to consider illustrating The Fruit Man and Other Poems, I was a little worried that he might have me confused with an illustrator. My background is in Fine Arts, and I vaguely remember studying Life Drawing and Anatomy at the Art Students’ League of New York way back in the Pre-Cambrian Epoch, but I hadn’t done any drawing for a very long time. In my “mini-books” I use many small single images to punctuate the text rather than illustrate it (in so far as illustrations tend toward the emblematic, whereas my use of images tends toward the diagrammatic). But for The Fruit Man I’d have to come up with something more original. Drawing is not exactly like riding a bike. As my friend Camilo, who draws everyday, said before embarking on a round of etchings recently: I am rusty as old german submarines in the deep underwaters of the atlantic.
Another thing to consider: Jason is a Victorianist – that’s a pretty daunting era in book illustration. Think Beardsly’s Salome. Not to mention all that Art Nouveau stuff. But I agreed to illustrate The Fruit Man and Other Poems anyway, because I love the poems. Anyone who knows me will immediately know why when they read them. They are filled with small things: thimbles and pocket combs, mice and china cups. They reference big systems of thinking: the list, the collection, the cabinet of curiosities, phrenology, “the new technology in underclothes,” and Ruskin. I have a real soft spot for Ruskin. The title piece is a long poem modelled on Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” (which was illustrated by D.G. Rossetti back in the day). Here is an excerpt from “The Fruit Man” followed by my cover illustration:
When I asked the foreman if he’s seen
a fruit man selling apples, green,
like the one in my hand,
he brought me to his cabinet
of cardboard drawers
stuffed with buttons and safety pins,
butcher’s paper, razor blades,
and numberless scraps of animal skin.
In a pantry for needles,
behind a sewing machine,
the foreman kept his apples,
green, like the one in my hand,
brought weekly to him
by the same Fruit Man.
Jason Camlot, The Fruit Man
The Fruit Man and Other Poems cover illustration by J. R. Carpenter
The Fruit Man and Other Poems will launch in March. Check back here in a week or two for dates. Or try the WithWords Press website: http://www.withwordspress.com/
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