THREE VISPO – Samuel Strathman

INDUSTRY BOT

Title: "Industry Bot". A 'figure' in a welding helmet, covered, brown with yellow window with asemic markings instead of a face. Behind them is a pink-salmon-brown gestural field. The figure appears to almost be dancing. It has a purple-raspberry torso, and two grey arms and legs which are truncated.

TIRE ISLAND

Title: 'Tire Island'. A series of black round tires in 2 vertical rows of five each. Royal blue background. Green line separating the two piles, with green lime/and pea coloured forming a horizon line at top and bottom.

MIND ON INDUSTRY

Title: "Mind on Industry". A figure is walking to the left -- black head, brown upper torso, evergreen-green fronds on black candelabra attached to his head. Scribbled, gestural background of pea-green w/brown asemic markings vertically placed.

Author Notes by Samuel Strathman:

  1. Industry Bot – This is a drawing of how industry has legs and follows us.  It is a machine sent to destroy us.  We buy into it whether we want to or not, and it won’t let us out of our sight.  It piggybacks over “Mind on Industry” in that it is a physical representation of what oppresses most people yet there is nothing we can do to stop it. 
  2. Tire Island – This is a picture of pollution.  Tires in our oceans, yet the world is connected.  We must understand that all ecosystems have been tainted by pollution, and this is one example of it.
  3. Mind on Industry –  This drawing is of a nondescript person carrying the weight of pollution on their shoulders.  Factories are big polluters, and so I wanted to show the stress it causes on people mentally and financially.  The individual’s face is is shielded, but their posture is that of the powerless.  The 99% are powerless in the face of industry.
Author photo of Samuel Strathman sitting in a restaurant with a coffee and a book of poems in front of him on the table. Samuel is smiling and wearing a green buttoned up shirt.

Samuel Strathman (he/him) is a Canadian poet, visual artist, and custodian. Some of his work has appeared or are forthcoming in Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Digest, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Voice Lux Journal and other publications.  He has work in the new visual poetry anthology, Seeing in Tongues (Steel Incisors, 2023), and is the author of many chapbooks. His debut poetry collection, Omnishambles is now available from Ice Floe Press (2023) and can be purchased here: https://icefloepress.net/omnishambles-samuel-strathman/. Samuel is currently living on the traditional land of the Anishnaabeg people. Twitter: @s_strathman_

A photo of the cover of Samuel Strathman's first full length book, Omnishambles. Available at Ice Floe Press Book Shop. Cover drawing of a metallic vertical nest of black and white flames by Samuel. Cover design: Robert Frede Kenter.

Cover of Omnishambles.

Banner Art: “Humankind vs. Industry”, a variation. A Vispo excerpt by Samuel Strathman.

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