Joan Cofrancesco

Art Poems Joan Cofrancesco

Simonides said "painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech." Art Poems is a book that combines art and poetry. Visual shapes, creatures, settings, colors and designs are welded in space with the presence of hand written poems. The poems and art were done by Joan Cofrancesco. The artwork for the poem "tradition" was a woodcut she did when she was in grade school. Janine Bartolotti did the artwork for the cover of the book as well as the artwork for the poems "listening to lennon", and "white out in syracuse." These poems were inspired by Kenneth Patchen, the French concrete poets, Norbert Blei's art-poems, Robert Bly's illustrated poems and Chinese Zen poems.