Joe Blades

Joe Blades
Originally uploaded by random acts of poetry

Joe Blades has been giving readings and publishing his poetry since 1980. He is a writer, artist, and publisher-president of the independent, literary publishing house Broken Jaw Press Inc. founded by him in 1983, plus he is on the editorial board of revue ellipse mag.

Blades was born in Halifax, NS, Canada. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA, 1988), he is also an alumni of the Banff Centre, Maritime Writers Workshop, Sage Hill Writing Experience, and the Simon Fraser University Book Publishing Immersion Workshop.

Based in Fredericton, New Brunswick since 1990, he grew up in Elmsdale, and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He has also lived and/or worked in Port Hawksbury and Halifax, NS; Toronto; Montreal; Banff, AB; New York; Senta, Serbia; and Pale, Republika Srpska. On the road about three months every year, Blades does readings, lectures, and workshops across Canada, in the eastern USA, Scotland and Eastern Europe.

Blades exhibits bookworks, photographs, and objet d'art primarily in Canada and Europe. Since 1995, he has been a community radio producer-host at CHSR 97.9 FM with the three-time Barry Award-winning Ashes, Paper & Beans: Fredericton's Writing & Art Show. Blades was curator of Videopoems: a screening for the 2003 Tidal Wave Film Festival, and he is the editor of ten books and chapbooks including Some Stuff on Canadian Spoken Word & Indie
Publishing (NCRA/ANRÉC, 2004) and UGLY: an instant spoken word chapbook anthology (Broken Jaw Press, 2007.

His poetry and art has appeared in over 55 trade and chapbook anthologies, and in numerous periodicals. Blades has authored 28 poetry chapbooks and limited edition artist books. His published four full-length poetry books are Cover Makes a Set (SpareTime Editions, 1990), River Suite (Insomniac Press, 1998), Open Road West (Broken Jaw Press, 2000, 2001), and Casemate Poems (Widows & Orphans, 2004). Serbian editions were published as Recna svita in the three authors-three book anthology Slike iz kanade: Tri kanadska pesnika (SKC Niš) and Pesme iz kazamata (i.p. Rad) in 2005.

In June 2007, Blades accepted an invitation to join the BlackTop Motorcycle Gang writers' group in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He was also elected, as the NB and PEI rep. to National Council of the League of Canadian Poets.