BlazeVOX [books] Announces the Publication of Secular Ex Votos by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Buffalo, NY — BlazeVOX [books] is proud to announce the publication of Secular Ex Votos by celebrated poet, critic, and collagist Rachel Blau DuPlessis.

Part visual art, part poetic meditation, Secular Ex Votos is a luminous collection of collages and texts that transform fragments, scraps, observations, and moments of gratitude into a rich field of aesthetic and ethical inquiry. Through a dynamic interplay of image and language, DuPlessis constructs a series of secular offerings, small acts of praise and attention that illuminate the possibilities of wonder, reflection, and connection in contemporary life.

Drawing upon decades of innovation in poetry and poetics, DuPlessis creates works that blur boundaries between visual art and literature. These collages and accompanying texts engage memory, myth, humor, philosophy, and everyday experience, offering readers a deeply original exploration of gratitude as both artistic practice and mode of perception.

Poet Charles Bernstein writes: “Secular Ex Votos makes a virtue of scrap––paper, phrase, color, afterthought, until nothing feels left over. Rachel Blau DuPlessis turns what could be minor (collage, motto, gratitude) into a restless visual-textual engine: wit spliced to wilderness, aphorism to accident. The pages don't illustrate so much as think, cut, layered, re-cut, where design is argument and gratitude is a practice of seeing otherwise.”

Orchid Tierney calls the collection “a formidable, galvanic experiment in poetic dexterity and the ‘manyness’ of gratitude,” while Marcella Durand praises the book's “visual-poetic openings toward kinder possibilities” and its commitment to ethical connection through art and language.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis is one of the most influential figures in contemporary American poetry. Her landmark long poemDrafts, recently published in its complete 114-canto form by Coffee House Press, stands as a major achievement in innovative poetry. A distinguished scholar, critic, editor, and visual artist, DuPlessis has spent decades exploring the intersections of poetry, gender studies, cultural criticism, and visual art. Her collage works, including Life in Handkerchiefs, NUMBERS, Graphic Novella, and now Secular Ex Votos, extend her lifelong investigation into the relationships among language, image, memory, and thought.

As dark times challenge our capacity for attention and empathy, Secular Ex Votos offers readers a powerful alternative: a poetics of gratitude, curiosity, and imaginative engagement. Each page becomes an invitation to look again, to discover unexpected connections, and to recognize beauty within the fragments of everyday life.

Book Information

Secular Ex Votos by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Paperback: 52 pages
Binding: Perfect-Bound
Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
ISBN: 978-1-60964-543-4
Price: $22.00

About the Author

Rachel Blau DuPlessis is a poet, scholar/critic, and collagist whose work has profoundly influenced contemporary poetry and poetics. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, criticism, and visual art, including the complete Drafts,Selected Poems 1980–2020, Late Work, Around the Day in 80 Worlds, and Daykeeping. Her critical writings on feminist poetics and Objectivist poetry have shaped generations of readers and scholars. A recipient of numerous honors, including a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a residency at Bellagio, DuPlessis is Emerita Professor at Temple University.

For review copies, interviews, event inquiries, or additional information, please contact:

Geoffrey Gatza
Publisher, BlazeVOX [books]



Book Information:
· Paperback: 52 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-543-4

$22 
BlazeVOX [books]
Secular Ex Votos by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
https://www.blazevox.org/shop-1/p/secular-ex-votos-by-rachel-blau-duplessis


Amazon.com
Secular Ex Votos by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
https://www.amazon.com/Secular-Votos-Rachel-Blau-DuPlessis/dp/160964543X