POETRY & PHOTOGRAPHY
POETRY & PHOTOGRAPHY
Before the Birth of the First Vowel (2026): Francis Laleman’s latest poetry and photography book - A selection of 27 poems (2009-2026) about mind and body (treated from a Zen Buddhist perspective), incurable chronic illness in times of the pandemic, the process from diagnosis to acceptance to embrace, and a the author’s transformative relationship with the arts and with nature, - Available in paperback from our webshop (free delivery in Belgium and Singapore) - or, for convenience, in Kindle eBook, paperback, or hardcover from your local Amazon marketplace.
The poems in this collection are uniformly formatted in 14 ½ lines, not quite sonnets, not this, not that. Each poem is accompanied by three unfiltered B/W photos, 81 in total, taken by the author with no other means than a Lumix Panasonic G2 handheld camera, a Samsung S24 Ultra smartphone, and sometimes a tripod. The photos are taken in mostly Asian locations (China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand) and reflect natural phenomena, monasteries, art and art galleries, patterns, and "experiments with self and non-self."
When taken together, the photos and poems make up 27 sets of four items, spread out over a total of 108 pages - a number both of interest in mathematics and of great importance in Buddhist tradition and practice.
With forewords by Sadie Seroxcat (editor and publisher of Counter Arts, Rainbow Salad, and Seroxcat's Salon), and Philippe Vandenbroeck (researcher, lecturer and artist).
