LAY-OUT no. 4 - Derek Beaulieu

LAY-OUT no. 4 - Derek Beaulieu / 32 pages, 5 x 8 inches, 3 color Risograph print in randomized combinations, 2 color silkscreened cover / First edition 2023

LAY-OUT is a project of Rob Carmichael of SEEN Studio

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Derek Beaulieu is a poet, artist, writer and the author of twenty-six books of poetry, conceptual fiction, and critical writing, as well as a voluminous amount of chapbooks. His LAY—OUT contribution centers on his visual poetry work using dry-transfer lettering (think Letraset and the like) to create disorienting and expressive works that point towards meaning but center on feeling and expression above all else. Instead of simply presenting these hypnotic pieces in a polite and archival manner, Beaulieu -- working with SEEN Studio -- has elected to combine the poems, overprinting them in saturated pink, blue and yellow, making totally new disorienting compositions out of the old. Colors blend, compositions expand, and one's retinas grow woozy taking it all in.

What's more, much to the chagrin of a number of printers that will no longer return LAY—OUT's calls, the Beaulieu's poems are combined and printed in a random manner such that each copy of the book is a totally unique. To be sure: every copy of the book has 32 pink images, 32 blue images and 32 yellow images. But one yellow image may appear on page 12 or one copy of the book and on 29 of another. And the blue poem that is overprinted with a particular blue and pink image will be combines with two totally different poems in another copy of the book. So while your copy contains the same 96 pieces as every other copy of this volume the particular combination and order of your book does not exist anywhere else. This is (literally) a one-of-a-kind book!