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About the artist and the poet

Four Neat Holes

A poetry chapbook by Al Rempel;
a collaboration with the artist Mo Hamilton

Four Neat Holes is a short suite of thirteen poems that examines loss and grief through the eyes of four children growing up and coming of age. Two siblings live on a farm with their grandma, having lost both parents, and two others live with their take-charge mother and alcoholic father on "the wrong side of the tracks" in a small town. Set in the late 1970's, Four Neat Holes is written in a wry, matter-of-fact tone that surprises the reader with its surrealist imagery. Each poem is paired with a work of original art by Mo Hamilton, who created this series with both sketch-work and collage; the collage is created from found paper as well as paper that Mo modified with printmaking processes.

the piano compressed the carpet, under the weight
of our parents' wedding photos. four neat holes.

from "The One Black Key" by Al Rempel