The Great Wheel by Edward Lense and Bruce Robinson

Poems (Edward Lense) and images (Bruce Robinson)  inspired by the Tarot

Publisher	LUNA BISONTE PRODS
Published	January 8, 2009
Language	English
Pages	100
Binding	Perfect-bound Paperback
Interior Ink	Black & white
Dimensions (inches)	5.8 wide × 8.3 tall

Edward Lense has written a series of strong, personal poems on the metaphysical framework of a deck of Tarot cards, a device, with its fascinating ambiguity and resonance, that serves his purpose remarkably well. The Tarot concepts work as a kind of I Ching-like throw of the coins to stimulate meditations on the poet’s life that are both passionate and fully guided. Accompanying these poems are drawings by Bruce Robinson, which have a roughness that speaks to the underlying torment in the poems, related at times to a kind of theological undertow that seems present in both. The Great Wheel seems to be a force of destruction and death, running through this work’s conscious or unconscious voices, and challenging the reader to confront a fuller understanding of what it means to be alive. As the poet says here, “Another body stirs inside my body,/its slow pulse not the beat of my heart but the tides,/a cloud of blood suspended in water.”

The book includes an introduction by the author and the artist. Years before this book was designed, A central Ohio gallery exhibited Bruce William's plaster reliefs which were painted with black linear images illustrating each of Edward Lense's Tarot poems (displayed alongside). Photographs of the plaster reliefs were digitally construed into high contrast b+w 2-D images for this book.