A 130-page poetry book with art on every spread

One hundred and thirty pages so far, and growing. Rahsa Dezmen has been working on the book for a year. More poetry is still coming. It is a collection of poems on shadow work and transmutation, and each page or spread is accompanied by an original piece of art. "It's meant to be multi-sensory and visceral," Rahsa says.

The book is called Holy Curse, and it is their fourth. Before it came an experimental art book, Subject to Change*, and a poetry collection, Trial by Fire; a third short anthology, Songs from the Dark, is on the way. Part of Holy Curse came out of the grief of losing their father, who was a multidisciplinary artist too.

“The sky is bigger than anything we’ve made. We can’t be surprised when we ask to grow, it rains.”

Rahsa Dezmen

Rahsa is a multidisciplinary artist and runs OPEN Projects, an art collective in Mexico City where, they say, they nurture multidisciplinary artists from around the world, "to help foster community and build people up, through skill sharing and supporting free expression." Some of the poems have been to national slams.

Those lines are from the poem "The Sky Is". Shadow work is something Rahsa believes in "as a spiritual artist, who has used art as a means of personal alchemy," and they think the book could speak to and help a lot of people, "to remind them we're not alone even in our darkest moments."

"I wanted to create something visual and interesting, so people come back to it over and over again and find something new to connect to and be inspired by," Rahsa says.

The dream, they say, is to turn the book into a short film, "like a music video for poetry." They have been story-boarding the film for months while leading the collective. The next move is to secure printing, complete the filming and showcase it to an audience in Mexico City and, digitally, all over the world.

"I want people to be inspired by the pages and connect to the poems on a level deeper than words," Rahsa says.