Verse with a view
‘Tiniest Vampire’ includes original poems, illustrations
It all started with a plan.
Last September, Jason Witter came up with the idea of writing a poem a day before Halloween. Along with the poem, he would illustrate a piece of work to accompany it.
The result is the book “The Tiniest Vampire (and other silly things).”
“Everything has worked out great with this project,” he says. “I ended up with 60 poems, and I did a Kickstarter, which had about 250 backers from all over the world. It’s been super cool.”
Witter grew up reading books by Shel Silverstein and the book series “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” as well as watching movies by Tim Burton.
“The illustrations were amazing, and I tend to like things that are dark and quirky,” he says. “This was also a point for me to jump back into illustrations. Growing up, my brothers and I used to draw comic books. As I got older, I switched over to the writing part.”
Witter will be hosting a book release on Sunday, March 13, at The Box Performance Space in Downtown Albuquerque.
And he’s doing something different for the release.
“The poems are going to be read by 25 other people,” he says. “The idea came from talking to Doug Montoya at The Box. It’s something very different. I can’t wait to hear the poems in all different voices.”
The book features 200 pages of original poems and illustrations that range from “The Tiniest Vampire” (who might just be living in your shoe) to poor ol’ “Prince Charming” (who’s having some trouble finding himself a date) to “The Big-Bellied Ghost” (who’s maybe been haunting the refrigerator for a bit too long).
“It really opened me up creatively,” he says. “There were times the illustration was the muse for the poem. Other times, I had to illustrate based on the poem. The inspiration came from numerous places.”
With nearly 250 people backing his Kickstarter campaign, Witter reached out to some of his supporters and acting friends to read.
“I’ve worked with a lot of these people and thought this is a cool way to give back to them for their support,” he says.