How do the oranges divide up
sunlight in the orange tree?
Did salt’s teeth come
from a bitter mouth?
– from The Book of Questions, by Pablo Neruda
blood orange (November 2019 – January 2022) was an experimental poetry tarot project committed to publishing radical and diverse works. The cards published in this project are listed in the card index. blood orange took inspiration from Cedar McCloud’s Numinous Tarot in using gender-inclusive language for card names.
katie o’brien (they/them) founded and edited blood orange. katie is a queer, nonbinary, white settler poet originally from St. John’s, Ktaqmkuk (the Mi’kmaw name for the island colonially known as Newfoundland), on the unceded territory of the Beothuk. katie commissioned creative writer, designer, and digital collage artist Hannah Reilly (she/her) to create the visuals for blood orange. Infusing a citrus theme into each of the card designs, Hannah reimagined the traditional tarot into modern, digital collage stories.
blood orange was mostly funded out of katie’s pocket, which is one of many reasons (including an ongoing global pandemic) the project came to an end. We had modest Patreon support from January 2020 to December 2021. On July 7, 2020, we donated all Patreon contributions from our first six months of existence to Pink Flamingo, a Black-owned organization that hosts QTBIPOC and 2S/LGBTQQIA+ events in Mohkínstsis, in support of Black Lives Matter. blood orange will forever be grateful to the following individuals for their support:
- Vivienne Wilson
- Alyssa Bluhm
- Erin Emily Ann Vance
- Leslie Joy Ahenda
- Pam O’Brien
- Erin Moran
- Trynne Delaney
- Angela Kathman
- Kelsey Bomboy