Buying Yak Milk In Gurtymadden – Joe Boske

The Artist, writer and occasional composer, Joe Boske was mistakenly born in Wolfsburg, Northern Germany, in 1951, of a mother hailing from that region and a father who was originally from the free Hanseatic City of Danzig on the Baltic coast. There cruises through his veins, however, a wee dollop of celtic blood, since a Scottish mining engineer by the name of Howe married into his mother's side of the family back in the 1870s.

After receiving his passport in the post at scarcely eighteen years of age, Joe was out the door and gone, as they say. only having to his avail, on leaving the fatherland, an early surrealists' map of the world, which didn't feature the British Isles but instead showed an over-dimensional Ireland, Joe decided to settle there instead. That was half a century ago and he hasn't been the same since, thank God - nor have we, mind.

As is de rigueur for a gentleman  of his calling, Joe published a couple of volumes of poetry in his formative years, one of them in conjunction with the Dolmen Press, for whom he worked as a book designer in the early 1970s. In the following decades, Joe had numerous exhibitions both in Ireland and abroad and designed hundreds of posters, LP sleeves, record covers, and book illustrations. being socially committed, he also kept several breweries from going into liquidation.

In 2014, his present publisher Artisan House decided it was high time to release a book of Joe's work, called Joe Boske - The Works, which sold out pronto and is being reissued as we speak. (Text taken from the forward of his book).