Five Oceans in a Teaspoon is an innovative, beautiful and moving collection of short visual poems written by muckraking journalist/poet Dennis J Bernstein, visualized by pioneer designer/author Warren Lehrer.

Collectors Edition includes a supplemental poem

In 1979, Bernstein and Lehrer began working on a book of poems, originally titled Stretch Marks. Instead of completing that book, they leapt into writing their first play together, and over the intervening years they collaborated on three books, including French Fries, considered a classic in visual literature and expressive typography. A few years ago, they began collaborating again on a book of visual poetry. Bernstein’s words. Lehrer’s typographic visualizations. Now, on the 40th anniversary of their original effort and at the height of their creative powers, the two have completed Five Oceans in a Teaspoon. This first edition—published by Paper Crown Press (September 2019)—is sure to become a classic and collector’s item itself.  

As with his journalism, Bernstein’s poems reflect the struggle of everyday people trying to survive in the face of adversity. Divided into eight chapters, Five Oceans in a Teaspoon reads like a memoir in poems. It spans a lifetime: growing up confused by dyslexia and a parental gambling addiction; graced by pogo sticks, boxing lessons and a mother’s compassion; becoming a frontline witness to war and its aftermaths, prison, street life, poverty, love and loss, open heart surgery, caring for aging parents and visitations from them after they’re gone. Lehrer’s typographic compositions give form to the interior, emotional and metaphorical underpinnings of the poems. Together, the writing and visuals create a new whole that engages the reader to become an active participant in the navigation, discovery, and experience of each poem.

The collectors edition includes a signed copy of the book and a limited edition letter press print of a supplemental visual poem.

PRAISE for Five Oceans in a Teaspoon: 

“Brilliant and beautiful. Thank you for bringing in the new.”
Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author of The Color Purple

“Five Oceans in a Teaspoon, the new collaboration between poet Dennis J. Bernstein and artist Warren Lehrer is an engaging masterwork that has only a handful of precedents in literary and design history... If Philip Roth's classic coming-of-age novel Portnoy's Complaint had been designed in the style of Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrammes, the result might be something like Five Oceans... This virtuosic collaboration has the tonal and experiential range of a memoir, but rendered in artfully designed poem-texts. The glimpses into American life across more than half a century are always personal, a background of current events within the alternating minutiae and milestones of existence. Each piece in this funny, poignant work is scored--almost in the musical sense--with graphic organization for performance on the page. The effect is remarkable and the range of graphic innovation is impressive: Lehrer gets inside Bernstein's writing, exploring the ways its structures can be amplified, its meanings extended, through graphical means. Bernstein fits many oceans into the well-defined parameters of Lehrer's teaspoons; this is a true collaboration, and neither artist would or could have made this work without the other.”  Johanna Drucker, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Bernstein and Lehrer--the Lennon and McCartney of viz-lit--have reunited at the height of their creative powers. The gutsiness and raw emotion of the writing, revelatory appeal of the visual compositions, and brevity of the form creates an intensely moving experiential journey.”
Steven Heller, design and visual culture historian, columnist, author of over 180 books on design

“From a kidnap note for a world held hostage by an A-bomb, to a Holocaust survivor's tattooed arms where the numbers just don't add up, Five Oceans in a Teaspoon re-envisions a poetry memoir via a textual kaleidoscope... Bernstein and Lehrer are the Rodgers and Hart of Visual Poetry.”
Bob Holman, poet, poetry activist and chronicler, and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club

“An ode to visual poetry, the type-based poems reflect the struggles faced by people every single day and span everything from Alzheimer's to war and peace. Curated by Lehrer from Bernstein's thousands of poems,the 200 poems have been artfully arranged into typographic compositions that bring home the emotional and metaphorical impact of their words.”
Aimée McLaughlin, Creative Review

“The 1984 book French Fries by Dennis Bernstein and Warren Lehrer is a landmark work of visual literature. The duo's new book, Five Oceans in a Teaspoon, is a masterful contribution to the genre they've helped shape. An autobiography in poems, it is a multi-modal book project that includes animations, exhibitions and performances. Bernstein has reported on wars, taught in prisons, hosted a radio show and survived open heart surgery. As he reflects on his life, he reminds the reader that the very struggles which leave us feeling confused and alienated are part of our shared human condition. Lehrer is able to interpret the text so successfully because he approaches the poems as a writer as well as a designer. His instinct for wordplay destabilizes and extends Bernstein's concise writing--drawing out double meanings, alternative interpretations--providing an unconventional reading experience. Turning the page is like listening to a perfect jazz solo, inevitable, but unpredictable. Five Oceans in a Teaspoon is a moving testament to Bernstein's view of the world, and Lehrer's interplay of text and image (and text-as-image) packs a powerful intellectual and emotional punch.” Levi Sherman, Artists' Book Reviews

“A collection of poems by Dennis J Bernstein, brought to life, visually, by Warren Lehrer--Five Oceans in a Teaspoon is a perfect book! A beautiful book, the poems put the reader to work in interesting ways... The animations that augment the book are quite wonderful and serve as their own performances of the poems.” Debbie Millman, Design Matters

“This book of poems exploits every formal aspect of typography, at a fevered pitch, to establish its syntactic relevance to the semantic, and to ensure--uncannily--that readers are invited and able to navigate unexpected orientations of text, changes in spacing, positioning of word or phrase beginning or ending points. It expands the notion of concrete poetry which extends back some four hundred years.” Timothy Samara, Making and Breaking the Grid (Rockport)

“Formed through collaboration, Five Oceans in a Teaspoon is a truly moving reading experience.” Meg Miller, Eye on Design, AIGA

“Dennis J Bernstein and Warren Lehrer have had successful collaborations in the past, best known for their extraordinary book French Fries. Most recently, they are the creators of Five Oceans in a Teaspoon, which similarly sits at an intersection of forms—poetry, visual text, and performance. The subjects cover much of a life, beginning with childhood and ending with death, in particular, that of the writer’s mother and father. They also include poems about other lives, people the writer has connected with—including, but not limited to, people in prison, the front lines of war, poverty, street violence. The visualizations are a tour de force, but, more important, they enact the poems themselves, revealing their poignance and complex humanity… Thrust into a time-based private performance, we become as conscious of the act of reading as we were when we first learned how to read. Perhaps that in itself adds to our sense of discovery and pleasure when we finish any one of the poems from this collection. The very act of conscious reading enacts what is essential to each poem’s emotional and metaphoric center… making Bernstein and Lehrer’s Five Oceans in a Teaspoon a rather remarkable introduction to poetry itself.” Susan Viguers CBAA Book Art Theory Blog

WINNER 2020 IPPY Gold Medal Award in Poetry Independent Publisher

WINNER 2020 Indigo Design Award Mixed Media/Moving Image

WINNER 2020 Indigo Design Award Book Design

WINNER 2020 MUSE Creative Platinum Award Book/Publication Design

WINNER 2020 American Bookfest Best Book Award Poetry

WINNER 2019 STA 100 Award Society of Typographic Arts

WINNER 2019 Design Incubation Scholarship/Creative Work Award

FINALIST 2019 International Book Award Poetry

FINALIST 2019 Communication Arts Design Award Motion Graphics