![Decomposed, 2017](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472d465e9732d5cb72f178d_FLAUNT%2BDecomposed%252C%2B2017.jpeg)
Decomposed, 2017
The new book by internationally admired photographer [Roger Ballen](https://www.rogerballen.com/), _The Earth Will Come to Laugh and Feast,_ is out now via powerHouse Books. With the help of Italian poet, [Gabriele Tinti](http://www.gabrieletinti.com/), who reflects on Ballen’s images with original elegies, prayers, and laments, the book transforms into a carefully selected poetic journey. This book follows Ballen’s over 50 year long career, refining his distinctive style, though developing beyond his documentary style of the 90s into what he calls “Ballenesque”, including drawing, painting, collage, and sculptural elements in his photographs.
Tinti, recipient of the 2018 Montale Poetry Award, says of the collaboration, “This partnership moves from the rubble, passes through cemeteries, sniffs out the signs of what has gone. Roger Ballen’s photos, my words, are a kind of defense against the terrible power of death. They are an accumulation of enthusiasm, injuries, obsessions. They are effigies composed to disturb the reader, to ambush the thought, the things."
Evoking the strong connection between art and literature, the book reveals the inevitability of suffering, and of human helplessness from pain. [_The Earth Will Come to Laugh and Feast_](https://powerhousebooks.com/books/the-earth-will-come-to-laugh-and-to-feast/) is available now through [powerHouse Books](https://powerhousebooks.com/).
![FLAUNTDeranged, 2015.jpg](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472d466e9732d5cb72f179f_FLAUNTDeranged%252C%2B2015.jpeg)
Deranged, 2015
![FLAUNT Pulpit, 2011 .jpg](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472d466e9732d5cb72f179c_FLAUNT%2BPulpit%252C%2B2011%2B.jpeg)
Pulpit, 2011
![Liberated, 2017](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472d465e9732d5cb72f1796_FLAUNT%2BLiberated%252C%2B2017.jpeg)
Liberated, 2017
![Missing Eye, 2016](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472d465e9732d5cb72f1793_FLAUNT%2BMissing%2BEye%252C%2B2016.jpeg)
Missing Eye, 2016
![FLAUNT Entwined, 2015.jpg](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472d465e9732d5cb72f1790_FLAUNT%2BEntwined%252C%2B2015.jpeg)
Entwined, 2015
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Sacrifice, 2010
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On Fire, 2008