He began seriously writing poetry in the early 1960s. "He became interested in writing through his association with the worker poet Milton Acorn in the early sixties and the metaphysical poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen."[5] He "got his start with the help of other poets: Milton Acorn, Al Purdy and Earle Birney."[2]
His first book, The L.S.D. Leacock, was published in 1966. In the same year he received a Canada Council grant that allowed him to quit his railway job and write full-time.[5]
Since then, in his 40-year career, "Rosenblatt has written more than 20 books of poetry, several autobiographical works and his poems have appeared in over thirty anthologies of Canadian poetry.... He has traveled widely giving readings of his poems in Europe, Canada and the United States."[5]
Books in Canada wrote of him in 1988 that, "street smart, water wise, heaven bent, Joe Rosenblatt is a talented man, fisher of gods, and a school in himself. He makes you feel things that are hard to touch: bee fur, tadpoles, and the human heart."[2]
Rosenblatt summed up his philosophy of writing in this way:
I write to escape hyper reality – genocide of man, elephants and fish – the death of the ozone layer, the industrial degredation [sic] of the earth – My affordable opiate is my Muse. It allows me to float into a dream state and create an escapist literature. Let the prose-fanciers, the dog people as opposed to poetic feline fancier – indulge in grim reality. The very thought of reality gives me hives.[7]
Rosenblatt died on March 11, 2019,[8] shortly after advance reviews of his newest poetry collection Bite Me! Musings on Monsters and Mayhem began to appear in media.[9]
A decade later, another book of selected poems, Poetry Hotel, won him the B.C. Book Prize for Poetry (now the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize) in 1986.[1]
A Tentacled Mother. (in the original plus new sonnets) Exile Editions, Toronto, Oct. 1995
The Rosenblatt Reader. (selected poems and prose, 1962–1995) Exile Editions, Toronto, 1995.
The Voluptuous Gardener. (new poetry and selected drawings from Carleton University Art Gallery permanent collection) Beach Holme Press, Vancouver, 1996.
Parrot fever. collages by Michel Christensen. Toronto: Exile Editions, 2002.
The lunatic muse, Joe Rosenblatt ; edited by David Berry. Toronto: Exile Editions, 2007.
Dog, Joe Rosenblatt & Catherine Owen ; photos by Karen Moe. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2008.
Bite Me! Musings on Monsters and Mayhem', The Porcupine's Quill, 2019.
Fiction
Tommy Fry & the Ant Colony. Black Moss, Windsor, 1970
Escape From the Glue Factory. (autobiographical fiction) Exile Editions, Toronto, 1985
The Kissing Goldfish of Siam. (autobiographical fiction) Exile Editions, Toronto, 1989
Canadian Poetry OnlineArchived 2011-01-28 at the Wayback Machine: Joe Rosenblatt - Biography, 5 poems (A Blushing Ague, The Boys Are Stepping Out Tonight, My Little Messenger, Combustion, Padding Through the Pampas Grass), and 20 drawings/illustrations.
