July 1, 2009
"The Space Traveler and Wandering"
Artist: Jennifer Bevill (bio).
Writer Benjamin Grossberg'ss books are Underwater Lengths in a Single Breath (Ashland Poetry Press, 2007), and Sweet Core Orchard, winner of the 2008 Tampa Review Prize (University of Tampa, 2009). A chapbook, The Auctioneer Bangs his Gavel, was published by Kent State in 2006. He is an assistant professor of English at The University of Hartford, where he teaches poetry writing and Early Modern English literature. "The Space Traveler and Wandering" first appeared in Green Mountains Review. Other space traveler poems can be found in Cincinnati Review, Pool, The Journal, Natural Bridge and Whiskey Island.

Image: "Away we go," 10" x 5", found objects (cardboard, maps, stamps, fabric, copper wire, beads) sewn together and then papier mache'ed with wheat paste

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Collaborator's Q & A for "The Space Traveler and Wandering"

Writer Benjamin Grossberg:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
...the Space Traveler poems (there are about fifty!) are very different than the work in my first two collections. In those books, I had been much more about grace, balance, and symmetry. I'm not sure what I'm about now, but it's not those things....

Artist Jennifer Bevill:
What inspires you in this poem?
...I also love the tone of the poem. It's very matter of fact—need to get home, need spaceship, must build one, what's handy?

Read the full responses from Bevill & Grossberg.
 

June 1, 2009
"In Livingston Parish, Dreaming of Li Po"
Artist: Cheryl Gross (bio).
Writer Alison Pelegrin is the author of Big Muddy River of Stars (University of Akron Press 2007) and The Zydeco Tablets (Word Press 2002). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and Shenandoah. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the National Endowment of the Arts, and lives in Covington, Louisiana.

Image: "We've reached Karpland," 12" x 17", ballpoint pen, graphite, on recycled paper

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Collaborator's Q & A for "In Livingston Parish, Dreaming of Li Po"

Writer Alison Pelegrin:
What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem?
I can tell you what I feared—Southern Gothic Junkyard.

Artist Cheryl Gross:
If you had to represent the Broadsided collaboration of "In Livingston Parish, Dreaming of Li Po" with one word, what would it be?
Perfection without intent. [The poem and art] were destined to be together like water and sand.

Read the full responses from Pelegrin & Gross.
 

June 1, 2009
"War Rug"
Designer: Elizabeth Bradfield (bio)
Poet, translator, and new media artist Francesco Levato is the executive director of The Poetry Center of Chicago. He is the author of Marginal State, a collection of poetry, and his work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, both in print and online, including The Progressive, XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics, Versal, and many others. His poetry-based video artwork has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.

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Notes: Thanks to the editors of the following publications where excerpts of this poem first appeared: Big Bridge, LUDWIG (translated into the Italian), XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics.
Two pieces of the poem ("Emergency Condition Responses," and "Definitions") used on the broadside quote from government source material:
• Garthwaite , Thomas L. "Ocular Prostheses and Facial Restorations." Department of Veterans Affairs, 2000.
• Joint Task Force Guantanamo. "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)." US Department of Defense. March 23, 2003.
 

Collaborator's Q & A for "War Rug"

Writer Francesco Levato:
Have you ever written work that has been inspired by visual art?
"War Rug" was inspired by an actual war rug I have from Afghanistan that was produced during the Russian occupation. The multiple narratives in the film "Babel" got me thinking about weaving multiple voices together...

Designer Elizabeth Bradfield:
If you had to represent the Broadsided collaboration of "War Rug" with one word, what would it be?
Tough.

Read the full responses from Levato & Bradfield.
 

May 1, 2009
"Advice for Women on the Graveyard Shift"
Artist: Alesia F. Norling (bio).
Writer Karen Weyant's most recent work can be seen in 5 AM, Anti-, The Barn Owl Review, Slipstream, and the minnesota review. A recipient of a 2007 poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, she teaches at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York. During the summer months, she studies poetry at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

Image: "Shift;" Mixed-media collage painting on canvas; 11" x 14"

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Collaborator's Q & A for "Advice for Women on the Graveyard Shift"

Writer Karen Weyant:
Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
When I saw the emphasis on the missing sock, I couldn't help but think that perhaps it is a strong metaphor for aspects of their children's lives that factory women (or all working women—working outside the home, I mean!) believe they are missing.

Artist Alesia Norling:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
I was pleasantly surprised by how the text crowded and tightened around the figure helping to visually trap her in her hell.

Read the full responses from Weyant & Norling.
 

May 1, 2009
"Snowshoe to Otter Creek"
Artist: Caleb Brown (bio).
Writer Stacie Cassarino lives in Brooklyn, New York and Los Angeles, California. She is a recipient of the "Discovery"/The Nation prize and the Astraea Foundation Writer's Fund, a finalist for the Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, and nominee twice for the Pushcart Prize. She has worked as a chef, and has held teaching positions at Middlebury College in Vermont & Pratt Institute in NYC. She is currently a candidate for the Ph.D. at UCLA. "Snowshoe to Otter Creek" is from her first collection of poems, Zero at the Bone, out this month from New Issues Press.

Image: "Snowshoe on Otter Creek;" Media = National Geographic for inspiration, Papermate Flair pen on tracing paper for the drawing, Adobe Streamline and Adobe Illustrator for vectorization and color; 11 5/8" X 3 3/8"

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Collaborator's Q & A for "Snowshoe to Otter Creek"

Writer Stacie Cassarino:
Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
the air, even breathing, has weight

Artist Caleb Brown:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
I decided that the comic had to be read "up" (after reading the poem "down") and was worried that that wouldn't make sense. I'm surprised that it does, or it doesn't matter.

Read the full responses from Cassarino & Brown.
 

April 1, 2009
"Collective Origins as Ulysses/Uxoria"
Artist: Kevin Morrow (bio).
Writer Pamela Johnson Parker is a certified medical language specialist and adjunct instructor of creative writing at Murray State University. A recent MFA graduate, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anti-, Pebble Lake Review, New Madrid, 6 Sentences, and qarrtsiluni, and she has been nominated this year for a Pushcart Prize.

Image: "Collective Origins"

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Note: "Collective Origins as Ulysses/Uxoria" is the fifth Switcheroo feature from Broadsided. What is The Switcheroo? We'd love to tell you.
 

Collaborator's Q & A for "Collective Origins as Ulysses/Uxoria"

Writer Pamela Johnson Parker:
Paired with the art, do you think the poem does something different or has a different tone?
I think its tone now has more gravitas, plus there's that lovely symmetry between his lines and my interwoven ones.

Artist Kevin Morrow:
Paired with the poem, do you think the art does something different or has a different tone?
I feel that paired with the poem now, gives the drawing a more specific life to the viewer....

Read the full responses from Parker & Morrow.
 

March 1, 2009
"In Our Time"
Artist: Elizabeth Terhune (bio).
Writer Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Dancing In Odessa which won Whiting Writers Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, Dorset Prize, Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poetry magazine. It was also named the Best Poetry Book of 2005 by ForeWord magazine.

Image: watercolor, 2" (h) 11-1/2" (w).

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Collaborator's Q & A for "In Our Time"

Writer Ilya Kaminsky:
Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
There was, I think, more jubilation. Which is only a good thing. Something for me to learn.

Artist Elizabeth Terhune:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
I opted to let the drawing be less perfect in its match of the poemÑwhich is a real departure for me. The feather on the tongue became a plant (if you look closely you can see the veins in the plant leaf which started as the feather). The deafness/fire from the unlit match became the churning growth of flowers and an ink splatter.

Read the full responses from Kaminsky & Terhune.
 

February 1, 2009
"From a Lighthouse Keeper"
Artist: Helen Beckman Kaplan (bio).
Writer Karen Llagas was raised in the Philippines and currently lives in San Francisco where she works as a teacher and an interpreter. She has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and her work has appeared/forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review and Field of Mirrors, an anthology of Philippine-American Writers. In 2007, some of her poems received one of the $2500 prizes in the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund competition.

Image: "waves," collage/cgi, 7" x 6.5", 2009

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Collaborator's Q & A for "From a Lighthouse Keeper"

Writer Karen Llagas:
What inspired you to "dibs" this poem?
...refracted through Yuko's eyes, the poem takes on a smoother sense for me, a feeling maybe that lots remains when something is lost, and that's how it should be. Water moving and changing, constantly inconstant.

Artist Helen Beckman Kaplan:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
I think it is romantic to see how art and literature from two different artists come together as one piece ...

Read the full responses from Llagas & Kaplan.
 

January 1, 2009
"The Dry Tortugas"
Artist: Yuko Adachi (bio).
Writer: Nevada City, CA poet Molly Fisk is the author of Listening to Winter, #4 in the California Poetry Series, Round House Press/Heyday Books; Terrain, a collaborative chapbook with Dan Bellm and Forrest Hamer, Hip Pocket Press; and Salt Water Poems (letterpress), Jungle Garden Press.

She's a commentator for NPR and community station KVMR-FM Nevada City, and her radio commentary has been collected on the CD "Using Your Turn Signal Promotes World Peace (and other observations from a working poet)," KVMR, 2005.

Fisk teaches at U.C. Davis Extension and the Sierra Nevada Cancer Center, and runs a six-day internet poetry workshop every month called Poetry Boot Camp (poetrybootcamp.com), with more than 400 participants from around the world, including the South Pole.

Fisk has won the Dogwood Prize, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize, the Billee Murray Denny Prize, and the National Writer's Union Prize. She's a National Endowment for the Arts fellow in poetry, and has received grants from the California Arts Council and the Marin Arts Council.

Image: "We are all one III," mixed media on paper, 5" x 5", 2008

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Collaborator's Q & A for "The Dry Tortugas"

Writer Molly Fisk:
What inspired you to "dibs" this poem?
...refracted through Yuko's eyes, the poem takes on a smoother sense for me, a feeling maybe that lots remains when something is lost, and that's how it should be. Water moving and changing, constantly inconstant.

Artist Yuko Adachi:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
I think it is romantic to see how art and literature from two different artists come together as one piece ...

Read the full responses from Fisk & Adachi.