BROADSIDED: 2010

"As Any Approaching Might Smile and Stop"
December 1, 2010

Writer Zach Savich is the author of three full-length collections of poetry—Full Catastrophe Living, Annulments, and The Firestorm forthcoming from Cleveland State University Poetry Center—as well as a lyric memoir, Events Film Cannot Withstand, that is forthcoming from Rescue Press.

Artist Meghan Keane exhibits nationally and internationally and her works can be found in private collections throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Japan. Recent projects include a solo exhibition, "PROJECT NIHON / sustainable art travel," in Tokyo and "do it yourself candide," which Keane was invited to create for the New York Public Library (january 2010). Keane is the founding director of meghan.keane.studio (meghankeanestudio.com).
Image: "Untitled III," 31.5 x 21.5 inches, Monoprint and pen drawing on on Lana 300 lb. paper, 2010

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Artist Elizabeth Terhune has exhibited widely throughout the United States. Her most recent shows include a two-person show at Feast Gallery in Saratoga Springs, NY, a four-person show at Metaphor Contemporary Art in Brooklyn, NY, and a one-person exhibition at the Lake George Arts Project, Lake George, NY. You can view some of her work online at www.elizabethterhune.com. She teaches painting and drawing at the 92nd Street Y and at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies in New York City.

Download the Broadsided file with art by Terhune
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Collaborators' Q & A for "As Any Approaching Might Smile and Stop"

Bsided: Did either visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
Zach Savich: Meghan Keane animated the sentences' rippling. I like the thing being born in the middle, already tethered. Elizabeth Terhune showed me the situation as simultaneously airy residue and posed solidity, lyric gasp and narrative oomph.

Bsided: What caught your eye in the visual response by your fellow Broadsided artist?
Artist Meghan Keane: The lumbering animal... it has an ambiguity that makes it both bear-like and uncertain... as though it may also be a visual metaphor for the blackness and darkness present in the poem.

Bsided: What caught your eye in the visual response by your fellow Broadsided artist?
Elizabeth Terhune: I liked the way Meghan refused a more direct representation and focused instead on the agitation of the back and forth of a breakup, and her reference to the 30 whumps.

Read the full responses from Savich, Keane & Terhune.
 

"Aphasia"
November 1, 2010

Writer Dorianne Laux's fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon, is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award. What We Carry was a finalist for the National Book Critic's Circle Award. Her fifth collection of poetry, The Book of Men, will be published by W.W. Norton in February, 2011.

Artist Kevin Morrow received his MFA degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand where he studied in the Contemporary Maori Department (Te Toi Hou). Upon completion, Morrow moved to Austin, Texas where he spent a year or so concentrating on earthworks. Morrow now lives and works in New York.
Image: "Aphasia," Photographic Collage, 9" X 12"

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Artist Jennifer Moses is a painter living in Boston and teaches at the University of New Hampshire. She has exhibited her work throughout New England her most recent solo exhibition titled "A Line is a Straight Curve" was at the Kingston Gallery in Boston.
Image: "Storm," 11 x 7 ½", water media on prepared paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Aphasia"

Bsided: Did either visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
Dorianne Laux: That contrast of light and dark, light and heavy; I don't think I had considered that as deeply as I did on seeing the visual interpretations.

Bsided: What inspires you in this poem?
Artist Kevin Morrow:I was immediately inspired by the title. I worked with stroke victims while I was a Clinical Researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and had been there as life was leaving these patients. I would often receive pages for potential stroke victims coming in as 'sudden aphasia'...

Bsided: In looking at the poem and the two visual responses together, what connections or associations rise to the surface?
Jennifer Moses: I believe we both attempted to make visible an illogical mind's eye. the fact that we both chose black and white or nearly black and whit in my case, also was interesting to me because I thought at first of using vivid tropical color, the color of a vacation. But ultimately I felt the wistful notes in the tone of the poem called for a more somber palette.

Read the full responses from Laux, Morrow & Moses.
 

October 1, 2010
"Mooring Stones"

Writer Paula Carter makes her home in the Midwest, from which she garners much inspiration. Her short shorts have appeared in Quick Fiction, Rhino, and Mayday, where "Mooring Stones" first appeared. She received her MFA in creative writing from Indiana University and is currently working as a freelance writer.

Artist Anya Ermak-Bower earned her design degree from a university in Western Russia. After living in Alaska for five years and working as an interior designer, she moved to Japan with her family. She channels her creativity into work, cooking, and raising her sons.

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Mooring Stones"

Bsided: What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Paula Carter: The place seems to almost be otherworldly, kinda like what it might be like to blend a Viking sense of place with a Midwestern one.

Bsided: When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed? Did that change?
Anya Ermak-Bower: The "aftertaste" of the story, which felt it have a good potential to become materialized.

Read the full responses from Carter & Ermak-Bower.
 

September 1, 2010
"Extirpation"

Poet Keith Ekiss is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University and the past recipient of scholarships and residencies from the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley Writers' Conferences, Santa Fe Art Institute, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Petrified Forest National Park. He is the author of Pima Road Notebook (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2010), which includes this poem.

Artist Douglas Culhane works in sculpture and drawing. He has exhibited in New York and New England. See more of his work at www.douglasculhane.com.

Image: "Habitat," watercolor on paper, 11" x 15"

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Extirpation"

Bsided: Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
Keithe Ekiss: There's a sinuousnes to the art, like a flower or a vine, that I admire. The poem itself feels to me very ordered and restrained. The artwork brings out the natural flow underneath the scene that I describe.

Artist Douglas Culhane: This was an especially interesting collaboration for me. The theme and imagery of Keith's poem drew me in, as I lived with it I realized that it was also built on words with social and political weight.... I feel like my role in the collaboration was to amplify the imagery—what was alluded to, but absent. Given the events in the Gulf this summer, this project speaks to deep and urgent concerns for all of us.

Read the full responses from Culhane & Ekiss.
 

August 1, 2010
"Rosary Catholic Church"

Artist Alesia Norling (www.afnorling.com) (www.afnorling.com) is a Mom, animal welfare activist and artist. She really, really likes jelly beans, county fairs and pit bulls (not necessarily in that order).

Poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of Apocalyptic Swing and The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart. She lives in Los Angeles, teaches at Warren Wilson, and travels widely.

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Rosary Catholic Church"

Bsided: What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Gabrielle Calvocoressi: I was surprised by how much anticipation I felt as the day drew near for my Broadside to appear. I was like a kid at Christmas. I was also moved and surprised by how powerful it felt to imagine all the places I could put this poem up, how many different conversations I could be a part of.

Bsided: What inspires you in this poem?
Alesia F. Norling: The imagery is irresistible to me as an artist. I also have always felt that the link between religious belief and insanity is a tight and strong one.

Read the full responses from Calvacoressi & Norling.
 

MORE!

This month, the poem inspired another artist to respond visually as well—although Elizabeth Terhune did not "dibs" the poem, she generously shared her work with us. Below is the watercolor that she created.

July 1, 2010
"Replying to SubPrefect Zhang"

Artist Yuko Adachi is a Tokyo-born artist who was raised in Japan, Paris, London, and the United States of America. She has been painting since she was a little girl and has been showing her works through solo and selected group shows internationally. Her painting was featured for the cover of Artscope, New England's Cultural Magazine (May/June 2007) and Takara Magazine, the Japanese Culture and Information Magazine in New England (2007 issues). In 2007, her work was awarded best in painting for "Healing Power of Art" by Manhattan Art International. Today, she lives and works in Boston. She has just opened an artist studio store, "Planet MOMEKO," in Rockport, MA. www.yukoadachi.com

Poet Wang Wei was the "Poet Buddha" of the extraordinary Tang Dynasty, when poetry was the center of Chinese cultural life. Along with Du Fu and Li Bai, Wang Wei remains a treasured poet, still read and memorized—and translated—1300 years later.

Translator Dawn McGuire was born in Grayson, Kentucky, in the foothills of the Appalachians. Her latest book, Hands On, was published by ZYZZYVA in 2002. "By day," she is a San Francisco neurologist focusing on complications of HIV/AIDS. McGuire studied Chinese at Princeton University and Middlebury College. McGuire believes there is no such thing as "the" translation of a Tang Dynasty poem. Poetic compression is extreme—a typical Tang poem might have only 20 words in all—and inflectional aspects of English such as tense, person, number are absent. A given word (character) easily may have a dozen meanings, and the poem may be a conversation with a poet of a thousand years before, or a contemporary such as SubPrefect Zhang. Each translation, also, is a conversation, and a bow.

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Replying to SubPrefect Zhang"

Bsided: What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Dawn McGuire: Everything! I had no idea what to expect. The reference to Asian landscape paintings of the Tang is very neat, especially sing Wang Wei was also a painter, and founded the Southern school.

Bsided: When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed?
Yuko Adachi: I did not want to overshadow the beauty of poem with my image I create, so I try to stay imaginative just like the poem without too much complication yet follow its depth of expression in simplicity.

Read the full responses from McGuire & Adachi.
 

June 1, 2010
"At the Christmas Party for the Infectious Diseases"

Artist Lisa Sette is a biologist who lives on Cape Cod.

Writer Christina Olson's first book of poems, Before I Came Home Naked, will be published by Spire Press. Her work has recently appeared in Brevity, The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 3, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review. She is currently a visiting professor of writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, and lives online at www.thedreflow-olsonshow.com.

Image: untitled, digital photograph manipulated in Photoshop

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Collaborators' Q & A for "At the Christmas Party for the Infectious Diseases"

Bsided: What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem?
Christina Olson: I don't think a poem that imagines infectious diseases getting together for a holiday party should take itself too seriously, and I think that Lisa hit just the right note. It's joyful and a little sinister. I feel grateful (indebted really) to Cheryl Gross; her illustration appears as an act of listening...

Bsided: What surprised you about this piece, once you saw the artwork and poem together?
Lisa Sette: The conversation worked. The image and poem had more points of intersection than I thought they would. When I read the poem, I instantly thought of this image, but it surprised to see how often moments in the poem were also in the image.

Read the full responses from Olson & Sette.
 

May 1, 2010
"Composition 101"

Artist Cheryl Gross Artist Cheryl Gross has an MFA in New Forms from Pratt. She writes: "When asked about my work, I always equate it with creating an environment transforming my inner thoughts into reality. Much like an architect or urban planner, that reality and humor becomes the foundation of the work." www.cmgross.com

Writer Nicelle Davis lives in Southern California with her husband James and their son J.J. Her poems are forthcoming in Caesura, FuseLit, Illya's Honey, Moulin, The New York Quarterly, Redcations, and Transcurrent. She runs a free online poetry workshop at http://nicelledavis.wordpress.com/. She'd like to acknowledge her poetry family at the University of California, Riverside and Antelope Valley Community College.

Image: 12"X12", handmade paper from India, archival ballpoint and graphite. Scanned it into Photoshop and modified.

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Composition 101"

Bsided: What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Nicelle Davis: The students in this poem are strong in ways that are uniquely human; with blood on their hands they are the truest image of purity that I know. I am very grateful (indebted really) to Cheryl Gross; her illustration appears as an act of listening...

Bsided: When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed? Did that change?
Cheryl Gross: I have been developing a fairly new style using line, tonal values, and negative space. This lends itself to the creepiness of the poem. To add to the unsettling nature of the piece, I added a few more blood stains using Photoshop which were not in the original illustration.

Read the full responses from Gross & Davis.
 

April 1, 2010
"Ex Ovo Omnia"

Artist Julie Evanoff is a Brooklyn based artist who works in drawing, painting and video animation. She exhibited recently at: Gallery Niklas Belenius, Stories real and vividly imagined, Stockholm, Sweden; Hallways, Brooklyn, NY. Her animations screened in video festivals: 2k5 Video Festivall; City Without Walls, Juried Video Festival. She received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She was awarded the Geraldine Dodge Grant from The Women's Studio Workshop and the Vermont Studio Center. She received the Paul Robeson Emerging Artist Award from Rutgers University. Of her work, she says, "I create environments in which human and animal characters from disparate times and cultures interact socially. Using sources ranging from Jungian philosophy to classical myth to images from popular culture, I question what happens when mismatched archetypes cross paths in disjointed landscapes. Erasure, fragmentation, juxtaposition, and revision are key elements to all forms of my work."

Writer Jennifer Perrine's first book of poetry, The Body Is No Machine, was published by New Issues in 2007 and won the 2008 Devil's Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry. Other recent awards include the U.S. Poets in Mexico Mérida Fellowship and first prize in the Black Warrior Review Fourth-Ever Poetry Contest and the Virginia Arts of the Books Center Taste 'Test. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including Connecticut Review, Crab Orchard Review, RATTLE, and Third Coast. Perrine lives in Des Moines, Iowa, and works at Drake University, where she organizes the Writers & Critics Series and teaches courses in creative writing and gender studies.

Image: "Turn," Acrylic on panel, 48" x 24"

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Note: "Ex Ovo Omnia" is the sixth Switcheroo feature from Broadsided. What is The Switcheroo? We'd love to tell you.
 

Collaborators' Q & A for "Ex Ovo Omnia"

Bsided: What leapt out first from Julie's art? A particular image? A mood? A line?
Jennifer Perrine: At first, I saw red. I was drawn in by that color, especially by the red-bodied figure on the right, and it wasn't until days later that I realized it had reminded me of the character I'd imagined when I read Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red (which I love!).

Bsided: Paired with the poem, do you think the art does something different or has a different tone?
Julie Evanoff: I love the way Jennifer's poem goes directly to speak of the mother of the monster. I love that. My work is always from a woman's perspective, simply because I am a woman, but in addition to a women's perspective, I have a feminist perspective....paired with the poem my painting more explicitly reads with that female perspective.

Read the full responses from Evanoff & Perrine.
 

March 1, 2010
"Dear Body"

Artist Ira Joel Haber is a sculptor, painter, book dealer and teacher who sometimes writes poetry and movie reviews. His work has been seen in numerous solo and group shows both in USA and Europe. His work is in the collections of New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum, The Hirshorn Museum & The Albright-Knox Art Gallery. In 2004 he received The Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant. Currently he teaches art at the United Federation of Teachers Retiree Program in Brooklyn.

Writer Dan Rosenberg teaches at Augustana College. His poems have appeared in Conduit, CutBank, 6X6, and elsewhere. His first chapbook, A Thread of Hands, is forthcoming from Tilt Press. This poem was an attempt to exorcise the word "body," which kept cropping up, from his poems. It failed.

Image: "Early October Collage," 2009; 9 1/2" x 12 1/2"; paint, crayon, ink, collage with photoshop additions on paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Dear Body"

Bsided: What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Dan Rosenberg: I think I'm falling in love with the shimmery figure—which I'm thinking of as a "ghost of a body"—floating on the top. I'm also thrilled by how literally Ira chose to take the word "body"—how he is showing the stuff, the gunk, of the human form, particularly since "body" tends to operate more abstractly in the poem.

Bsided: When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed? Did that change?
Ira Joel Haber: I always take an existing piece and play around with it in photoshop, so the original collage is somewhat different than what I submitted. That's the beauty of photoshop it allows me to literally create a new piece while still having the originals which I also like a lot.

Read the full responses from Rosenberg & Haber.
 

February 1, 2010
"Replacing the Window, Downtown Medford"

Artist Lochlann Jain is a professional anthropologist.

Writer Amy MacLennan has been published or has work forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review, River Styx, Pearl, Linebreak, Cimarron Review, New Plains Review, Folio, and Rattle. Her poems appear in the anthologies Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems from Ragged Sky Press and Not a Muse: The Inner Lives of Women from Haven Books.

Image: 4x6 inches, ink on paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Replacing the Window, Downtown Medford"

Bsided: Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
Amy MacLennan: I think it was my perception of interconnectedness from the visual art that made me take a different stand in regards to my own poem.

Bsided: Seen any good art lately?
Lochlann Jain: I recently spent a week in Udaipur, India, and spent a lot of time in artists' workshops...I spent time drawing with them and talking to them. Even though the art is for tourists, and mostly reproduces illustrations stroke-for-stroke, some of the work is very fine and beautiful.

Read the full responses from MacLennan & Jain.
 

January 1, 2010
"One Lineage of Ice, Ravened"

Artist Kate Baird looks for the distances and differences between places through drawing and painting. She received an MFA from the University of Chicago in 2005 and currently works as a teaching artist at the Guggenheim Museum and the Kentler International Drawing Space. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter, and her work can be seen at www.katebairdart.com. (full bio).

Writer Jari Thymian's poetry has appeared in Simply Haiku, Ekphrasis, The Christian Science Monitor, The Pedestal Magazine, The Progenitor, ByLine, and in various anthologies. Her poetry has won many awards including a performance in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Words of Art. Her book, The Meaning of Barns, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2007. Jari has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. To read more of her poetry, visit www.jarithymian.com. "One Lineage of Ice, Ravened," was published in a different form in Wazee Journal.

Image: 9x12 inches, graphite and collage on paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "One Lineage of Ice, Ravened"

Bsided: Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
Jari Thymian: First, I had the definite feeling that Kate placed the ravens on the shoulders of every person. I see the shoulders, the glaciers, the ghosts of ravens. Then I saw all the colors and layers of ice. Until then, I don't think I consciously saw that I had layers of ice (numbered stanzas) in the poem.

Bsided: What inspires you in this poem?
Kate Baird: I like how it goes from short, personal episode to mythic sweep. And I worry about ice disappearing.

Read the full responses from Thymian & Baird.