Broadsided: Poetry, Prose, & Art on the Streets as Modern Broadsides

Broadsides poetry broadsided press art literature grassroots vectors

• ON THE STREETS in Memphis, TN, a Vector takes her Broadsided with coffee and news:

Send your pics to us at broadsided@gmail.com. We'll post them!

• NEW VECTORS in St. Paul, Minnesota; Niles, Michigan, and beyond. See the full map.

Monthly updates via
email or feed

Think of it as web-enhanced grassroots guerilla art.

On the first of every month, a new literary/visual collaboration will be posted here for you to download. Free.

We hope you'll be inspired to print it and post it in your local haunts—coffee shops, libraries, office doors, telephone poles, etc. That will make you a Vector.

Vectors are posting Broadsided around the world.

Our goal is to create something both gorgeous and cheap.

We want to put literature and art on the streets.

Tell your local paper or radio station about Broadsided — you are the story. You're a local person who is participating in an international experiment:

• About Broadsided
• About the Editors & Artists
• September 2010 Press Release
• Sample Cover Letter

Let us know what happens!

Extirpation
Poem by Keith Ekiss
Art by Douglas Culhane
Broadsided September 1, 2010

Download the Broadsided file
to print & post
(384kb PDF file)

Collaborators' Q&A:

Bsided: Anything else?
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 more from Keith and Douglas

Meet The Collaborators:

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.

I plan on using Broadsided in the classroom again this term, where students will work in groups to think about where to share Broadsided and why. I've found it is a great way to open a discussion about why literature is important in our daily lives. And the students are really into it.
—Brandi, Indiana

Read more and tell us what you think of Broadisded or about your Vectorizing adventures.

We love the Switcheroo so much, we have dreamed up a new writing contest that will allow us to bring together four writers and four visual artists. Come back in late September for details and guidelines for the Haiku Year-in-Review.

8/1/10:
Rosary Catholic Church

poem by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
art by Alesia Norling
(get it - 844kb pdf)

7/1/10:
Replying to SubPrefect Zhang

poem by Wang Wei
translation by Dawn McGuire
art by Yuko Adachi
(get it - 476kb pdf)

6/1/10:
At the Christmas Party for the Infectious Diseases

poem by Christina Olson
art by Lisa Sette
(get it - 434kb pdf)

5/1/10:
Composition 101

poem by Nicelle Davis
art by Cheryl Gross
(get it - 556kb pdf)