Collaborators’ Q&A:Artist Caleb Brown: This poem hit me hard because I have been the narrator. As my sons grew up, I’ve mulled over responding to the simple tragedy of trying to excel in parenting and work simultaneously. Poet John Paul Davis: I think when I wrote the poem I imagined this is what the parent says giving the office tour, but now I see it can also be read as an argument against bringing the child at all.
Artist Caleb Brown paints and makes comic art and used to work on software experiences. He lives in Massachusetts. John Paul Davis is a poet, musician and programmer. His first book is Crown Prince Of Rabbits.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Caleb Brown: It’s a bright poem, it has sun, grit, and an evocative sense of place. I also get the feeling the protagonist crosses this desert or Deseret unscathed. I was drawn to her resolve in the face of all the bad advice and portents. Poet Jennifer Martelli: I love the colors that Caleb chose—these deep red (but not pure red) tones, the oranges—it felt burnt, organic, baked and I loved that.
PoetJennifer Martelli’s chapbook, Apostrophe, was published in 2011 by Big Table Publishing Company. She is the recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry and a Pushcart Prize nominee. ArtistCaleb Brown, a storydrawer, lives in north west central Massachusetts with his wife, twin boys and a big black dog named Pickles.
NOTE: Inspired by Carrier’s Addresses and a deep commitment to public art, the HYIR is a special feature that debuted at Broadsided in 2010. Artist Caleb Brown created work in response to events that, for him, dominated each season of the past year. We placed an open call for submissions of haiku that did the same. The art and the poems selected as finalists were posted online, and we asked you to vote on the winning combinations.
ArtistCaleb Brown, a storydrawer, lives in northwest central Massachusetts with his wife, twin boys and a big black dog named Pickles. Writer Beth Feldman Brandt is the author of SAGE and her poems are featured as part of the upcoming exhibition, Bartram Boxes Remix, at the Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia. Writer Michael Rutledge Riley is a Writing teacher sometimes, sometimes a writing teacher, and has spent the last fifteen years re-taking Eighth grade. Writer Catherine R. Cryan is a writer, farmer, and educator living in Rhode Island. She also sometimes works as a greenhouse manager and college sports statistician. Writer Ron Levitsky is a retired social studies teacher who lives in northern Illinois.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Caleb Brown: The poem very quickly triggered memories of being an “untended” boy, burning words into logs with a magnifying glass pilfered from my classroom’s science area. I wanted to work on this one as soon as I read it because (selfishly) I just wanted to visit those memories again. Poet Camille Dungy: I love the way the hillside grows out of the boy’s back. It’s true that I think of us as children who grow out of the land, but this imagination has that reversed. The land grows out of the child.
Poet Camille Dungy is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Smith Blue, and the editor of the anthology Black Nature. She teaches at Colorado State University. Artist Caleb Brown, a storydrawer, lives in north west central Massachusetts with his wife, twin boys and a big black dog named Pickles.
NOTE: Inspired by Carrier’s Addresses and a deep commitment to public art, the HYIR is a special feature that debuted last year at Broadsided. Four artists created work in response to an event that for them dominated a season of 2011. We placed an open call for submissions of haiku that did the same. The art and the poems selected as finalists were posted online, and we asked you to vote on the winning combinations.
Poet Peter Kline’s recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He lives in San Francisco. Artist Kara Searcy is a multi-media artist from Iowa. She loves constellations, Jesus, and the word “ricochet.” Poet Steve Brightman lives in Kent, Ohio. His poems have been featured in Pudding House, Origami Condom, and A Trunk of Delirium. Artist Caleb Brown is an artist who works on software interfaces. He lives in Groton, MA with his wife, puppy and two tween twins. Artist Jennifer Moses is a painter living in Boston. She is also a professor of art at the University of New Hampshire. Poet Jen Jabaily-Blackburn is a recent graduate of the MFA at the University of Arkansas. A native of the Boston area, she lives in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts with her husband and their elderly hound. Artist Kevin Morrow is a native of Wisconsin who received his MFA degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand where he studied in the Contemporary Maori Department (Te Toi Hou). Morrow now lives and works in New York.
NOTE: Inspired by Carrier’s Addresses and a deep commitment to public art, the HYIR is a special feature that debuted this year at Broadsided. Four artists created work in response to an event that for them dominated a season of 2010. We placed an open call for submissions of haiku that did the same. The art and the poems selected as finalists were posted online, and we asked you to vote on the winning combinations.
Poet Anastassia Cafatti Mac-Niven is a 12-year-old girl from Chile, and a sixth grader at the International School Nido De Aguilas. Caleb Brown is an artist. He works on software interfaces and reads and walks and is going to make graphic novels someday. Poet Andy Young is the co-editor of Meena, a bilingual Arabic-English literary journal. Artist Cheryl Gross writes: “When asked about my work, I always equate it with creating an environment transforming my inner thoughts into reality.” Poet Marsh Muirhead lives on the Mississippi River near Bemidji, Minnesota. Artist Kate Baird looks for the distances and differences between places through drawing and painting. Writer Sam Ferrigno writes: “I’m 22-year-old student at the University of Connecticut studying journalism and English. I took my first creative writing class in the Fall of 2009 just as something fun to do.” Artist Jennifer Moses is a painter living in Boston.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Caleb Brown: This poem just grabbed me right away, or I felt myself grabbing toward it. It has a blank, bright all-over illumination like a winter day with wan sun, and there’s a lot of space around. The quiet and solitude in between the words is something I appreciate, and the solemnity and sadness of the story I see in myself. Poet Stacie Cassarino: yes, i’ve written poems that were in some way a direct response to visual art; i’ve turned to visual art that in some way articulated an idea i was working towards in words; i’ve collaborated in “dialogues” of images & words exchanged cyclically with visual artists. i’ve always loved the experience for how it’s pushed me to develop words into images & images into words.
Poet 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 is currently a candidate for the Ph.D. at UCLA. Artist Caleb Brown: Besides painting, Caleb likes going to the town dump and taking nature walks
Collaborators’ Q&A: What surprised you about this experience? Poet Leslie Chang: Collaboration in this case meant offering up my poem to the artist and surrendering the exact images I had in mind when making it. I was surprised by how close the details in Caleb’s piece are to what I imagined. But more fantastic, which is good. I am enamored of the blue horse.
Poet Leslie Chang‘s work appears in Crab Orchard Review, The Iowa Review, Agni, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Grolier Poetry Prize and was awarded the Alan Collins scholarship to the 2006 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She lives in New York City. Artist Caleb Brown: Besides painting, Caleb likes going to the town dump and taking nature walks.
PoetRobert Wrigley is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems (Penguin, 2006). Wrigley’s awards and honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Idaho State Commission on the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is the Director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Idaho. “Mouth” was first published in Poetry.
ArtistCaleb Brown: Besides painting, Caleb likes going to the town dump and taking nature walks.
