Note: This collaboration is part of our “Signs of Life: Artists and Writers Respond to AI” special folio (click to see them all!). The original call for submissions is here. We asked four artists to provide images from their notebooks–that deeply human dream-draft-drift space. We then provided four prompts. This writer responded to prompt #4: “Dear Life Form” The Golden Record was sent into space on the NASA Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. Launched in 1977, it …
Alicia Rebecca Myers’s poetry has appeared in publications that include River Styx, Sixth Finch, Raleigh Review, and Frozen Sea. Sculptor Kevin P Morrow received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee in 2003. Soon thereafter, he received his MFA from the University of Auckland, New Zealand where he studied Indigenous Pacific Art in the Contemporary Māori Department (Te Toi Hou).
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Rebecca Myers: I am working on a second full length manuscipt of prose poems that are meditations taking place in a dog park. Dear Dog will most likely be the title of that manuscript. Artist Kevin Morrow: I began with the poem itself and a blank sheet of paper and pencil… That is what helped me build the conceptual framework of the arrangements of forms within the composition.
Collaborators’ Q&A What inspired you to bring your work to Broadsided? Poet xochi quetzali cartland: The easiest answer is that I really love visual art. My sister is a tattoo artist and a muralist, and I grew up in the DC Metro Area with my parents dragging us to the Smithsonian every week. I didn’t understand what a huge privilege it was to grow up in a place where visual art is public, free, and …
Collaborators’ Q&A: What drew you to create a visual response to this poem, in particular? Artist Kevin Morrow: I was taken with Tomas’ poem because of the existence of two points of view taken within the same work, around the same subject; two perspectives of thought, two places to be standing when considering one thing. How did this poem come to be? Poet Tomas Nieto: This poem centers on a lie I told my late grandma way back when. She was always the hardest to fool. Maybe, in this instance, I was trying to fool myself.
Artist Kevin P. Morrow received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2003. Soon thereafter, he received his MFA degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand where he studied in the Contemporary Māori Department (Te Toi Hou). Tomas Nieto is a writer and educator from San Diego, California. He has received support from Tin House, Las Dos Brujas, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and VONA/Voices.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Gabby Bates: There are so many surreal images in the poem, I had no idea which one the artist would be most inspired by… [Kevin’s] work doesn’t simply represent the poem; it revolutionizes it. Designer Sarah Van Sanden: I wanted to give a sense of the text and the image interacting, playing up what I perceive as an interesting dissonance, even tension between the two. Artist Kevin Morrow: I just wanted to represent the face of the person whom this ‘speech’ was directed to. Bound by worry and not focusing on other things; more pleasing things.
Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Poet Gabby Bates currently studies creative writing at Auburn University, where she is an undergraduate research fellow and managing editor for The Circle literary magazine. Artist Kevin Morrow is a native of Wisconsin who received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2003. Designer Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle, where she takes every opportunity to relish in urban nature. She has studied visual art, botany and design and makes her living designing and building landscapes.
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.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Lisa Oritz: I assumed it would be a somber piece, but I like how non-literal it is. The abstract sculptures are photographed in matter-of-fact way that I find surprising and interesting. They are not sentimental images, and I appreciate that. Artist Kevin Morrow: What inspires me in this poem is its mystery, and coolness. I immediately felt objects were needed rather than image.
Poet Lisa Oritz has had poems appear in Zyzzyva, The Literary Review, Crab Creek Review and Comstock Review and have been featured on Verse Daily. Artist Kevin Morrow is a native of Wisconsin who received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2003.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Mason Schoen: …In my opinion, successful poetry or prose leaves a reader feeling stranded and tethered at the same time.
ArtistKevin Morrow is a native of Wisconsin who received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2003. Soon thereafter, he received his MFA degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand where he studied in the Contemporary Maori Department (Te Toi Hou). Poet Mason Schoen is from San Jose, California. His short fiction has been printed in various local publications.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Dorianne Laux: … Kevin Morrow also captures that heavy lightness with his stark black and white and the laughing woman standing on the unraveling spool of what? Bandage dressing? Package strapping? Weather stripping? All have certain metaphorical qualities given the narrative of a woman who has lost her grip on language. Artist Kevin Morrow: …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… The flurry of personal emotions mixed with the professionalism of getting my job done is still something that I have not been able to figure out…
Poet Dorianne Laux’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon, is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award. 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).
Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Kevin Morrow: This drawing, like so much of my work, focuses on the simple complexity of nature. I feel that it is obvious enough to say I am interested in the simple yet complex aesthetic of tree rings and patterns. Poet Pamela Johnson Parker: I had begun and discarded a much longer piece related to modern literature and its classical roots; a poem about Joyce’s Ulysses was part of this. When I saw Kevin’s gorgeous work, it reminded me of the history that a tree tells through its rings.
Artist Kevin Morrow is a native of Wisconsin who received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2003. Poet Pamela Johnson Parker is a certified medical language specialist and adjunct instructor of creative writing at Murray State University.
Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Kevin Morrow: I “dibsed” this poem by Jericho Brown because of its simplistic complexity. Something which is so simple is always so “open” and enduring. It opens in all of us the uncanny human ability to think, know, interpret, understand, and formulate philosophies. Poet Jericho Brown: Something about the image(s)—maybe the way the knotholes and growth rings resemble eyes, birds, and/or birds’ eyes—makes it much more clear how much land and landscape is viewed in a poem so short.
Poet Jericho Brown worked as speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. Artist Kevin Morrow is a native of Wisconsin who received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2003.
