“Glitter Factory”

Posted on March 1, 2020 • Words by Kathleen Winter • Art by Sarah Van Sanden

Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Kathleen Winter: Sarah’s shaping of glitter into chemical formations is clever and perfect. I’m delighted that she included a handgun and a lipstick, elements from the poem. What surprised and thrilled me even more was her inclusion of a flag, not mentioned in the poem. Artist Sarah Van Sanden: I love how this poem moves so smoothly between the promise of science and capitalism and the scourge of corruption and the environmental crisis with obliqueness and wry humor. It’s slick and silly at the same time.

Poet Kathleen Winter is the author of Transformer, forthcoming in 2020 from The Word Works Press, as well as two other collections. Artist Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle, where she takes every opportunity to relish in urban nature.

Tagged: Chemicals, Class / Economics, Collage, Irony, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Math / Science, Mixed-Media, Political Critique, Work / Labor

“we who burn here below”

Posted on June 1, 2018 • Words by Jeremy Paden • Art by Sarah Van Sanden

Artist Sarah Van Sanden: I love beauty, but ugly can be pretty interesting, too. Poet Jeremy Paden: …the use of red principally on the right side gives it an off-balance that I like…though you see some hints flicker against the left column, as if saying, this structure is about to come tumbling. 

Collaborators: Sarah Van Sanden is a landscape designer and builder in Seattle. Her art training and plant lust inform her work and daily life. Poet Jeremy Paden is the author of two chapbooks: Broken Tulips (Accents Press, 2013) and ruina montium (Broadstone Books, 2016).

Tagged: Class / Economics, Drawing, Irony, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Political Critique

“Burn Barrel”

Posted on December 1, 2016 • Words by Todd Davis • Art by Sarah Van Sanden

Artist Sarah Van Sanden: Shapes were my way into the poem, but the inherently amorphous qualities of fire and smoke required that I represent them differently than the rest of the image. Poet Todd Davis: Something very simple but quite important to me: the air holes and the open space that the artist included in her representation of the burn barrel. Literally the holes in the barrel allow the fire to breathe, but those pierced openings also suggest a kind of light or illumination that the girl may be seeking in feeding the fire.

Collaborators: Poet Todd Davis is the author of five full-length collections of poetry, most recently Winterkill. Artist Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle. She has studied visual art, botany and design and makes her living designing and building landscapes.

Tagged: Childhood / Youth, Class / Economics, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Mixed-Media, Pastoral / Anti-Pastoral, Rural

“The Seeds of Aleppo”

Posted on November 17, 2015 • Words by Tiffany Higgins • Art by Sarah Van Sanden

Artist Sarah Van Sanden: The delicate airborne seed sketched on a found envelope embodies, for me, movement, transition, and possibility—a metaphor of sorts for the people fleeing unlivable circumstances in Syria. Poet Tiffany Higgins: I have sincere, ongoing questions about how to effectively represent others’ suffering. Poets I esteem such as Camille Dungy and Kyle Dargan have warned against adopting others’ voices as one’s own, and I heed that warning.

Collaborators: Artist Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle. She has studied visual art, botany and design and makes her living designing and building landscapes. Poet Tiffany Higgins is author of And Aeneas Stares into Her Helmet (Carolina Wren).

Tagged: Apocalypse, Broadsided Responds, Climate Change / Climate Crisis, Diaspora, Drawing, Ecopoetry, Ekphrastic Poetry, LGBTIQ+ Artist, LGBTIQ+ Writer, Migration, Mixed-Media, War

“A Poem by Brian McGuigan”

Posted on July 1, 2014 • Words by Kate Lebo • Art by Sarah Van Sanden

Poet Kate Lebo: I love that the roundness of the earth in the last line becomes an apple. And a wolf. Artist Sarah Van Sanden: I’m fascinated by the way battling familial influences and expectations manifest themselves as extreme duality in one person.

Collaborators: Poet Kate Lebo’s poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2011 and AGNI Online, and in 2013, Chin Music Press published her first book, A Commonplace Book of Pie, based on her best-selling zine of the same name. Artist Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle. She has studied visual art, botany, and design and makes her living designing and building landscapes.

Tagged: Digital Art, Family, Gender, Irony, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Work / Labor

2012 Haiku Year-in-Review

Posted on January 1, 2013 • Words by Sarah Martinez-Helfman, Matthew Caretti, Renee Lacroix, & Cynthia Gallaher • Art by Løchlann Jain, Cheryl Gross, & Sarah Van Sanden

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. Four artists created work in response to an event that, for them, dominated a 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.

Writer Matthew Caretti currently teaches English and directs the Writing Center at a college preparatory school in Pennsylvania. Artist Løchlann Jain is a professional anthropologist. Writer Sarah Martinez-Helfman has lived in four countries and considers herself a world citizen; her simple mission in life is to leave the world better than she found it—especially for vulnerable children. Writer Renee Lacroix is an ever-hopeful poet living in the Buffalo, NY area. Artist Cheryl Gross has an MFA in New Forms from Pratt. Writer Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet and writer, is author of three full poetry collections, two chapbooks, and has been a writing workshop leader for more than 15 years. Artist Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle, where she takes every opportunity to relish in urban nature.

Tagged: Animals, Class / Economics, HYIR, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Traditional Forms

“Dhanaivi at 16 in the South Bronx”

Posted on September 1, 2012 • Words by Dolan Morgan • Art by Sarah Van Sanden

Artist Sarah Van Sanden: Since fire in this poem reads as both a creative and a destructive force, I was really conflicted about how to represent it, but it has a huge presence that I couldn’t avoid. Writer Dolan Morgan: The light and colorful approach here brings out more of the youth of the characters than was present in my brain’s terrible rendition.

Collaborators: Writer Dolan Morgan lives and writes in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His work has been featured in The Believer, The Lifted Brow, Field, TRNSFR, apt, Cricket Online Review, Fortnight and numerous other journals. Artist Sarah Van Sanden lives in Seattle. She has studied visual art, botany, and design and makes her living designing and building landscapes.

Tagged: Childhood / Youth, Cities, Collage, Diaspora, LGBTIQ+, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Mixed-Media, Romance / Anti-Romance