“The Trees in My Chest”

Posted on April 1, 2020 • Words by Philip Metres • Art by Sara Tabbert

Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Sara Tabbert: I was working on this piece as I saw the poem, and as I continued to work they became entangled. I kept seeing the ribcage or chest in my tree, a kind of restricted, grasping form which seemed to reflect the wordplay in the poem. Poet Philip Metres: …Sara picked up on the bleakness of the poem, which is really about the purgatorial experience of darkening days, midlife, asthma, and the distance of God. It almost looks like a tree whose branches are growing inward rather than outward, retreating from the world.

Poet Philip Metres is the author of ten books, most recently Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon 2020). He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. Artist Sara Tabbert works with carved wood, both as prints and as relief panels. Her studio is in her hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska, where she works full time as an artist.

Tagged: Dream, Existential Crisis, Fear, Mourning, Religion / Spirituality, Woodcut

“Late Summer Rabbit Hunting”

Posted on January 1, 2019 • Words by Stephen Scott Whitaker • Art by Sara Tabbert

Collaborators’ Q&A: Stephen Scott Whitaker: A lot of my recent work is sound-centered, inspired by snatches of hums or whistled tunes heard as a child, a grandfather’s mumblings, or a choral abstraction of syllables. Artist Sara Tabbert: I know the goal of Broadsided for the artist is not to be directly illustrative, but in this case I couldn’t shake the image of the rabbit’s start, that realization on the part of the game that something is happening.

Poet Stephen Scott Whitaker (@SScottWhitaker) is a member of National Book Critics Circle, managing editor for The Broadkill Review, and the author of three chapbooks. Artist Sara Tabbert works with carved wood, both as prints and as relief panels. Her studio is in her hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Tagged: Animals, Black & White, Childhood / Youth, Ecopoetry, Existential Crisis, Food / Meals, Gratitude, LGBTIQ+ Artist, Pastoral / Anti-Pastoral, Rural, Seasonality, Woodcut

“River Jubilee”

Posted on October 1, 2017 • Words by Chanda Feldman • Art by Sara Tabbert

Artist Sara Tabbert:  I have rarely been taken so directly by a poem to a personal experience. When I read it, I was back a few years ago biking the Natchez Trace Parkway, at the reservoir just outside of Jackson, Mississippi… Poet Chanda Feldman:…The visual art extends the poem by focusing on the woods as a kind of rising and closing curtain on the action of gathering up the fish.

Collaborators: Poet Chanda Feldman is the author of Approaching the Fields, forthcoming from LSU Press in 2018. Artist Sara Tabbert works with carved wood, both as prints and as relief panels.

Tagged: Ecopoetry, Family, Gratitude, Pastoral / Anti-Pastoral, Rural, Solace, Woodcut, Work / Labor