POETRY BROADSIDES

Remember that first blog post, way back in September? I asked you to start thinking about a poem broadside to present at the end of the term. Well, here we are. Time to move from thinking to creating. [Also, all the actual broadsides that I brought to class to share are posted on or around my office door; come by anytime for another look.]

An on-line source for wonderful broadsides is http://guerillapoetics.org/whatisgpp/ ; be sure to click on the "Broadsides" link on the left side of their home page to see some amazing examples. A couple of my favorites (click on these photos for larger images):

Here is a great excerpt from "Poetry Broadsides:How-to and Why," from Pudding House Press (see their broadsides here http://www.puddinghouse.com/pub-guide.htm ):

What makes a poem worthy of a broadside?What makes a broadside worthy of a frame?

Message. Visual possibilities. Yes.

Name? The author’s reputation? Not important to us.

Message. It’s worthy if the message is great.

Great as in large. Especially if universal in the specific but not always.

Great as in classic quality but fresh.

Give it a door for us to walk into its room—a ready accessibility, such as has been the nature of Write, Dance, Sing, (some of my broadsides) and now many of our newest broadsides: Poetry is of Anything, The Age of Asparagus, Rain Dance, and Steve Abbott's Vespers to name a few. These have that accessibility but at the same time do not lapse into a prosy, narrative style. Not a format so much as an awareness that the piece will be, revisited.

Picture chunks of language that glimmer in the lake that is this broadside. We want always to be able to visually catch these fish time after time in their waters.

Here as much as anywhere, “make words dance together that have not danced together before.” This is my dictate for poetry, period.

If you’re going to enlarge it, hang it on a wall, it is especially so.

Pudding House is looking for poems suitable, no not “suitable” … let’s start over.

Not merely “suitable” for broadsides or posters. No no no.

We’re looking for poems to place on broadsides that will change people’s lives. That’s all.

It should work well on one large page, be visually interesting or attractive, and if you’re passing in front of it the eye should easily fall into it and remain.

The poem or language art must drive the reader to re-read,

to hover over the work for long periods of time,

to experience such emotion that the chest feels like it will explode

if you hold back any longer, or such laughter that you couldn’t possibly contain it.

Well, it should do that for a few people anyway,

and not simply the sentimental among us.The work should get better with each subsequent reading. One should never get used to the message, it should never wear out.

It must offer that and more. It has to work on your mind and body like a million dollar masseuse.

This poem does not merely be, but mean.I most appreciate broadsides that call us to action, that drive us to gratitude, or that change our minds or the direction we were headed. It should stop traffic, create controversy. Nearly everyone who passes it should scratch their heads or doubt or want to sign up for something they never wanted to sign up for before. People must NEED to own it.

Poet Dorianne Laux (her website is http://www.doriannelaux.com/) teaches poetry at North Carolina State University.

[BREAKING NEWS! New post by Dorianne Laux about her experiences with student broadside assignments, with more examples and some great commentary! See http://pionline.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/the-art-of-the-student-broadside-a-photo-documentary-by-dorianne-laux/ ]

She's been posting broadsides by her students, and I'm including a few here to give you ideas/incentives. As a broadside creator, your interpretation of the poem involved is key to the final look and feel of the broadside: you want to do the poem right. Laux's class produced some classic broadsides (those on paper with visual or graphic designs accompanying the text), as well as more innovated (using texture, 3-dimensional objects, or giving the poem a concrete context, like putting the Li-Young Lee's poem "Peaches" on a roadside fruitstand crate), are shown. Another example from Laux's class is a "video broadside" of Arthur Millar's "Names I'd Forgotten" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CndKke7ZAcE .
You may choose to do your broadside on one of your annotated poems, or you may choose a completely different poem. The key is to show your interpretation of a poem in a visual, textual way; let us know how you see that poem, how you see the work of the poem or the message of the poem.

Have fun! This is due the last day of class, during our poetry reading.