Welcome to Broadsided Press

By Jen Garfield

Here’s how it all came together: A native of Tacoma, Washington, Elizabeth Bradfield had a hard time getting her hands on a literary journal during her stints as an MFA poetry student and as a naturalist in Alaska. A few years prior, she had a residency at the Vermont Art Studio Center, where she was surrounded by the “creative hum of writers and poets working side by side.” Previous to that, she worked for one of the initial online parenting communities back in 1994, when people were just starting to discover the potential for virtual connections. Fast forward to Anchorage, where Bradfield began to sense something was missing amidst the physical beauty of the natural world, the barrage of billboard advertisements, and the absence of political conversations between the university and its neighbors. As the pieces fell into place, Bradfield began envisioning an innovative community to put poetry on the streets around the world. Finally, in 2005, she introduced the world to a cutting-edge, politically-charged, global yet grassroots virtual community. Welcome to Broadsided Press.

But first, a history lesson in American broadsides. In the early 1800s, before the Civil War, small printing presses produced one-sided sheets of paper called broadsides to promote events, literature, song lyrics and music. These single sheets were instrumental in advocating women’s rights and in other political movements of the time. As the publishing industry evolved, the labor-intensive, expensive broadsides were generally phased out, occasionally re-emerging as Harlem Renaissance, Concrete and Beat writers used this “under-the-radar” method to distribute their words. In today’s throw-away world of blogs, emails and mass-production, the nostalgia of broadsides holds a special appeal to many writers, editors and collectors—including Bradfield.

“For me, the tradition of the broadsides with their generous and seductive fine-printed lettering is so powerful,” an upbeat, passionate Bradfield said in a recent phone conversation. “I wanted to combine this beautiful old form with this new, democratic way of getting things out there online.”

And so, Bradfield founded Broadsided Press, an all-volunteer online community of artists, poets and “vectors.” Each month, Bradfield and co-editor Mark Temelko select a poem for publication, preferably one that’s short and has visceral appeal. Then they email it out to a devoted pool of artists who vie for the chance to visually interpret the piece, the collaboration is posted online as an 8 1/2” x11” broadside, where “vectors” around the world can download and print as many as they choose to post in public spaces. Anyone can sign up to be a vector, and at last count there were volunteers in 40 states and six countries, including Germany and Romania.

“It’s always our goal to try to do something that might appeal to other people, to readers who don’t know us personally,” says Joy Anne Icayan, a poet living in the Philippines whose poem “The Prosthetic,” about a prosthetic limb, appeared in February. ”I guess that’s what broadsided does; it encourages the community to be involved (even when they don’t expect it).”

Similar to political movements like MoveOn.org that build virtual communities across boundaries, Bradfield’s home base is online, yet the real draw is that it still requires a local, grassroots effort.

“In some ways, it’s a marriage of the visceral and the cerebral,” Bradfield said. “That’s not to say that online communities don’t involve people intensely, since I think there’s something exciting about knowing you are not isolated in a community or movement. At the same time, you step out the door, and then what happens? As a naturalist, I know how important it is to have the same connections in the physical world as you can online.”

Bradfield hopes that the public broadsides “introduce a new path for the brain” as the reader interprets the poem based on their own experience, especially toward broadsides that address the current political culture. She says it’s refreshing to be waiting for the bus or a cup of coffee and read something that’s not trying to improve your waistline or seduce you into consumerism.

Elizabeth Terhune, a Manhattan artist who collaborated with Icayan for “The Prosthetic,” said she sees the content of the poem as a way to cross both personal and political boundaries.

“[The Prosthetic] poem ostensibly deals with the loss of a limb,” she said. “We are living in a time of war, a very brutal and mutilating war for both soldiers and civilians. We are also witness to Darfur and other places experiencing extreme brutality. I have a dear friend who lost part of one leg as a child. As I make an image, I grapple with being responsive to people who are living with this reality.”

Terhune also feels a sense of community, albeit a cyber one, with the other Broadsided artists and poets. But it’s not only the poets and artists who are responsible for creating this world. As a vector myself, I feel a part of a greater movement that is altering the way we access poetry and art. And the best part is that anyone can become a vector and start posting broadsides in the subway or bathroom stalls at work. Anyone can become a part of the movement.

Check out Broadsided’s latest installations on the first of the month, submit your work or become a vector at www.broadsidedpress.org.

Read Jen Garfield’s review of Elizabeth Bradfield’s debut poetry collection “Interpretive Work” at http://www.bookslut.com/poetry/2008_02_012390.php.

Jen Garfield was born in a suburb of Chicago and received a bachelor's degree in creative writing from The University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her poems have appeared in Karamu, The Wisconsin Academy Review of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Spout, Innisfree Online Journal, Artisan and Poetry Midwest. She has received awards from the George B. Hill poetry prize, The Illinois State Poetry Society, and The League of Minnesota Poets. Most recently, she was the recipient of a 2007 Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. When not working for the University of Massachussetts- Boston Creative Writing MFA program, Jen obsesses over her growing collection of poems about artichokes.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com