Canyon Time Broadside from Talking Gourds Bardic Trails Event

Many thanks to Daiva Chesonis at Between the Covers Bookstore in Telluride, CO for creating this broadside of my poem Canyon Time.

Artist Rosie Carter provided the drawing. Rosie and I have been working together on pairing poems with her drawings around the theme of “geoligical time” for a while now. The idea started with the intention to create broadsides and has shifted to include ideas for prints with letterpress elements, maybe a small book. Being that we are both occupied with many other projects, it has been as slow as geological time in terms of ruminating, shifting, and evolving ideas and actually getting to production. I am enjoying the slow ease of it, which feels congruent with the theme. When Daiva asked for content for this broadside, I passed on something Rosie and I had been working with and I like the end result.

Regarding broadsides, I am always hesitant to engage them for poetry and continually interested in why poets use this format. Broadsides are historically a popular ephemeral format. They are single sheets of paper, printed on one side only, and are intended to have an immediate popular impact and then to be thrown away. “Historically, broadsides have been used to inform the public about current news events, publicize official proclamations and government decisions, announce and record public meetings and entertainment events, advocate political and social causes, advertise products and services, and celebrate popular literary and musical efforts.”

Enjoy this one commemorating my very satisfying evening with Bardic Trails, Talking Gourds Poetry Program, Wilkinson Library, a bunch of my family, friends, and others I couldn’t quite see.