Numb With Grief From My Mother’s Sudden Death, I Write This Poem About Bottlegourds For A Handsome Farmer

About the Broadside

This broadside was designed and printed by Center for Book Arts Administrative Assistant and artist Allison Carter-Beaulé for CBA’s 25th Anniversary Chapbook Competition Runner-Up Benjamin Aleshire in 2021.

CBA’s Annual Chapbook Competition is an open call for poets to submit manuscripts. Submissions are reviewed blindly by a Guest Judge who selects one winner and two runners-up. As part of the awards package, CBA publishes respective limited-edition chapbooks for the Guest Judge and Competition Winner as well as respective limited-edition broadsides for the runners-up.

Aleshire was selected as 2021 Competition Runner-Up by Guest Judge Simone White.

Carter-Beaulé’s broadside design for Aleshire’s poem, Numb With Grief From My Mother’s Sudden Death, I Write This Poem About Bottlegourds For A Handsome Farmer, was inspired by Pamela Colman Smith’s 1909 Eight of Cups illustration in the Waite-Smith Tarot.

In addition to Carter-Beaulé’s broadside for Aleshire, CBA published a limited-edition chapbook for the 2021 Competition Winner, Bianca Rae Messinger, that was designed and produced by artist Yuchen Chang. CBA also published a limited-edition chapbook for White that was designed and produced by 2020-2021 Book Artist-in-Residence Alva Mooses. And lastly, Aleshire’s fellow 2021 Competition Runner-Up, Dujie Tahat, had his poem published as a limited-edition broadside designed and produced by CBA 2020-2021 Book Artist-in-Residence, Oswaldo García.

Colophon

Designed and printed by Allison Carter-Beaulé in honor of the poet’s reading. Center for Book Arts, December 9, 2021. In homage to Pamela Coleman Smith’s Waite-Smith Tarot illustrations, first printed 1909 by William Rider & Son.