Research: Lewis & Clark’s Digitized Poetry Broadside Collections

Objects, Research

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This morning I found the Poetry Broadside Collections in the Lewis & Clark Digital Collections. These digitized broadsides include “twentieth century poetry broadsides, most by William Stafford, but some of Stafford’s peers like Robert Bly, Charles Simic, and Primus St. John.” This digital collection provides me with a precedent for my own digitization project, as I have yet to find another poetry broadside collection available online. This collection displays all the broadsides on a single page with only the name of the poem and, when available, the date it was published. There’s no information about the printers, publishers, or the occasion for printing. My hope is to include that information on my digitized broadsides as well as display them in a gallery format. The Lewis & Clark scans often maintain the edges of the broadsides, something I feel is important, as those edges give one a sense of depth, size, and texture of the paper. This is a great little digital collection with some wonderful examples of broadsides with text and illustrations.