You Whom I Seek: Peter Koch (Broadside Print)

What is a Broadside Print?

For centuries now, broadsides have been one of the most popular printed formats and disseminators of information in European and American culture. Printed on single, one-sided sheets of paper, broadsides were used to inform the public about current events and public decrees, publicize official proclamations and government decisions, announce public meetings, advocate political and social causes, advertise commercial and private products and services, and celebrate popular literary and musical efforts. Widely distributed and designed to have an immediate impact on the observer, the often richly illustrated broadsides were posted on buildings or handed out to the general population.

Printed by Peter Koch with Hormone Derange Editions, 1996.

Poem by Peter Koch, Engraving by Dirk Lee.

Size: 8"x23"

Text Reads:

"Here in transparent arms I seek the touch of milk, the taste of buttocks and the free union of women telling lies. Here in soapstone windows I carve blue mosse into antelope escaping the guns of Thanksgiving to bring you gifts of shell and small secrets. Here in the belly of the wind a mother suckles a daughter who will shake osprey from the grey boredom of corridors and the altars of the holy telling lies. You whom I seek will lead a circus of cougars to the desk-tops of the city, dance a blast of hummingbirds down the aisles of commerce whispering undiscovered cities and small secrets. Here where our bodies conjunct in asphalt confusions, you will burn a fuse of laughter tearing fire from balconies of ice. Here where our bodies collect growing older. You whom I seek will not settle for less."