Guerilla Poetics Project (1 Viewer)

Must have been lost in the mail.

If you see a letter carrier on the island wearing a mink coat, that's probably your culprit.
 
As i mentioned on your facebook post, while it is cool to be mentioned, it should have been #1. The lady who got #3 puts stickers of her own poetry on street poles in NYC. Not terribly effective as 99.99% of the people that see them couldn't care less about poetry. The GPP actually targeted their audience (so those that saw the cards would have interest in reading them) and were global. It took quite a lot of work (i hear, anyway) setting up a system that would distribute 60,000 broadsides subversively all over the world. Certainly a lot more work than buying a set of avery stickers and printing a few of your poems and sticking them on poles.
 
there is definitely a difference between self promotion and promoting poetry. I would say the majority of the projects listed have their heart in the right place, but a couple also have their head in the wrong place.
 
And folks have mentioned that they may not have been ranking them as much as listing them. I agree that it may be the case.

Still, anytime they list 10 items and number them, it is always best to be listed as #1.

Bill
 
The false street signs probably just confuse people. They look too official, like it's a message from the government. If know if I saw one I would suspect it was my imagination working over time.
 
My buddy gbsupbowl has been raving about these for a couple years now, finally got my lazy ass around to ordering 20. I couldn't resist after finding these lying around gbsupbowl's house in the strangest of places, when I looked at it right. If there's any chance of getting the Hosho broadsides along with any others it would be greatly appreciated, but if it's completely random, like guerrilla warfare tends to be, I'll take what I can get!
 
I know that some of the broadsides (especially early ones with small print runs) have all been distributed, so the only way to get them is to find one in a book somewhere. But there are still plenty to go around. Distribution is random for the GPP stuff, but you can PM me your address, and I'll send you some of my other broadsides.
 
I have a few left but I am more than willing to hide these broadsides again. It was fun to slip them into books as the salesclerk watched you, especially around the Beat writers section. Bukowski was often locked up in a glass case or behind the counters.
 
I have a few left also - I found them in my ever-growing stacks of books and related stuff a couple of months ago. I stuck a bunch in a Library Annex in Cambridge, MA that I'm not sure is still even functional (I've since moved away). At the time, it seemed like a great idea as it is just outside of Harvard Square. I don't know; maybe the whole book collection got sold to some old codger or book dealer who wondered what the hell these things were (if they were even noticed - not as many books get sold these days in case we haven't noticed). Maybe Harvard students don't walk 1/4 mile outside of Harvard Square anymore given what's right there. The rest were stuck in bookstores on the North Shore of Boston in Buk, Dos, Fante, Kerouac, Burroughs, etc. Many of those bookstores don't exist anymore.

I'll see if I can remember to have the broadsides in hand next time the opportunity arises. Better choices by me means more poetry for all of us, I would hope. And thanks for all the efforts for this noble cause. The world is rarely game for revolution, but when presented tastefully (as it was), albeit surreptitiously (check that box too), it's likely more easily swallowed. One would hope.
 
mjp said:
First find of 2016. Three days ago at Haifa University in Haifa, Israel, in the book, A Crowded Heart by Nicholas Papandreou.
Click to expand...
Wow, I can't believe one made it to israel, the motherland, here I am trying to be a good half ass jew, trying to connect with my heritage and ancestors with my "milk and golden honey" hand soap in the bathroom.
 
That's not the first find in Israel. There have also been finds logged from Ireland, Switzerland, England, Argentina, Denmark, Scotland, Canada, Finland, Italy, Australia, Sweden, Holland, Netherlands, South Korea, The Isle of Lewis (that's Scotland, isn't it?)...and those are only the finds people logged on the site. Those things were/are everywhere.
 
Ten years has passed since the project started, just thought I'd mention that. The first broadside, GPP01, went out in August of 2006.

The latest find was logged less than two weeks ago, on September 18th. The broadside they found (in a New Jersey community college library) was printed 9 years and 7 months ago.
 
731 broadsides have been found AND registered all over the world. I think that I printed 60,000 broadsides (all hand fed), so over 1% of all broadsides printed were registered. That is an amazingly high number. And I'm sure that all broadsides were not placed, so the percentage is probably higher.

Bill
 
What's your opinion on just placing copies of Buk's poems, one of the manuscripts, randomly, like stuffed inside a newspaper at the 7-11 or in a coffe shop "books to browse" shelf or stapled to a telephone pole?
 
Don't be so hard on yourself. Your time means something...to you.

Nah, I wouldn't really go out of my way to do it. It's just my mind wandering. Maybe I should just shell out a few bucks and enroll in the project.
 
PhillyDave said:
What's your opinion on just placing copies of Buk's poems, one of the manuscripts, randomly, like stuffed inside a newspaper at the 7-11 or in a coffe shop "books to browse" shelf or stapled to a telephone pole?
Click to expand...

As his current publisher, I'd say that is something that Ecco should do...as they stand to benefit from it most.

It begs the question though: do people still engage with the physical world like this...or has the digital world taken over? Case in point: some of the GPP broadsides bounce around Tumblr., Pinterest, Instagram, etc. -- reaching tens of thousands of eyes (albeit in a mainly transitory fashion). The tactile, lasting letterpress broadside is a thing people can keep and stick up on their wall...

But do people do it?
 

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