En Route to Bangladesh, Another Crisis of Faith

A broadside with a decorative copper-colored border on the left side and the text of a poem printed in blue.

A quick glance at this 10-inch by 12 ½-inch broadside of Tafia Faizullah’s poem might lead you to think it’s an elegant but straightforward presentation, a poem beside a striking decorative border. Read the poem, and you find that every detail has meaning: the poet describes being immersed in the intensity of “everything—blue on blue on blue,” and the robin’s egg blue paper and blue ink for the text says the same. A closer look at the intricate border reveals that what at first appeared to be lines is actually the word “seam” repeated again and again in copper ink, a manifestation of the “seam of light left always on the airplane ceiling.” Every detail sings on this exquisite broadside designed by Jehanne Dubrow.

Tarfia Faizullah. “En Route to Bangladesh, Another Crisis of Faith.” Chesterton: Rose O’Neill Literary House Press, 2014.