The Talking Gourd / 14feb26013 / Mary's Chapel Yurt

Clumped snow on canvas

makes a full luxurious slide

behind & above me

like a zipper’s sweet tug

resistance, sparking

fricatives of liquid ice

until teased over the

precipitous edge’s leap…

Slipped silk, cut short

Up Bear Creek / 14feb26013 / Hope for the Elephants

Jo Norris at the 2005 Shroomfest parade

Trout Lake homeowner Jo Norris of long-time Shroomfest and Arizona’s Rim Institute fame will be special guest facilitator for a learning journey to Kenya with the Foundation for Global Leadership, entitled “Hope for the Elephants,” Aug. 23-30, 2013.

The trip will feature visiting with traditional Masai people and witnessing elephants and their threatened habitat first-hand, along with the amazing wildebeest migration.

At 80, Jo is an elder, wisdom keeper, leader of ceremony and an expert in facilitating groups to connect the depth of the journey experience to the deeper aspects of one’s soul. Jo has spent her life focused on healing the planet and humanity.

For more info on this experiential adventure, contact Jo directly at <cjnorris@cox.net>

Up Bear Creek / 14feb20613 / Taking a Winter Poetry Tour

In rural communities, we all wear lots of hats. One of my many, in addition to public servant (or politician, if you don’t particularly like my service), potato farmer and basketweaver, is as Poet Laureate of the Western Slope (a title that I will relinquish at the end of March when a new Laureate is named at the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival in Carbondale). This last weekend I got to wear the poet beret a lot, with a Green Party nod to my role as rural elected official … Thanks to my lax attention to many things in the wake of Mary’s leaving, I double-booked a student lecture in Boulder last Thursday in the afternoon, together with a poetry reading later that night in Colorado Springs with Wendy Videlock of Grand Junction. Which meant the Wends and I had just enough time to make it to the venue, while negotiating rush hour traffic on I-25 – always dicey … 

Dr. Patricia Limerick

It all worked out. We got to Boulder’s Center of the American West in time to lecture in Dr. Patricia Limerick’s history class on New West/Old West settler conflicts (cell tower, gun control, uranium mill) … Then we rushed to the Springs, making it just in time for a well-attended, paid Visiting Writers gig at Colorado College’s Palmer Hall. The most gracious Colorado Poet Laureate David Mason invited Wendy and I, and he hosted us for a lovely after-the-show dinner at Jake and Telly’s Greek Taverna. The Numæan wine was superb, and the table talk exquisite … Friday morning we spoke at Dr. Genevieve Love’s Colorado College poetry class … 

David Mason at Karen Chamberlain Fest

Although not before we’d made an en route impulse stop at Montague’s Parlour on Tejon St. (easily one of the best coffeehouses in the state). A coffee break that stretched into deeply absorbed thoughts, and we were promptly late for class … Love had done amazing prep. The kids had read selections of our work and written up questions. It was great fun sharing our thoughts, the two of us, Wendy sitting in a chair, speaking softly like the Sibyl of Cumae, and old Paleohippie pacing and pontificated like a mad beatnik bard … Wends and I next repaired to Wooglin’s Deli for an outdoor madcap chat & chew with Dave and his new wife, the amazing Cally Conan-Davies – a wildly wonderful Aussie poet herself … They both will be appearing this Friday, Feb. 15^th at 7 p.m. at the Cortez Public Library – a reading I’m planning on attending … And then the adventure took us to Salida, where Barbara Ford and Laurie James sponsored Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer , Danny Rosen, Wends and me as “Birds of a Feather” for a lovely performance that drew a good-sized crowd and lots of friends – a nod to the sorely missed Sparrows Poetry Festival of years past, a Salida institution now defunct … 

Wendy Videlock in action

Former Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick attended, along with Denver’s Kit Hedman, Crestone’s Peter Anderson, former Tellurider Doann Houghton of Nathrop and the usual Salida crew of Craig Nielson, Lawson Eddy, Lynda La Rocca, Felice and some impressive new voices (an open reading preceded the show, and three special guests came after) … By the time Wendy and I made it back to Montrose, and headed in opposite directions, I was driving into a blizzard, Dallas Divide blowing horizontal, the tarmac snow-packed and dangerous.

 

The Talking Gourd / 7feb26013 / XLVII

Off to watch the Niner-Raven matchup

Ulama on the big screen. A spectacle

Coliseum style. Live video clash

of East Coast versus West Coast

Old Word European versus

New World Post-Mayan

Oglesby’s Cowboys versus Yankees

The Illuminati versus Anonymous

Taking a silly macho entertainment

break from the daily diet of disasters

Rooting for gladiator proxies

after skirmish within battle after war

where the winner takes all

& the rest are liars & terrorists

Like all the faithful -- sometimes winning

& sometimes learning how to lose

Ulama players

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Producer Responsibility Organizations

Baled aluminum block at a PRO facility

We used to call them recycling centers. But eleven European packaging waste management groups -- ”Producer Responsibility Organisations” -- have issued a manifesto on Extended Producer Responsibility for how best to manage waste with the packaging industry and the public … 1) EPR organizations should be owned by the obliged companies and run on a not for profit basis … 2) There needs to be strong governmental support and monitoring … 3) There are many advantages of having one rather than multiple organizations in each country [that’s for the European Union, in U.S. substitute “state”] … 4) The EPR organization needs to be set up in a way that ensures sustainable financing … 5) The EPR organization should contribute to packaging optimization and waste prevention … The eleven organizations have announced that a new association will be launched in spring 2013 in Brussels to carry out the EPR principles outlined in the manifesto ... Imagine if we could get producers to take responsibility for their packaging in this country and help support the recycling of the waste stream they create in order to sell their products.

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Gun Control hearing in Norwood

NOT EXACTLY VIRAL 

The San Miguel Board of County Commissioner gun control hearing in January was surreptitiously filmed via cell phone by Norwood Post editor Patrick Coleman who’s posted the meeting on YouTube.

After listening to our Norwood constituents and Telluride's Mayor Stu Fraser, I thought this contentious an issue deserved another hearing up in Telluride, or no county letter at all. My colleagues didn’t agree. To me the letter went too far. As written, I voted against it.

I believe a large percentage of this county believes the recent Sandy Hook tragedy demands some form of gun control action. And I would have supported a call from San Miguel County for mandatory background checks for all gun sales, retail or private. That seems like a prudent and reasonable regulatory change.

But, beyond that, I think gun control is a very polarizing issue in the West, where gun ownership has been traditional and customary. I’ve been having some very interesting discussions with folks from both sides of this debate on Facebook, and I’ve learned a lot.

I just wish we as a nation, as fellow citizens would seek better compromises on tough issues like this, rather than simply pitting advocates against opponents

Check out the crude video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voXVSrEPx6k

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Obit for the Mountain Gazette

As poetry editor and contributor for this gonzo extreme sports version of glossy newsstand Outside, I loved what M. John Fayhee was doing heading up this irreverent but insightful magazine. It’s sad that the financial folks have pulled the plug and we lose another wonderful regional print publication

Adieu, hard copy MG, at least for now (if or until someone else comes to the rescue and resuscitates this valuable organ of mountain communication).

According to the Facebook site, they're looking to figure out this hiccup, and are continuing an on-line version 

http://www.mountaingazette.com/blogs/to-the-loyal-members-of-the-mountain-gazette-tribe/#comment-7198