Pandora's Amphora #5

 

Claudia Putnam reads at the Tavern in Ouray

POETRY AT THE TAVERN ... This community literary series presented by the Wright Opera House hosted poet Claudia Putnam of the North Fork Valley Feb. 2nd in the ornate basement drinking establishment below Ouray’s historic opera landmark. Claudia read a number of moving poems from her award-winning first book, The Land of Stone and River (Moon City Press, Missouri State University, 2022), many of them set in the hills above Boulder where she once lived .... “It’s not often you see a crow this low in our canyon / He was willing to alight on a shoulder or arm. The heads of passing drivers would turn / Our neighbor gardened stooped over, the black crow pacing her back” – from “Black Bird” ... “Running the Highline, a fleeting thought of the threat of lions, turn my head to see the dogs chasing one, tail stretched out long, a comet through my heart / [A]ll those years running through woods, sensing but not seeing” –from “Flushed” ... “We women know the stir of sunlight on bare skin. Argent kiss of the stars sliding along arms / out there alone in the land of stone and river” -from “Starfuckers” ... Although she didn’t read this next piece at the Tavern, I was lucky to hear it in the Orvis pool where she practiced before the reading: “Crestone conglomerate emerges from several rock cycles sedimentary basins tilted into massifs recycled into new troughs, precipitated, cemented into more hard rock / unique as it does not break as other comglomerates do / have been sitting on the glacial outwash thumbing their noses at erosion / Mountains of the White Light they are said to have once been called” – from “As the Wind Comes Among Us” ... Her work takes us out into the natural world where she walks, alert, in awe and wonder. No stranger to tragedy, Claudia’s eye can be fierce, honest, curious, and unblinking as well as gracious. She holds us in her gaze, embraces this mysterious world in all itki’s human as well as more-than-human delight and random terror. A powerful reading.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE ... Split Lip Press of Nebraska awarded this extended essay of Claudia’s their creative non-fiction award last year, not because itki’s an easy read. Itki isn’t. A book about death never is. That’s a subject we, as rambunctious Americans, tend to avoid. And when we have to face a passing, our own, or with our loved ones, itki gets done quickly, quietly and then those remaining try to push that loss to the back of their all too busy lives once the mourning is over ... Double Negative turns that narrative on itki’s head. This is one long reflection on death, the tragedy, the sorrow, the contradictions, the ironies, the long coming-to-terms that is, if not acceptance, at least integration ... Losing a son, a first-born child, immediately after birth is a grief that never stops being present for Claudia. Nor for us. As we walk with her this difficult path of sadness, memory, dream and understanding. We get to know Jacob. His brief life all the more startling for itkis continuing impact on Claudia. And through her on us ... This is a powerful read. An antidote for the denial of dreams, the avoidance of death, revealing the essential impermanence of everything that appears stable and fixed. Double Negative is an opportunity to absorb, confront, resist, reflect and in the end deepen our connections to life and to death. Highly recommended.

Kate Kelley

OPEN MIC ... It’s become standard in the world of poetry readings to hold an open mic session for attendees who come to hear a featured poet. Readings at the Tavern follows that tradition. Organizer Kate Kelly is a welcoming presence. Getting to hear the quality of local writing is one of the big pluses of regional readings. Each place has a distinctive feel. 

Carol Keeney

Readers that night included Kelly, Carol Keeney of Montrose, Greg Hunter, Pat Light and Kelvin Kent. Each read an original work except for Kent, who read an AI (artificial intelligence) piece he’d composed using ChatGPT. 

Kelvin Kent

It was cogent and well-done, and as Kent said, appears to be a wave of the future ... Uche Ogbuchi of Superior is reading Mar. 2nd. A great reader, winner of the Colorado Book Award, Uche is a wonderful poet. Come listen, and bring a poem.

Joanna Spindler at the Fig

FIG ... A new poetry series has started up in Telluride. The Fig is an on-going comedy series, but they’ve begun a quarterly poetry series at the Telluride Arts Gallery on Colorado Ave as well. There first poets show was Feb. 8th and featured a lot of young Telluride performers. San Miguel County Poet Laureate Joanna Spindler (soon-to-be Yonder) was dazzling -- her command of voice and movement made her two poems all the more powerful for being very political. Bianca Darby-Matteoda and Eric Shedd (from Birds of Play) graced a fine lineup of young readers that made itki a wonderful night. Worth the trip up from Norwood, although on the way home I caught a blizzard from Society Turn to Sawpit. Visibility was so bad in the windy snowsquall I could barely see the road ahead. I was going so slow a jeep passed me at the top of Keystone Hill (thank goodness) and I followed them all the way to Silver Pick Road. Then I pulled over and waited until another brave soul took the lead, and followed their red taillights all the way to Sawpit. From then on itki was fine, just icy. The sky suddenly Colorado clear, a brilliant coal black pricked by needles of starlight.

TALKING GOURD ... Finally, I wanted to connect Claudia’s Double Negative with the deep work that Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been doing in the wake of the death of her 16-year-old son, Finn. Losing a son, like Claudia, she too has chosen not to hide in the grotto of private grief but to illuminate for all of us what was powerful and enduring in sharing his life. To hold his death like a candle for all of us to see -- not only the light and shadows itki casts, but to celebrate as well as grieve. Like Claudia, she gives us a great gift.

Not Expecting

Tonight, I placed my hands on my belly

and recalled the first time I felt the flutter

of your body as it grew inside mine.

Oh, the thrill of that movement,

sweet proof of your being.

To be touched from the inside,

touched by life itself as it flourished

into trillions of cells. Oh,

to know life like that.

Even now, I can feel it,

the ghost of a kick,

can recall it as easily

as I recall sunshine on the skin.

After your death, is it strange

it feels like I carry you inside me again,

only this time I am the one

who is growing,

I am the one being formed.

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer