New Performance Poetry Troupe

Photo by Trish Hopkinson

Telluwriters 

& the Passing of the Gourd

San Miguel County has a new poetry/storytelling ensemble making the rounds.

It's a shifting cast of players depending on who's available. Three of us performed to a full house for a live show at the Lithic Bookstore in Fruita Feb. 17th -- Daiva Chesonis, Elle Metrick and moi. And four of us made it to the Bluecorn Candle Factory & Cafe in Montrose -- our first three players plus Joanna Spindler. 

We chose the name Telluwriters even though none of us actually live in the town limits. Telluride, however, is the economic & artistic heart of the region. We all work and play there and perform there as well. Daiva, Craig, Elle and I live in Norwood -- or most accurately outside Norwood on Wrights Mesa. 

Photo by Trish Hopkinson

Peter hails from Trout Lake, Rosemerry  from Placerville, Joanna from Hastings Mesa & The Electric Angel from Lawson Hill.

Depending on who comes, we like to do round robin readings so as to shine the spotlight on a medley of voices. 

We often end with what David Feela of Cortez calls "a shark attack" -- a rapid-fire series of short poems read back-to-back as a kind of finale. 

The Passing of the Gourd is a "playground" (aka workshop) that we do after our performances. 

Photo by Jennifer Hancock

If we can, we like to we form a circle and pass the gourd around the gathering. We  encourage folks to read a poem of their own (or someone they like), tell a story, sing a song, make a quick comment -- or just nod silently and pass the gourd on to the next person. 

Gourd Circles have been a feature of Talking Gourds poetry events for going on 20 years here on the Western Slope. They sprang from the work of the late eco-philosopher Dolores LaChapelle and her Silverton-based Way of the Mountain Center.

This is a different way of sharing poetry than the standard walk up to the stage “open mic” kind of thing. Gourd Circles involve deep listening as well as performing, as there’s no cross talk (although twinkling or "jazz hands" are welcome). The person with the gourd has the floor.

Tellwriters have upcoming gigs in Cortez, Naturita, Durango and Grand Junction.

Currently the Talking Gourds Poetry Program is administered by the Telluride Institute and can be found on their website: tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds

Here is the poem that Daiva wrote and read in Lithuanian, while Elle and I took turns doing the English at our first Telluwriters show in Fruita back in February:

Poetiniai Ryšiai

Poetic Relations 

Gavau pranešimą apie federalinius mokesčius 

I got my federal tax notice 

Taigi aš perskaičiau Tony Hoglando

So I read some Tony Hoagland

Aš verkiau pamačiusi trapų upės jauniklį 

I cried at the sight of a frail river fawn 

Taigi perskaičiau Marija Oliver

So I read some Mary Oliver

Netekau draugės, kuri buvo nuostabi mama 

I lost a friend who was a fabulous mom 

Taigi aš perskaičiau Ada Limon

So I read some Ada Limon

Numatiau karštą sekso naktį 

I predicted a hot night of sex 

Taigi aš perskaičiau Pablo Nerudo

So I read some Pablo Neruda

Mačiau neteisybę ant gimtosios žemės dėmės 

I witnessed injustice on a smear of native land 

Taigi perskaičiau šiek tiek Joy Harjo 

So I read some Joy Harjo

Man reikėjo pertraukos nuo pilnametystės kančių 

I needed a break from the harangue of adulting 

Taigi perskaičiau šiek tiek Šel Silversteino

So I read some Shel Silverstein

Išgėriau per daug ir gailėjaus dėl vėlyvos nakties žinutės 

I drank too much and regretted a late-night text 

Taigi perskaičiau šiek tiek Bukauskio (ir žinoma, Jack Muellerio)

So I read some Bukowski (and of course, Jack Mueller)

Akmenys kaba iš medžio ir procese, 

vėl tapam žmogumi. 

Stones hang from the tree and in the process, 

a fine balance. 

Reimagining Kinship

Wild Mind Wild Earth

“...the unsayable reality of contact...” -D. Hinton

Steel needle

pierces the weave

Blunt head. Big eye

Pulls strands of

turquoise, coal & 

alabaster

What the heart carries

Then wrap & tie

encircling

A basket for

the ten thousand things

Thunk of snow

slips off the roof

Startling. Settling

into melt

The world skips a beat

like the deep silence

in a song. In a poem

Super Bowl Sunday

 

DIRECTIONS

Two telephone poles

up Thunder Road

due south

Or 

a zigzag break-trail weave

snowshoeing

across a glaze of

crystalline hoar crust

& thickets of unbent oak

Old leaves

like hovering avatars

the Way of the Mtn

山路

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

(H)eck (of a) Phrastic

SHAIMAA AL-SABBAGH

"I am the girl banned from love in the squares"

He's holding on for dear life

She's standing upright soon to be dead

Shotgunned in the back for standing

in peaceful protest

at Talaat Harb Square in Cairo

Armed with a wreath & banner

chanting

"Bread! Freedom! Social Justice!"

A poet activist for SPAP

the Socialist Peoples Alliance Party

Standing up for a better Egypt

& for her five-year-old Bebo

Standing in memory of the

Muslim Brotherhood martyrs of Tahir Square

slain unseating Mubarak

Shaimaa al-Sabbagh

Hair disheveled

Blood on her cheek

Shot down pointblank in the back

Dead that day

Standing up for us

NORWOOD LANDLORD

Like Telluride brokers managing properties for investors, rentals in the San Miguel’s box canyon have skyrocketed, putting an Aspenated high-end gun to the head of local shops. I mourn many main street losses, but particularly Delilah – a dispensary muscled out by the corporate green dragonate and hockeystick rents. 

Not wholly unlike what happened to Telluride’s award-winning local paper, the Watch, -- undercut by a Boulder conglomeratization that bought Clark Kent’s doppelganger, which in their hands, has devolved into an Investor News Organ of legals, centerfold real estate porn, desperate want ads for housing and unfilled job ads

My Norwood neighbor, hobbling on crutches from surgery and a fall, found herself unable to afford the steep Wrights Mesa rent increase (“to keep current with the Norwood market” she was told, but of course not for any improvement to the rural farmhouse itself) and had to move out by the first of the year. I helped. Hence this week’s poem.

MOVING OUT

A coming on of night after a turn 

as Mormon Lee ferrying

my ten-year neighbor’s hoard

cruelly pushed out

her rental pupa in the chrysalis of winter

to new digs

Burrow. Concrete boots

Not really. Nicer place

kind of

The P-J an underground surround of 

forest bathing

free from noisy Norwood’s dawn truckers

Ex-urban hot mics. Clinkers 

raked from Telluride’s dangerous 

rim

from the Sixties series

 

Hot Lips by Ed Werner

Boardwalk

Cruising Santa Cruz

with McRedeye & Big Daddy Civ

Nowhere left us to migrate

here at the feet of the final roller coaster

of Manifest Destiny

Nickels & dimes hog-tied by machines

& carnie barkers roping us in

Big Daddy squeezes the trigger

on a row of die-cut ducks

Win a doll. Try your luck 

Trained gunner

a veteran of foreign wars

he knocks ‘em all down

Fills his bag with trinkets & taffy

Every booth a bird cage

Every boom a bust

Spin the wheel. Lock & load

Damn the tomorrows 

& full greed ahead

ART GOODTIMES

Lone Cone Broadside                                      Union of Mountain Poets

Vincent St. John Local / Headwaters of Maverick Draw / Aztlán

the late Jack Mueller Brigade / Western Slope / 4 Corners

 Cloud House Brigade (Retired) / San Francisco

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