talking gourds 2015
May 15- 17
Schedule for Talking Gourds
Friday May 15
1-3 pm Panel Discussion / “From the Formal to the Free” / James B. Nicola, Dr. David J. Rothman, Judyth Hill
Ah Haa East Gallery / $10
James will moderate. A discussion of form.
3:30-5 pm Workshop / “Sounding the Silence” / James B. Nicola
Ah Haa East Gallery / $10
A Two-Part Workshop: I: Meter and Music and II: White Space and Wonder. Each part will be 45 minutes long.
Workshop/demonstration of the devices of music and silence in classical and contemporary verse. James will be using some of the great poems of the past and present, as well as a few samples from his poetry collection Manhattan Plaza and his Choice-award winning book Playing the Audience. Useful for poetry lovers, poets, students, English teachers, and public speakers of all kinds.
With the free verse of Walt Whitman, the freed rhymes of Emily Dickinson, the “New American Writing” of the 20th century, and through to today, American poetry has been developing like a wild forest fertilized by all its past growths. Today’s verse looks dramatically different from its ancestors of centuries ago, each poem creating its own new world of off- beat stanza shapes, blank spaces, and punctuation to convey an often mysterious meaning. How can we look at what the poet has put on the page in a way that will unveil that meaning—and, when reading aloud, how do we convey it to listeners through the words, sounds, and silences? Conversely, how can writers place words on the page so that the poem means more than the mere words?
James will take you through a few of the ways poets shape their verse to help the reader—and reciter—electrify
both What Is Said and What Is Unsaid.
Participants in both sessions will be invited to read poems aloud and practice these principles of Sounding the Silence. Poets can bring new work of their own, too, and see the effect their choices will have on readers. James will be using as contemporary samples some of the poems from his new poetry collection, Manhattan Plaza, and will share classical techniques outlined in his first book, the award-winning Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance.
9:30 pm-midnight Open Mic kick-off party
Ah Haa / $5
All attendees are encouraged to bring a poem or two to share / 3 min. max
Saturday May 16
10-10:15 am Acceptance (a film poem premiere) / Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Suzan Beraza / Discussion
Wilkinson Library / Donation
10:15 a.m. – 12:30 pm Workshops & Walk / all meet at Wilkinson Library to start / these five events run concurrently
Art Goodtimes & Judyth Hill / Walking Dolores LaChapelle / weather willing
Bear Creek / $10
Be prepared to hike up a mountain trail and bring poems (or write them in the moment) to honor natural features we find along the way
and, if interested, musical instruments to play
Valerie Szarek / Open Mic with Flute
Wilkinson Library / Donation
Bring poems to share and interact with a flute, if desired
Dr. David J. Rothman / “The Many Faces of Ezra Pound”
Ah Haa West Gallery / $10
Ezra Pound is a source of endless fascination. He was a great and generous friend to many, a profound innovator, a gifted poet and critic, and perhaps the greatest editor, theorist and impresario of Modernism, who was Yeats’s roommate during some crucial periods of his life, and discovered or supported H. D., James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost and many more. He had a deep and lasting effect not only on international poetry, but on the curricula through which it is taught and the way it reaches the public. At the same time, at some point in his late thirties he went tragically astray, becoming a committed fascist and an overt, aggressive bigot with megalomaniacal economic and political ideas that destroyed his poetry and his life. This workshop will explore a number of these aspects of Pound’s career, reveling in his poetry and what we can learn from it, but never turning away from his failings, seeking a way to reconcile it all in our approach to poetry, poetic history, and the role of the poet in the modern world.
Debbi Brody / “Erasure Poem in a Collage”
Ah Haa East Gallery / $10
Using primarily scientific articles, we will find beautiful words to form an unexpected piece of poetry. This is a great gift to those who suffer from writer’s block. It’s a fun exercise that can be done almost anywhere with surprisingly gratifying results. To add to our sense of creativity and play, we will use leftover magazines to create a collage around, inside,
anyway we want, with our new studiously found poems.
Rosmerry Wahtola Trommer / “Walking In Two Worlds At Once”
Wilkinson Library / Donation
A playshop that leaps between outer and inner realms. Chink. Chink. That’s the sound of our hearts breaking open to show a bit of who we are. Ouch! And oh! In this workshop, we’ll explore how we—and the poems we write—can sometimes walk in two worlds at once: a sensual, physical world—the world of robinsong, blizzard, snakeskin and mud; and also a world of emotional memory, a world dedicated to meaning making—the world we inhabit when we dream, imagine and feel. With play and practice, reading, writing and sharing, we’ll do a little balancing act of our own, leaping from the inner world to the glittering or glumsome details of the outer world and back again. And again. Bring your pen and paper, bring chocolate, bring your beating heart and your best friend, too. Most of all, bring your clear-witted awareness that we’re all walking on the edge of impermanence. Come to frolic with words and be willing to lose them, too.
1 pm Poet Book Exchange / Danny Rosen
Ah Haa
A table will be available to for poets to put their books up for barter or sale (honor system)
2 p.m. – 4 pm Award Ceremonies
Arroyo’s / $10
Two Passionate Sonnets / A World Premiere
Rosemerry, Robert McCauley , Kyra Kopestonsky, Colleen Mahoney & Kit Rohrbach
Mark Fischer Award / Elaine Fischer & Art Goodtimes
The awarding of the 17th Annual Mark Fischer Poetry Prize, in memory of a great Telluride figure and stalwart of the Telluride Writer’s Guild, will be awarded. Judge for this year’s contest was Jack Mueller. Mark’s widow, Commissioner Elaine Fischer will make the presentation of the $1000 first prize award and two smaller runner-up awards. And the winning poems will be read.
Karen Chamberlain Award / Rosemerry & Art
The Telluride Institute will present an award to a distinguished Colorado poet in the memory of Karen Chamberlain. Two year’s ago in Carbondale the award was given to Reg Saner of Boulder.
6:30 –midnight Poet Book Exchange
no credit cards / Ah Haa
7 pm. -- 9:30 pm Laureates & Performances
Ah Haa / $25
The evening will begin with the naming of the third Western Slope Poet Laureate by Aaron Abeyta, the reigning regional laureate. This will be followed by performances by Colorado Poet Laureate Joe Hutchison and by the two runner-ups for the state title, David Rothman and Wendy Videlock, as well as short performances by several guest poet-performers.
Performance Schedule: 7 - 9:30 pm
7:00–7:10 / Emcees – Rosemerry & Art
7:10-7:40 / Announcing the Western Slope Poet Laureate / Aaron Abeyta
7:40-8:15 / Joe Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate
8:15-8:30 / Break
8:30-8:40 / Emcees – Rosemerry & Art
8:40-8:50/ Valerie Szarek
8:50-9:00 / Jack Mueller
9:00-9:10 / Judyth Hill
9:10-9:45 / Wendy Videlock & Dr. David J. Rothman State Laureate Finalists
10:00-midnight / Literary Costume & DJ Dance Party / Ah Haa School
Organized by the Telluride Literary Arts Festival folks, the event will be free to all
Sunday May 17
10:00 - 11:30 am Gourds Circle closing
Ah Haa School / Free
Inspired by Dolores LaChapelle, this Talking Gourds tradition allows everyone to share their voice as equals and is a discipline in listening as well as performing. Bring a poem or two to share, a story, a song, even just a few words as to what you experienced this weekend.
1-3 pm Panel Discussion / “From the Formal to the Free” / James B. Nicola, Dr. David J. Rothman, Judyth Hill
Ah Haa East Gallery / $10
James will moderate. A discussion of form.
3:30-5 pm Workshop / “Sounding the Silence” / James B. Nicola
Ah Haa East Gallery / $10
A Two-Part Workshop: I: Meter and Music and II: White Space and Wonder. Each part will be 45 minutes long.
Workshop/demonstration of the devices of music and silence in classical and contemporary verse. James will be using some of the great poems of the past and present, as well as a few samples from his poetry collection Manhattan Plaza and his Choice-award winning book Playing the Audience. Useful for poetry lovers, poets, students, English teachers, and public speakers of all kinds.
With the free verse of Walt Whitman, the freed rhymes of Emily Dickinson, the “New American Writing” of the 20th century, and through to today, American poetry has been developing like a wild forest fertilized by all its past growths. Today’s verse looks dramatically different from its ancestors of centuries ago, each poem creating its own new world of off- beat stanza shapes, blank spaces, and punctuation to convey an often mysterious meaning. How can we look at what the poet has put on the page in a way that will unveil that meaning—and, when reading aloud, how do we convey it to listeners through the words, sounds, and silences? Conversely, how can writers place words on the page so that the poem means more than the mere words?
James will take you through a few of the ways poets shape their verse to help the reader—and reciter—electrify
both What Is Said and What Is Unsaid.
- Part I: “Meter and Music” will introduce principles involved in rhyme and formal verse, with examples from both Shakespeare and modern poets.
- Part II: “White Space and Wonder” will turn to contemporary free verse, looking at stanza length, line endings, indentation, goal words, off- beat punctuation, capitalization, and other, “funkier” devices. All of these techniques provide poetic clues to the sounds and silences an author may have intended, and reveal new possibilities of meaning between the lines.
Participants in both sessions will be invited to read poems aloud and practice these principles of Sounding the Silence. Poets can bring new work of their own, too, and see the effect their choices will have on readers. James will be using as contemporary samples some of the poems from his new poetry collection, Manhattan Plaza, and will share classical techniques outlined in his first book, the award-winning Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance.
9:30 pm-midnight Open Mic kick-off party
Ah Haa / $5
All attendees are encouraged to bring a poem or two to share / 3 min. max
Saturday May 16
10-10:15 am Acceptance (a film poem premiere) / Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Suzan Beraza / Discussion
Wilkinson Library / Donation
10:15 a.m. – 12:30 pm Workshops & Walk / all meet at Wilkinson Library to start / these five events run concurrently
Art Goodtimes & Judyth Hill / Walking Dolores LaChapelle / weather willing
Bear Creek / $10
Be prepared to hike up a mountain trail and bring poems (or write them in the moment) to honor natural features we find along the way
and, if interested, musical instruments to play
Valerie Szarek / Open Mic with Flute
Wilkinson Library / Donation
Bring poems to share and interact with a flute, if desired
Dr. David J. Rothman / “The Many Faces of Ezra Pound”
Ah Haa West Gallery / $10
Ezra Pound is a source of endless fascination. He was a great and generous friend to many, a profound innovator, a gifted poet and critic, and perhaps the greatest editor, theorist and impresario of Modernism, who was Yeats’s roommate during some crucial periods of his life, and discovered or supported H. D., James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost and many more. He had a deep and lasting effect not only on international poetry, but on the curricula through which it is taught and the way it reaches the public. At the same time, at some point in his late thirties he went tragically astray, becoming a committed fascist and an overt, aggressive bigot with megalomaniacal economic and political ideas that destroyed his poetry and his life. This workshop will explore a number of these aspects of Pound’s career, reveling in his poetry and what we can learn from it, but never turning away from his failings, seeking a way to reconcile it all in our approach to poetry, poetic history, and the role of the poet in the modern world.
Debbi Brody / “Erasure Poem in a Collage”
Ah Haa East Gallery / $10
Using primarily scientific articles, we will find beautiful words to form an unexpected piece of poetry. This is a great gift to those who suffer from writer’s block. It’s a fun exercise that can be done almost anywhere with surprisingly gratifying results. To add to our sense of creativity and play, we will use leftover magazines to create a collage around, inside,
anyway we want, with our new studiously found poems.
Rosmerry Wahtola Trommer / “Walking In Two Worlds At Once”
Wilkinson Library / Donation
A playshop that leaps between outer and inner realms. Chink. Chink. That’s the sound of our hearts breaking open to show a bit of who we are. Ouch! And oh! In this workshop, we’ll explore how we—and the poems we write—can sometimes walk in two worlds at once: a sensual, physical world—the world of robinsong, blizzard, snakeskin and mud; and also a world of emotional memory, a world dedicated to meaning making—the world we inhabit when we dream, imagine and feel. With play and practice, reading, writing and sharing, we’ll do a little balancing act of our own, leaping from the inner world to the glittering or glumsome details of the outer world and back again. And again. Bring your pen and paper, bring chocolate, bring your beating heart and your best friend, too. Most of all, bring your clear-witted awareness that we’re all walking on the edge of impermanence. Come to frolic with words and be willing to lose them, too.
1 pm Poet Book Exchange / Danny Rosen
Ah Haa
A table will be available to for poets to put their books up for barter or sale (honor system)
2 p.m. – 4 pm Award Ceremonies
Arroyo’s / $10
Two Passionate Sonnets / A World Premiere
Rosemerry, Robert McCauley , Kyra Kopestonsky, Colleen Mahoney & Kit Rohrbach
Mark Fischer Award / Elaine Fischer & Art Goodtimes
The awarding of the 17th Annual Mark Fischer Poetry Prize, in memory of a great Telluride figure and stalwart of the Telluride Writer’s Guild, will be awarded. Judge for this year’s contest was Jack Mueller. Mark’s widow, Commissioner Elaine Fischer will make the presentation of the $1000 first prize award and two smaller runner-up awards. And the winning poems will be read.
Karen Chamberlain Award / Rosemerry & Art
The Telluride Institute will present an award to a distinguished Colorado poet in the memory of Karen Chamberlain. Two year’s ago in Carbondale the award was given to Reg Saner of Boulder.
6:30 –midnight Poet Book Exchange
no credit cards / Ah Haa
7 pm. -- 9:30 pm Laureates & Performances
Ah Haa / $25
The evening will begin with the naming of the third Western Slope Poet Laureate by Aaron Abeyta, the reigning regional laureate. This will be followed by performances by Colorado Poet Laureate Joe Hutchison and by the two runner-ups for the state title, David Rothman and Wendy Videlock, as well as short performances by several guest poet-performers.
Performance Schedule: 7 - 9:30 pm
7:00–7:10 / Emcees – Rosemerry & Art
7:10-7:40 / Announcing the Western Slope Poet Laureate / Aaron Abeyta
7:40-8:15 / Joe Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate
8:15-8:30 / Break
8:30-8:40 / Emcees – Rosemerry & Art
8:40-8:50/ Valerie Szarek
8:50-9:00 / Jack Mueller
9:00-9:10 / Judyth Hill
9:10-9:45 / Wendy Videlock & Dr. David J. Rothman State Laureate Finalists
10:00-midnight / Literary Costume & DJ Dance Party / Ah Haa School
Organized by the Telluride Literary Arts Festival folks, the event will be free to all
Sunday May 17
10:00 - 11:30 am Gourds Circle closing
Ah Haa School / Free
Inspired by Dolores LaChapelle, this Talking Gourds tradition allows everyone to share their voice as equals and is a discipline in listening as well as performing. Bring a poem or two to share, a story, a song, even just a few words as to what you experienced this weekend.