"Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history." — Plato
FEATURED POETS for LitFest 2019
Rafael Jesús González
Poet Laureate of Berkeley CA
Born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, Rafael attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the University of Oregon. He is a Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature and has taught at University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College in Oakland, where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Department.
Luis Lopez
Luis is a professor emeritus from Colorado Mesa University where he taught English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Mythology, and was Director of the Academic Honors Program. He is a poet and now retired publisher. He has five books of poetry to his credit. Each Month I Sing won the American Book Award and the CIPA award for best in poetry in 2008. His Ph.D. is in Medieval English Literature. Luis and his wife Maggie presently live in Grand Junction Colorado.
Poet Laureate of Berkeley CA
Born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, Rafael attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the University of Oregon. He is a Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature and has taught at University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College in Oakland, where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Department.
Luis Lopez
Luis is a professor emeritus from Colorado Mesa University where he taught English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Mythology, and was Director of the Academic Honors Program. He is a poet and now retired publisher. He has five books of poetry to his credit. Each Month I Sing won the American Book Award and the CIPA award for best in poetry in 2008. His Ph.D. is in Medieval English Literature. Luis and his wife Maggie presently live in Grand Junction Colorado.
POETRY EVENTS at LitFest 2019
Friday • May 17 • 7:30pm • The Liberty
SPOTLIGHT POETRY & OPEN READINGS
Poetry opens the festival with the spotlight on two fabulous features: Rafael Jesús González and Colorado Mesa University emeritus professor L. Luis Lopez. Open readings will follow a short break so bring yer words!
Friday • May 17 • 10pm • Location TBA
LATE NIGHT with Poets
If you haven't run out of words, mosey on over to a soon-to-be-disclosed private location for some more casual hangtime with poets from all over.
Saturday • May 18 • 10am • Meet at High Alpine Coffee Bar (at Between the Covers Bookstore)
POETS WALK up Bear Creek
Join Faculty Poet ART GOODTIMES for a wander up one of Telluride's favorite trails. Bring poems and instruments! Please note this is a weather dependent event. If it's howlin' sideways outside, plan to hunker down in the cozy cafe at Telluride's fiercely independent book shop. Not a bad Plan B.
Saturday • May 18 • 2pm • Telluride Arts HQ (Across from the library)
Honoring Ettore Rella, Telluride-Born in 1903
San Miguel County Poet Laureate Daiva Chesonis shares a reading of Rella's “Onorina Rudelat / Immigrant Woman”
Western Slope Poet Laureate Announcement & Celebratory Poem
Drumroll, please ...
The Fischer Prize & The Cantor Prize Ceremonies
The awarding of the 2019 prizes plus readings by the winning poets. Final judge Rafael Jesús González will join Art Goodtimes and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer in handing out the awards.
Saturday • May 18 • 8pm • The Black Box Theatre at The Palm
6th Annual Literary Burlesque
This year’s show is Coming to Our Senses, a poetic trip through the senses—and not just the usual five. The evermorphing troupe of regional women poets will, in their reveals, appeal to what makes us human, from the sensual to the nonsensical. A glimpse, a whiff, a tone, a taste, a caress ... you'll be touched.
Visit the Lit Burl page for more info.
Sunday • May 19 • 10am • Ah Haa School for the Arts
Closing Gourds Circle
One last sharing of poems and stories ... Bring a pillow!
Faculty Poets
ART GOODTIMES of Norwood CO
Poet, weekly newspaper columnist and Rainbow Family elder, Art grows 25+ varieties of heirloom potatoes, weaves non-traditional coil baskets, and is serving his 5th term as Colorado’s only Green Party county commissioner. Poet-in-residence of the Telluride Mushroom Festival since 1981, founder and director of various Talking Gourds poetry events since 1989, poetry editor for the national mycological magazine Fungi, and co-editor of online poetry zine Sage Green Journal, Art served as the first Poet Laureate of Colorado’s Western Slope (2011-13). His most recent book is Looking South to Lone Cone: the Cloud Acre Poems (Western Eye Press, 2013).
ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER of Placerville CO
Having served two terms as San Miguel County’s first Poet Laureate, one term as the Western Slope Poet Laureate, and ten years as director of the Telluride Writers Guild, Rosemerry leads writing workshops for hospice, recovery programs, women’s groups, teachers, schools, writers groups and people who think they hate poetry. She performs with a poetry troupe EAR, sings with the 8-woman a cappella group Heartbeat, and for 17 years has lead a poetry discussion series. Her work has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, in O Magazine, on back alley fences, in her children’s lunchboxes, and on rocks she leaves around town. She won the ACC Writer’s Studio Poetry Contest in 2011 and 2013. Author and editor of thirteen books, her latest include Naked For Tea (Able Muse, 2018), The Miracle Already Happening (Liquid Light Press, 2012), The Less I Hold (Turkey Buzzard Press, 2012), Holding Three Things at Once (Turkey Buzzard Press, 2008). Her favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.
Poet, weekly newspaper columnist and Rainbow Family elder, Art grows 25+ varieties of heirloom potatoes, weaves non-traditional coil baskets, and is serving his 5th term as Colorado’s only Green Party county commissioner. Poet-in-residence of the Telluride Mushroom Festival since 1981, founder and director of various Talking Gourds poetry events since 1989, poetry editor for the national mycological magazine Fungi, and co-editor of online poetry zine Sage Green Journal, Art served as the first Poet Laureate of Colorado’s Western Slope (2011-13). His most recent book is Looking South to Lone Cone: the Cloud Acre Poems (Western Eye Press, 2013).
ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER of Placerville CO
Having served two terms as San Miguel County’s first Poet Laureate, one term as the Western Slope Poet Laureate, and ten years as director of the Telluride Writers Guild, Rosemerry leads writing workshops for hospice, recovery programs, women’s groups, teachers, schools, writers groups and people who think they hate poetry. She performs with a poetry troupe EAR, sings with the 8-woman a cappella group Heartbeat, and for 17 years has lead a poetry discussion series. Her work has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, in O Magazine, on back alley fences, in her children’s lunchboxes, and on rocks she leaves around town. She won the ACC Writer’s Studio Poetry Contest in 2011 and 2013. Author and editor of thirteen books, her latest include Naked For Tea (Able Muse, 2018), The Miracle Already Happening (Liquid Light Press, 2012), The Less I Hold (Turkey Buzzard Press, 2012), Holding Three Things at Once (Turkey Buzzard Press, 2008). Her favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.
Poets Kyle Harvey, Art Goodtimes, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Eduardo Brummel, Danny Rosen ... and the man he's pointing at, the late North Beach legend Jack Mueller, hanging out and funnin' at the former Talking Gourds Clubhouse AKA Arroyo Wine Bar AKA Telluride's Living Room. Gourds
has found a new cozy home in the gallery space at Telluride Arts HQ.
The Talking Gourds Story
In 1989, the Telluride Institute sponsored the first Talking Gourds event in Telluride’s Sheridan Opera House which featured Jerome Rothenberg, Anne Waldman, Anselm Hollo, Joan Logghe, Judyth Hill and a raft of regional poets. Under the tutelage of skier, writer and deep ecologist Dolores LaChapelle, the event moved through the ‘90s from in town to Faraway Ranch on Wilson Mesa and eventually to the Uncompahgre Plateau. The Sparrows Poetry Festival in Salida took over in 2000 as the focus for poetry in the mountains. For several years the Festival of Imagination flourished in Del Norte. Most recently, the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival brought poets from the Western Slope to Carbondale. But with that event’s folding last year, Telluride has reclaimed its poetry roots and is hosting a regional Western Slope poetry gathering once again. Plus, a new Headwaters Poetry Festival began this year at the Gunnison Arts Center in April, speaking to the renaissance of poetic energy in Southwestern Colorado.