And now it is October in these mountains.

Here and there, a clutch of leaves

keeps glowing burnished gold.

Most blew down in that first storm,

crumpled browner on the earth

than earth that swallows cold, dry bones.

Yet somehow, and who knows just how,

those dead leaves still smell faintly of the spring. Read the rest of this article

even in Bali

ain’t no shootin’ stars

like ours

striped across

the Rocky Mountain flag

of a Colorado

night

sky

I swear

If you took me back

I wouldn’t take even a second for granted

For all we go through in this life

For all the scars you can’t erase

I just can’t understand with a New York Sky above me Read the rest of this article

– by Magda Sokolowski

Like a jackrabbit the desert reared up

against the high-cold in green-grey clots.

The cheat of grass, the sheen of ice-ground,

dense & the dull straightaway of road,

the welcome turn – sudden & slow

to find them there. Read the rest of this article

Overgrown by earth

I trust

the wild roses will re-emerge

overwhelm me with their fragrance

and petal pink color

birds nest, bodies pressed, Read the rest of this article

father ponderosa

your children are all here

on the pin-wheeled edge

of your shadow

you are the idea of creation

before mountains

watching over this town

from your station

on Methodist Mountain

can i say that you are beautiful? Read the rest of this article

by Laurie James

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things. ~Horace

800 million people go hungry

everyday. really. 800 million. Read the rest of this article

by Celeste Labadie

It’s a conspiracy,
someone said,
but I’ve done this myself.
I’m collecting things.
Drowning in stuff.
Clinging to memories while
packing and repacking what
I’ll surely leave behind
when the big whatever
has its way with this corporeal sensibility. Read the rest of this article

when your throat is lined
with new confessions
blocked by fear
of repercussions Read the rest of this article

2007-2009
By Ed Berg
Blurb, Inc: May 2009. $14.95

Reviewed by Eduardo Rey Brummel

The San Luis Valley is a distinctly different world. Perhaps the clearest demonstration of the Valley’s unique nature is the thirty-some square miles of sand dunes serving as foyer for the Sangre de Cristos’ western flank. In the same view, you have Lawrence of Arabia sands foregrounding snow-stippled mountains, with Medano Creek pulsing at your ankles. In his book, Sand, Wind, and Light, author Ed Berg begins where we all do – attempting to reconcile the existence of the Great Sand Dunes: Read the rest of this article

Dear Editor and Readers,

I write in response to a letter in your May issue penned by Mr. Simon Halburian.

Mr. H. sez… Aspiring writers need to read some of the best poets so they can judge whether their verse compositions, which should never be called poetry, rise to that level. Read the rest of this article

oh i wish i was the captain
out on the arabian sea
get hassled by some locals
uncle sam gonna rescue me
gonna send some big destroyers
and snipers one two three
gonna poach them hapless people’s fish
and get away scot free Read the rest of this article

lapping waves

lazy sun

dreamy contentment

salt of your neck

sighed away our days

now my heart Read the rest of this article

by Jennifer Dempsey

Thirteen years ago, the Academy of American Poets established April as National Poetry Month. During this month,?poets and poetry lovers?everywhere celebrate the art form that, writer David Ignatow claims,?“almost makes up for the estrangement?among the human race.”

Central Colorado is home to hundreds of remarkable poets and in?honor of?National Poetry Month?a few?reveal what makes them tick.? Read the rest of this article

Our windows are flung open

to air full of promiscuous arias

from feathered beings hopping

the leafless, monolithic, barked edges

when, a murder of crows swoop in

to steal the hanging, gooey suet,

then lift away, black and ragged, Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Poetry – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

There will be no SPARROWS poetry festival in Salida this year, for reasons that remain unclear.

SPARROWS stood for something like “Songs, Poetry, And Rhymes Raise Our Winter Spirits,” and it was a bright spot during the dark times of late winter, for it was held in February or early March every year since the first one in 2001. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]1419669338[/amazon-product]Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – September 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Weight of Dusk: Poems
by Stewart S. Warren
Published in 2007 by Mercury HeartLink
ISBN: 1-4196-6933-8 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0978945662[/amazon-product]Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – August 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Open Range – Poetry of the Reimagined West
Edited by Laurie Wagner Buyer & W.C. Jameson
Published in 2007 by Ghost Road Press
ISBN 0-9789456-6-2 Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Robin James

Poetry – April 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

People Say

Words and music by Robin James

People said, that people change

And nothing ever stays the same

And people said that we would not last

That we’d fall to pieces like broken glass Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]1888809493[/amazon-product]Review by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Poetry – April 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

As If the World Really Mattered
by Art Goodtimes
Published in 2006 by La Alameda Press
ISBN 1888809493 Read the rest of this article

Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Lady Liberty Lied – A Voice for the Victims of the Invasion of Iraq – This includes YOU!
Poetry and Art by Laura Knelange
Copyright 2006 by Laura Knelange
No ISBN

POETRY CAN SOMETIMES be so topical that it loses a crucial component of what helps to make it poetry: universality.

As Laura Knelange writes in the foreword to her chapbook, “The intention of my poetry and artwork is to bring awareness and education to the illegal invasion of Iraq and its horrifying aftermath.” Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

While Sparrows looks forward to its seventh successful year, another popular poetry festival, Poetry on a Platter, is no more.

Also inaugurated in 2001, PoP, as it was known to its fans, was a “traveling poetry tour” that celebrated National Poetry Month in April by bringing regionally and nationally known poets to rural communities for a series of free workshops, readings, open mike events, and special school programs. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

You could send a “chirp” or donation to Sparrows. Since last year, Sparrows has been under the umbrella of ArtWorks. For the Heart of the Rockies, an organization established “to support and build on the area’s unique and rich art community.” Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Per-person ticket prices for Sparrows are $10 for each evening performance (Friday and Saturday, March 2 and 3); $15 per individual workshop; $5, Poets’Party; $5, Poets’Book-Signing and Coffee Circle. Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

YOU COULD CALL THEM WARRIORS. But their weapons are words, and they’ll be waging poetry at Sparrows, Colorado’s annual performance poetry festival.

When Sparrows takes wing again March 1-4, it will unite poets, musicians, and dancers from throughout Colorado and the West in a series of poetry-related workshops, evening performances, and public “open-mike” sessions sure to appeal to anyone who loves language, both the written and (especially) the spoken varieties. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0977127257[/amazon-product]Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – October 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Across the High Divide
by Laurie Wagner Buyer
Published in 2006 by Ghost Road Press
ISBN: 0-9771272-5-7 Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – April 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED, 13th-century Persian poet Shaikh Muslih- uddin Sadi hit the proverbial nail on the head when he wrote:

“If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,

And from thy slender store

Two loaves alone to thee are left

Sell one, and with the dole,

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”

Smart guy, that Sadi. For what is life, really, without the beauty of art, music, and poetry — without hyacinths to nurture our collective spirit? Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – March 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

In the immortal words of the Beach Boys, Central Colorado will be “pickin’ up good vibrations,” both auditory and emotional, when Sparrows, Colorado’s annual performance poetry festival, takes wing again March 2- 5, 2006.

Since 2001, Sparrows has been bringing poets and musicians from throughout Colorado and the West to Salida for a series of poetry- related workshops, evening performances, and public “open- mike” sessions designed to appeal to everyone who loves words — both the written and (especially) the spoken variety. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0976072955[/amazon-product]Review by Martha Quillen

Poetry – March 2006 -Colorado Central Magazine

Touch of Grace
Poems by Craig Nelson
Published by Ghost Road Press in 2005
ISBN 0-9760729-5-5 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]1419617362[/amazon-product]Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – February 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Shape of a Hill poems, prose poems
by Stewart S. Warren
Published in 2005 by Mercury HeartLink
ISBN 1419617362 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0976072971[/amazon-product]Review by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Poetry – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

as orion falls
by Aaron A. AbeytaPublished in 2005 by Ghost Road Press
ISBN 0976072971 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0975407546[/amazon-product]Review by George Sibley

Water Poetry – June 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Colorado, Mother of Rivers: Water Poems
By Justice Greg Hobbs
Published in 2005 by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education
ISBN 0-9754075-4-6 Read the rest of this article

Article by Central Staff

Poetry – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

POETRY ON A PLATTER IS all about Poetry; it’s about reading, writing, studying, performing and enjoying poetry. PoP is rural Colorado’s yearly celebration of National Poetry Month.

Festivities include a program of presentations and workshops put together in a collaborative effort by the Salida Regional Library, the Leslie Savage Library at WSC in Gunnison, and the Montrose Library District.

The 5th annual PoP happens this April 3 through 10 in libraries, schools, cafés, and community centers. The poetry tour begins in Salida then travels on to Gunnison and Montrose. There is no charge for any of the events, and everyone is invited to participate.

Veronica Patterson and David Keplinger, the guest poets for PoP 2005, both hail from Colorado and have books of poetry to their credit.

Veronica Patterson’s studies have taken her to the halls of Cornell, the University of Michigan, the University of Northern Colorado, and Warren Wilson College. She is the author of How to Make a Terrarium, her first poetry collection, and another collection, Swan, What Shores? was a finalist for the Academy of American Poets’ 2000 James Laughlin Award. Veronica has won poetry awards from the Colorado Center for the Book and Women Writing the West, and her book, The Bones Remember: A Dialogue, features poetry and photography.

Veronica has also been awarded three residencies at Wyoming’s Ucross Foundation and one at Hedgebrook, and she has received two Individual Artist’s Fellowships from the Colorado Council on the Arts. She now lives in northern Colorado where she teaches an eight week writing class for the Hospice of Larimer County. She also presents workshops for a group of adult writers, and for the University of Northern Colorado and Colorado State University, and every spring she conducts a 6th grade poetry workshop in Illinois.

In addition to writing and teaching, Veronica loves hiking, reading, listening to music, theater, and bird-watching, and she studies the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

David Keplinger, the director of the Creative Writing Program at CSU-Pueblo, has a new book of poems, The Clearing, due out in March; it was the runner-up for the Green Rose Prize.

David’s first poetry collection, The Rose Inside, won the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize. It is about the outside longing to get inside and about those trapped inside looking out.

David has traveled throughout the world to teach and to be taught. In Czechoslovakia he was challenged by the language and discovered that “language is a miracle; it’s a miracle we can say anything to each other at all.”

This epiphany led David to write, “The words I spoke and later wrote, felt more precious.” His inability to speak Czech fluently fueled his writing.

AS A GRADUATE STUDENT, David learned that, “all poetry is political, as it is inevitably a product of the time and place in which it was written.”

“Honesty and clarity are the qualities that connect your reader deeply to your experience,” David contends. “In a poem, it’s how you say it that counts.”

David has received grants and awards from the Academy of American Poets, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a 2003 Fellowship from the NEA. His poems are widely published in many magazines and reviews, including Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares and Prairie Schooner.

In Salida, PoP begins with an Open-Mic Night at the Salida Regional Library, at 405 E St., on Sunday at 7 p.m. The guest poets host the evening’s festivities.

The next serving of poetry is also at the library. On Monday from 1-3:30 p.m. David and Veronica will conduct a workshop, and there will be platters of treats for participants.

The Salida finale to PoP 2005, will be at Bongo Billy’s Salida Café, 300 W. Sackett St., with readings by Veronica and David starting at 7 p.m., Monday.

Then the tour moves on to Gunnison and Montrose.

For more information about Salida’s portion of the festival, or for copies of the events schedules for Gunnison and Montrose call Kathy Berg at the Salida Regional Library, 719-539-4826, or email kberg@salidalibrary.org.

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

If You Go :

Tickets for the 2005 Sparrows: Colorado’s Performance Poetry Festival cost $10 for each evening performance (Friday, February 25 and Saturday, February 26); $15 per individual workshop; $5 each for the Poets’ Party and Poets’ Reception, February 24 and February 27. Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

SO HAS IT REALLY BEEN just five years since Sparrows: Colorado’s Performance Poetry Festival first burst upon the local poetry scene?

It’s already hard to remember a Salida winter without Sparrows, which has grown into a four-day gathering of poets and poetry lovers who come together to celebrate the written and spoken word in humorous, dramatic, memorable, original — and most of all, entertaining — ways. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – April 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

POETRY IS THE Rodney Dangerfield of literature: It gets no respect. Never mind the protests of those who claim to love verse or the fact that many of us “mature” folks can still quote lines from beloved poems memorized in grammar school. And I don’t even want to talk about “celebrity” poets, best known for endeavors like singing, acting, or politics whose verse, generally speaking, ranges from the embarrassing to the abysmal and whose work is published solely because it has a famous name attached to it. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0936600101[/amazon-product]Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – July 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Silver Lode – Columbine Poets of Colorado – Members’ Anthology, 25th Anniversary
Published in 2003 by Riverstone Press of the Foothills
Columbine Poets Inc.,
P.O. Box 6245, Broomfield, CO 80021)
ISBN 0-936600-10-1 Read the rest of this article

Review by Martha Quillen

Poetry – February 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Talking Gourds #2 – Edited by Art Goodtimes
Published by Lone Cone Press
No ISBN Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0870816152[/amazon-product]Review by Wayne Sheldrake

Poetry – May 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

colcha
by Aaron Abeyta”
Published in 2002 University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0-87081-615-2 Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Poetry – April 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Granted, there’s Income Tax Day, and it’s Mud Season, but on a more pleasant note, April is National Poetry Month, and there are at least two celebrations.

The Salida Regional Library, along with Bongo Billy’s Salida Café, is hosting “Poetry on a Platter” April 8-10. Visiting poets include David Lee, Marilyn Taylor, Luís Lopez, Karen Chamberlain, and Carol Bell. Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Poetry – October 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

“Knowing your place” used to be a kind of snobbish putdown. Certain kinds of people said of certain other kinds of people, “Don’t they know their place?” — which presumably indicated some kind of uppity social status on the part of the speaker.

But today, in post-modern, post-industrial and post-urban Central Colorado, to “know your place” has a different connotation. In this case, I think we’d rather have people here who “know their place.” Read the rest of this article

Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – May 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Talking Gourds
(Circle #1, premiere issue)
Art Goodtimes, Editor/Publisher
Published in 2000 by Lone Cone Press

There’s some truly outstanding poetry in the premiere edition of Talking Gourds, an annual described by its publisher as “a state literary magazine publishing the many good regional writers and poets in Colorado.” Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Poetry – February 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Sparrows have been alighting in Salida lately — not the birds, but images on posters for a poetry festival that runs February 2-4.

These Sparrows are an acronym for “Stories, Poems and Relations to Raise Our Winter Spirits,” and the festival is being organized by one of Salida’s premier performance poets, Jude Jannet.

Tickets for the three-day festival are $30, available from Jannet at 719-539-9847, and most events will have separate tickets that can be purchased at the door. There’s a lot more information on the web at www.allonecaravan.com. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0931271533[/amazon-product]Review by Lynda La Rocca

Poetry – August 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Bitter Creek Junction – Poetry of the American West
by Linda M. Hasselstrom
Published in 2000 by High Plains Press
ISBN: 0-931271-53-3 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0963190970[/amazon-product]Review by Art Goodtimes

Poetry – March 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man
Published in 1995 by La Alameda Press, Albuquerque
ISBN 0-9631909-7-0

Sofia
Published in 1999 by La Alameda Press, Albuquerque
ISBN 1-888809-11-6

Blessed Resistance
Published in 1999 by Mariposa Printing & Publishing, Santa Fé
ISBN Read the rest of this article