Blue Poet books  
 
Click here for more information.
Click here to download poetry books.
Click here to post poems for comment.
Click here to hear poets reding their own work.
Click here to chat with other poets or for special scheduled live events.
Click here to return to the Poets' Coop Home Page.
Please use the buttons above to go straight to where you want.
 
 
 
The Internet Poets' Cooperative
 
poetry books free mp3 Poets Coop
mp3 books free poetry  Poets Coop
free, mp3, chat, music, shopping, online marketing, download, shop, books, online, art, arts, audio, poetry, poems

Home|Poetry|Free MP3|Poets
Books|Join|Chat|Readers

 

Poets' Co-op TV's Poets' Page



We are proud to feature some of the best living local, regional and national poets. Our poets reflect a full spectrum of styles of contemporary American poetry, range in experience from to student to international award recipients and in age from 5 to 85 years young. Click on a name below to find out more about any of our featured poets (listed in order of appearance):

Elizabeth Robinson<- -|- ->Jeffrey Ethan Lee<- -|- ->Rod Smith & Mel Nichols<- -|- ->TVS & two fingers (Tim Van Schmidt,Mark J. Rosoff, &Dave Zekman)<- -|- ->Evan Oakley<- -|- ->Megan Freeman<- -|- ->The Free Radical Railroad (Phill Woods & Mike Adams)<- -|- ->The Disobedient Poets (Part 1- with Hilary DePolo & James Boyce)<- -|- ->The Disobedient Poets (Part 2 - with Katherine West & Jeff Finer)<- -|- ->The Disobedient Poets (Part 3- with M. D. Friedman & Mariamne Engle Friedman)<- -|- ->J. Dino Delano<- -|- ->Jared Smith<- -|- ->SETH with Art Compost & the Word Mechanics<- -|- ->Robert King<- -|- ->Amy Irish<- -|- ->George Drew<- -|- ->Maggie Rowlett<- -|- ->Leo Goya<- -|- ->The Friends' School Poets<- -|- ->Peter Neil Carroll<- -|- ->Charlie Rossiter & Dan Wilcox<- -|- ->Vicki Mandell-King<- -|- ->WE ARE theUnreal<- -|- ->Time Space & Experience with Kelly Hosner & Nick Orf<- -|- ->John Amen<- -|- ->Pat Maslowski<- -|- ->Kit Muldoon & Nahshon Cook<- -|- ->Julie Cummings<- -|- ->Shanon Brown<- -|- ->Rosemerry WahtolaTrommer<- -|- ->Sandy Tseng<- -|- ->Autumn Guest<- -|- ->Lynn Emanuel<- -|- ->Heather Gardner<- -|- ->Rachel Dacus<- -|- ->Andrea Moore<- -|- ->Lynn Wagner<- -|- ->Chris Hoffman<- -|- ->Wayne Gilbert<- -|- ->Suzi Q. Smith & Bobby LeFebre<- -|- ->Ted Kooser<- - | - - >Veronica Patterson<- - | - - >Jack Collom<- - | - - >Rita Dove<- - | - - >M. D. Friedman<--|-->The Long Conversation<-|->Anita Jepson-Gilbert<-|->Clint Locks<- -|- ->Ariella Ruth<- -|- ->Rachel Kellum<- -|- ->Dan Abernathy<- -|- ->Roseanna Frechette and Asalott<- -|- ->Airica Parker<- -|- ->Robert Lashley<- -|- ->H. R. Hegnauer<- -|- ->Theo "Lucifury" Wilson<- -|- ->Casey Coviello<- -|- ->Susan M. Peiffer<- -|- ->Valerie A. Szarek<- -|- ->


Elizabeth Robinson, our May 6th, 2007, featured poet. 

Elizabeth Robinson

Elizabeth Robinson is a winner of the National Poetry Series, 2001, and the Fence Modern Poets Prize, 2002. Her published books include Apprehend (Fence Books, 2003), Pure Descent (Sun & Moon Press, 2003), Harrow (Omnidawn Press, 2001), House Made of Silver (Kelsey St. Press, 2000), Bed of Lists (Kelsey St. Press, 1990) and In the Sequence of Falling Things (Paradigm Press, 1990). She also has several forthcoming full-length books as well as many chapbooks.

back to top


Jeffrey Ethan Lee, our June 3rd, 2007, featured poet. 

Jeffrey Ethan Lee

Jeffrey Ethan Lee’s first full-length poetry book, invisible sister was published by Many Mountains Moving Press, 2004 (visit www.mmminc.org and click on the MMM Press link). Lee won the 2002 Sow's Ear Poetry Chapbook prize ($1,000) for The Sylf (2003), published Strangers in a Homeland (chapbook with Ashland Press, 2001), and published hundreds of poems, stories and essays in Many Mountains Moving, Xconnect, Crab Orchard Review, Crazyhorse, Crosscurrents, Drexel Online Journal, Green Mountain Review, Washington Square and others. He teaches creative writing at University of Northern Colorado. Visit www.unco.edu/poetry/jeffrey.lee. He has a Ph.D. in British Romanticism and an MFA from NYU.

back to top


Rod Smith & Mel Nichols, our July 1st, 2007, featured poets. 

Rod Smith & Mel Nichols

Rod Smith's publications include Music or Honesty, In Memory of My Theories, Protective Immediacy, New Mannerist Tricycle and the audio book, Fear the Sky. He edits Aerial Magazine, manages Bridge Street Books, publishes Edge Books in Washington, DC and is an active Flarf poet.  Mel Nichols, also from D. C., is a poet and digital artist whose collaborative projects include poetry installations and web-based hypermedia works. Her chap book, Day Poems was published in 2005.  The Silent Tongue, a collaboration with visual artist Doug Clevenger, was at the Jettsett Gallery in Chicago in 2001.  She is currently creating a wonderful online photographic poetry series called The Beginning of Beauty: Part 1, hottest new ring tones mnichol6.

back to top


TVS & two fingers, our August 5th, 2007, featured poets. 

TVS & two fingers

TVS and two fingers have been creating their unique combination of performance poetry and sound art since the group's debut performance in Fort Collins , Colorado on New Year's Eve 1996. Poet Tim Van Schmidt joined forces with Mark J. Rosoff and Dave Zekman , members of the experimental music group two fingers, in the Fall of 1996 to record their first independent album release, "More Poets Inside," a limited edition cassette.  Since then, TVS and two fingers have performed extensively in Colorado and Wyoming , as well as in the East Coast states of Connecticut and Massachusetts . The group has also released three more independent albums, including "Live," "Dreaming of the Pyramids," and "Air and Words," published with a book version of the words. TVS and two fingers have appeared on two albums by Australian storyteller and didjeridoo player Paul Taylor and on a CD compilation of poetry from Sparrows, Colorado 's Performance Poetry Festival.

back to top


Evan Oakley, our September 9th, 2007, featured poet. 

Evan Oakley

Evan Oakley is an Associate Professor of English/Humanities at the AIMS Community College in Loveland, Colorado. He received his MFA from George Mason University in Virginia. He is past editor of the literary journals Phoebe and The Dry Creek Review. For many years, he also co-directed the annual summer literary event, Poets in the Park, held in Loveland. He is past recipient of the Colorado Council of the Arts Poetry Award, and he has published in various journals and magazines.

back to top


Megan Freeman, our October 7th, 2007, featured poet. 

Megan Freeman

Megan E. Freeman used to live in northeast Los Angeles, central Ohio, northern Norway and on Caribbean cruise ships.  She currently chairs the Humanities department at a public charter school in Lafayette, Colorado.  A member and former fellow in the Colorado State University Writing Project, she is also a 2007 Fund for Teachers fellow, a two-time Impact on Education Award finalist, and a 2007 Colorado Teacher of the Year nominee.  Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies and literary journals, and she is working on her first novel.

back to top


The Free Radical Railroad, our December 2nd, 2007, featured performers. 

Free Radical Railroad

Phil Woods has been writing poetry for 40 years and is the author of 6 books. His most recent are Poems for the Prophet (2006) and the chapbook "Struggle Mountain" which is part of a 3 chapbook collection called Free Radical Railroad Underground (2007). The 3 authors, Mike Adams, Phil Woods, and James Taylor III, often perform together as the Free Radical Railroad.

back to top


The Disobedient Poets (Part 1) with Hilary DePolo & James Boyce, our January 6th , 2008, featured performers. 

Hilary DePolo & James Boyce

Hilary DePolo, based in Denver, Colorado has been writing free verse and prose poetry for more than twenty years. She has received residencies from the Ucross Foundation and the Jentel Artist Residency Program. Her work is the basis of a multidisciplinary exhibition of poetry, visual art and performance entitled Character Sketches to be featured at the Loveland Museum and Gallery, Loveland, Colorado, and a second entitled Past Lives to be featured at the Curtis Arts and Humanities Center. Both exhibitions will be part if the 2008 exhibition schedule. She has recently teamed with James Boyce to form Louisiana Pearl – a poetry performance duo. She is self employed as a visual arts consultant.

James Boyce , a 40 year old guitarist from New Jersey maintains a consistent level of passion for the instrument. This passion began at a guitar player's common starting age of fifteen and rolls-on to this day. His heroes include the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Randy Rhoads, Steve Via, classical guitarist John Williams and jazz pianist McCoy Tyner. With these masters as guides, James was able to experience some success as a lead guitarist in numerous heavy metal and jazz bands. He now brings his art form to the spoken word genre with the talented poet, Hilary DePolo.

back to top


The Disobedient Poets (Part 2)with Katherine West & Jeff Finer, our February 3rd, 2008, featured performers. 

Katherine West & Jeff Finer

After living most of her adult life in Latin America, Katherine West now makes her home in the mountains near Loveland, Colorado. She teaches poetry workshops at the Loveland Museum, Aims Community College, and The Colorado Contemporary Music College in Ft. Collins. She also works as contributor and poetry editor for CRONE magazine and as a member of the editorial collective of Green Fuse Community Press (www.greenfusepress.com). She has published one bi-lingual chapbook Native Speakers in 1998, and in 2006 published a full-length collection of dreams poems, Scimitar Dreams, with original artwork by Tom Katsimpalis Curator of Interpretation at the Loveland Museum. Her new collection The Bone Train, published by Howling Dog Press, is due out in 2008. Her work also appears on a regular basis in New Verse News, an online poetry newspaper, as well as in numerous journals such as White Pelican Review, Lalitamba Poetry Journal, Omega, Calyx Journal, Crone, and Poets Against War.

Jeff Finer has been accompanying poets in performance since 2003. First on bottleneck and more recently on lap-style slide guitar, Jeff has performed with poets in both ensemble and solo performances at the Loveland Museum, The Dairy Center for the Arts, The Art Center of Estes Park, Stage C at the Cameron Café in Denver, and on CCTV54's series on local poets. In 2008 Jeff will expand his efforts, co-teaching two Loveland Museum workshops that focus on performance, one with poet Hilary DePolo in her musician-meets-poet series, and another as part of the Green Fuse Summer Poetry Festival.

back to top


The Disobedient Poets (Part 3) with M. D. Friedman & Mariamne Engle Friedman, our March 2nd, 2008, featured performers. 

M. D. Friedman & Mariamne Engle Friedman

M. D. Friedman is a poet, teacher, musician, photographer, digital artist and web master from Lafayette, Colorado where he resides with his wife, Mariamne Engle Friedman, and his son, Max.  In the spring of 2006 he retired from teaching in the public education factories to pursue the creative arts.  His fourth book of poetry, Where We Reach, was recently released and combines his poetry with his original photographs and artwork.

He is the founder of the Internet Poets' Cooperative web site which features over 20 free volumes of e-books from poets around the world and over 500 free audio recordings of dozens of Colorado poets reading their own work. His newest web site, www.digitaldada.org, represents an effort to explore the transformational impact of digital creation on common culture. His personal web site, www.mdfriedman.com offers access to all of M. D. Friedman's creative ventures.

Mariamne E. Friedman spent her childhood in Ohio. Her father, the late John Engle, poet and creative writing teacher, surrounded her with poetry and encouragement to write. Mariamne cannot remember a time when poetry was not in her life. Today, Mariamne lives in Lafayette, Colorado and is blissfully married to poet, M.D. Friedman. She continues the dance of poetic passion and is inspired daily by her husband, by poet Mary Oliver, and her teacher, Prem Rawat.

back to top


J. Dino Delano, our April 6th, 2008, featured poet. 

J. Dino Delano

J. Dino Delano is a writer, poet, photographer and artist from Louisville, Colorado. He is of Portuguese, French and Indian decent and was raised by his grandparents in Fall River, Massachusetts. His photography has appeared In Photographers Forum, on magazine covers and on a Hallmark calendar. His first book, A Seekers Journal was published in 1982. Dino's poetry has appeared in several publications, and he has published a poetry chap book entitled Soul's Breath. He also hosts the open mike at the Mercury Cafe in Denver, Colorado.

back to top


Jared Smith, our May 4th, 2008, featured poet.

 Jared Smith

Jared Smith is a prominent figure in contemporary poetry, technology research, and professional continuing education. Having earned his BA cum laude and his MA in English and American Literature from New York University, he spent many years in industry and research. Starting in 1976, he rose to Vice President of The Energy Bureau, Inc. in New York; relocated to Illinois, where he became Associate Director of both Education and Research for an international not-for-profit research laboratory (IGT); advised several White House Commissions on technology and policy under the Clinton Administration; and left industry in 2001, after serving as Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory.

Jared's seventh volume of poetry, The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations, was released in May of 2008 by Higganum Hill Books in Connecticut. His previous six critically acclaimed volumes include: Where Images Become Imbued With Time ( Puddin'head Press, Chicago, 2007); Lake Michigan And Other Poems ( Puddin'head Press, Chicago, 2005); Walking The Perimeters Of The Plate Glass Window Factory ( Birch Brook Press, New York, 2001); Keeping The Outlaw Alive ( Erie Street Press, Chicago, 1988); Dark Wing ( Charred Norton Publishing, New York, 1984); and Song Of The Blood: An Epic (The Smith Press, New York, 1983). Jared's Song Of The Blood is now available as a free-to-read e-book.

His first CD, Seven Minutes Before The Bombs Drop, was released by Artvilla Records in 2006, with original music performed by David Michael Jackson and Andy Derryberry. (You may enjoy some free excerpts from this CD at www.mp3poetry.org). His second CD, Controlled By Ghosts, was released by Practical Music Studio in combination with CD Baby in October '07, with music by alternative jazz composer Lem Roby. Both CDs can be downloaded in whole or in part via any digital download service worldwide.

Jared has had hundreds of publications in literary journals across the nation over the past 30 years, in addition to several foreign countries. He has published reviews of the works of such major contemporary poets as Ted Kooser, C.K. Williams, and W.S. Merwin, as well as several craft interviews, including one with Ted Kooser that was translated into Chinese for republication in Taiwan and Mainland China. Jared's work has also been adapted to stage in both New York and Chicago.

Jared Smith's poems, essays, and literary commentary have appeared in The New York Quarterly, Confrontation, Spoon River Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Bitter Oleander, Small Press Review, Greenfield Review, Vagabond, The Smith, Home Planet News, Bitterroot, Rhino, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Review, After Hours, Poet Lore, The Pedestal, Second Coming, The Partisan Review, Somerville News, Coe Review, U.T. Review, The Iconoclast, Trail & Timberline, and many others. He has also been on National Public Radio and Pacifica. He has given readings, workshops, and classes at colleges, schools, libraries, and coffee houses around the country.

While at NYU, Jared studied under poet/critic M.L. Rosenthal, Library of Congress Adviser Robert Hazel, and founder of The New York Quarterly William Packard. He has served as a member of the Screening Committee and on the Board of Directors of The New York Quarterly under founding Editor William Packard, as well as being a current member of its Advisory Board under Raymond Hammond; as coordinator of readings at two Greenwich Village coffee shops in the 70s; as a Guest Columnist for Poets magazine and Home Planet News under Editor Don Lev; as Guest Poetry Editor for two issues of The Pedestal under Editor John Amen; and as Poetry Editor of Trail & Timberline.

Jared Smith is a member of The Academy of American Poets, Illinois State Poetry Society, and The Chicago Poets' Club, and past President of Poets & Patrons in Chicago. He is listed in Marquis Who's Who In America, among other reference works, and has been listed among the authors in Poets & Writers Directory since its inception.

back to top


SETH with Art Compost & the Word Mechanics, our June 1st, 2008, featured poets

.SETH

One of Denver's more popular performance poets ...original, moving, insightful -- Rocky Mountain News

Writer, performance poet, actor and percussionist, SETH lives in Denver, Colorado where he has been a driving force behind numerous Poetry Theater productions. These include Reign of the Scar Clan which won a “Best of Denver” in 1995. For more than 18 years SETH has experimented with creative ways to present poetry. He has performed with scores of musicians, actors, poets and dancers in a long list of live, audio and video productions.

In 1991 SETH helped found Open Rangers, a dynamic network of poets, actors, musicians, dancers and other performance artists. Over a span of 13 years, Open Rangers was responsible for such innovative productions as Joy is the Name of a Child, Poetic License, Reign of the Scar Clan and Random Axe of Rhyme. They also produced two audio cassettes Drop the Other Shoe and Eating Light which interwove music, poetry and theater for a uniquely stimulating listening experience.  In 1993 SETH joined Jafrika, a critically-acclaimed trio presenting “original music, provocative dance and poignant poetry.” The Rocky Mountain News listed Jafrika as “among Denver's finest cultural offerings”. His video appearances have been aired on several local television stations in the Denver-Metro area. His last major stage production was the “choreo-poem” Suite Moses, employing Afro-American popular music and dance in retelling the story of Exodus from a Black perspective. The production was praised by critics and audiences alike.

Presently SETH performs every Sunday night at Denver's Mercury Café. From 7-8pm each week, SETH along with Art Compost & the Word Mechanics hosts a “Jam before the Slam,” collaborating with poets and singers from the audience. Their first CD Love, Death & Poetry won Westword's Best of Denver in 2005 for Best Spoken Word CD.

back to top


Robert King, our August 3, 2008, featured poet.

Robert King

Born in Denver , Colorado , with Ft. Collins his hometown, Robert King attended Colorado State University (M. A. American Literature, 1961) and the University of Iowa (Ph. D. English/Creative Writing, 1965). He retired as Professor Emeritus from the University of North Dakota in 1996, having received the UND Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, Creative Activity, and Service. He has since lectured at the University of Nebraska and the University of Northern Colorado.

He has three children—Lisa, Lynn, and Lawrence, all living in North Dakota—and he currently lives in Greeley, Colorado, where he writes and directs the Colorado Poets Center.

In the last ten years, King has published poems:  American Life in Poetry, Ascent, Atlanta Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, The Cape Rock, The Carolina Quarterly, Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Connecticut River Review, Cream City Review, Dalhousie Review; Descant; Ellipsis, Ekphrasis, Facets: A Literary Magazine, Great River Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, HeartLodge, Hiram Poetry Review, Louisiana Review, The Louisville Review, Lullwater Review, Margie, Malahat Review, Many Mountains Moving, The Massachusetts Review, Midwest Quarterly, Milkwood Review, Missouri Review, New Orleans Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Northeast, The Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Plainsongs, Poet Lore, Poetry, Potomac Review, Potpourri, Rattle, Red Rock Review, Rio Grande Review, The Saint Anne's Review, Shenandoah, South Dakota Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sundog, Sycamore Review, Tar River Poetry, and West Wind Review.   In addition, he has published five poetry chap books.  His latest book, Old Man Laughing, was publish in 2007 by Ghost Road Press and was a finalist in the Colorado Book Award.

back to top


Amy Irish, our September 7, 2008, featured poet.

Amy Irish

Amy Wray Irish earned a BA in English from the University of Iowa , then attended the University of Notre Dame, where she was Managing Editor of the Notre Dame Review and a teacher of undergraduate poetry classes while she earned her MFA in creative writing. She now lives in Colorado with her husband, also a writer, and their son. Amy 's work has been seen in 100 Words, Apocalypse, Ariel, The Bend (formerly Dánta), Neologisms, the Notre Dame Review, Poetry Motel, River King Poetry Supplement and Wazee Journal. She was featured poet in Wazee's Spring 2003 edition and won first place in Chicago 's Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Contest. Amy's novel-in-progress, titled Her Fertile Crescent, is set in ancient Iraq amidst goddesses, belly dancing and sacred sexuality.

Amy 's chapbook of poems and art --- Creation Stories --- from Green Fuse Press released last spring sold out in one day!  Please check out www.myspace.com/amywrayirish for more information or contact her at lunablue_girl@msn.com.

back to top


George Drew, our October 5 , 2008, featured poet.

George Drew

George Drew was born in Mississippi and grew up there and in New York State , where he currently lives. Toads in a Poisoned Tank , his first book, was published in 1986. The chapbook, So Many Bones (Poems of Russia ) , was published in a bilingual edition by a Russian press in 1997.

back to top


Maggie Rowlett, our November 2, 2008, featured poet.

Maggie Rowlett

Maggie Rowlett is an artist and poet from Loveland, Colorado.  Maggie Rowlett’s chapbook, Sing the Returning was the first chapbook ever published by Greenfuse Press in 2005. The title poem won first place for The Poetry Society of Colorado’s Current Events poetry contest, and Song won first place for their Trust in God contest.

back to top


Leo Goya, our December 7, 2008, featured poet.

Leo Goya

Leo Goya is a New York City ex-patriot firmly convinced that Colorado above 8,000 feet is full a'bliss and more than adequate digs. Poet, artist, percussionist, he released a CD with The Jarad Astin Jazz Trio (available on cuezonerecords.com). Leo has been trying for more than a half-century to channel e.e. cummings.

back to top


The Friends' School Poets, our March 1st, 2009, featured poets.

Friends' School Logo

Friends’ School is a supportive, dynamic community committed to educating the whole child—head, hand, and heart. Our students acquire a strong academic foundation while developing creative expression, social responsibility, and respect for diversity and the individual. We challenge students and teachers to reach their full potential as engaged, lifelong learners.

back to top


Peter Neil Carroll, our April 5 , 2009, featured poet.

Peter Neil Carroll is the author and editor of 17 books, including the recently published journal of an American poet and ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War, James Neugass, which is titled War is Beautiful (New Press, 2008). His newest book is titled of poetry is titled Riverborne: A Mississippi Requiem, inspired by a trip along the Mississippi River following the same route he took with the same companion in 1972. The poetry focuses on the changing relationship between landscape and the two men. His poetry has appeared recently in the Arkansas Review and the Monterey Poetry Review. He was a finalist in last year Winning Writers' War Poetry contest. His work is also forthcoming in Heavy Bear. He reads frequently in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lives with his wife, the writer Jeannette Ferrary.

back to top


Charlie Rossiter & Dan Wilcox, our May 3, 2009, featured poets.

Charlie Rossiter

Charlie Rossiter writes, performs, and promotes poetry every chance he gets. The great audio poetry web site, www.poetrypoetry.com, is the latest in a long list of poetry projects which include the creating and hosting the Poetry Motel, a cable television program still seen in upstate New York and neighboring states, and organizing all-day poetry readings at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC. He received an NEA Fellowship for poetry and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Dan Wilcox has had his poems published in many literary magazines and anthologies and, as a photographer, he has accumulated what is undoubtedly the largest collection of photos of unknown (and well-known) poets in the world. His touring has been supported by the NY Foundation for the Arts.

Since joining poetic forces in 1993, Charlie & Dan have performed their work around the country at major venues such as the Bowery Poetry Club, NYC; Cantab Lounge, Cambridge, MA; the Green Mill, Chicago; Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NYC; Newport Beach Arts Center, Oregon; in schools and libraries throughout the land, on NPR and numerous state-wide public radio networks and in Albanys in 11 states. Their ultimate goal is to perform their poetry in all of America's 18 Albanys. They began this venture as “3 Guys from Albany,” but in January, 2006, one of their numbers (Tom Nattell) passed away from throat cancer. They have decided to continue with the project. Their Grand Plan may seem a bit quirky, but have found that it creates a unique brand of poetry outreach that can sometimes bring readings to places that rarely have such events. In their readings we use a variety of performance techniques: musical instruments, real and home-made; multi-voice presentations; and audience participation; to present our personal and socially-committed poetry.

back to top


Vicki Mandell-King, our June 7 , 2009, featured poet.

Vicki Mandell-King

Although she has written poetry most of her life, about 10 years ago, Vicki Mandell-King decided to claim "being" a poet as well. Since then, along with continuing her almost 30-year career as a Federal Public Defender, she has been writing, publishing and performing her work. Her poetry has been published in such literary journals as Calyx Journal, Margie, Kalliope, Mainstreet Rag, Ilya's Honey, and others. Vicki is currently seeking a publisher for her first collection, called Emptying. The cover will be designed by her son. Vicki and her husband have lived in Louisville for over 30 years in a remodeled (and remodeled) century-old Victorian.

back to top


WE ARE theUnreal, our July 5, 2009, featured poets.

theUnreal

WE ARE theUnREAL has been a nationally touring act (and Toronto, Vancouver, and Oxford) since November of 2008. They currently are made up of Barakanoel Mumbles, Dusty Rose, Samul Sax, and the Dunce Apprentice of Citizens of Sleep. Check out their 2007 release Copyright Law.

bringing slam and off kilter duo/trio/quartet
games, tricks, improv, haiku, hip hop,
theater, comedy, slapstick, vaudeville,
& whatever else it takes to wreck a room.

featured @ the Green Mill,
Broken Speech in Orlando, Slam Nuba in
Denver, the Corvallis and Portland Slams
in Oregon, Slam Richmond, Toronto Slam,
Berkeley Slam, Chico Slam, Kinetic Poetics
in Santa Cruz, FlagSlam in AZ, the Killeen
Slam in TX, and a long boring list of other
colleges, showcases, open mics, parties, etc.

Do the very fate of humanity a favor. And check them out.- http://www.illiteratemagazine.com/blog

One of this year's most intriguing albums -- Okayplayer.com

Citizens of sleep seem to resurrect the golden era of hip hop -- HiphopLinguistics.com

Dusty Rose has poems that could save lives - John Survivor Blake

I'm glad I didn.t kick you out - David @ Louder Arts

Chances are this shit will never catch on, but my friends like my songs and i like my songs.-- the Grouch

back to top


Time Space & Experience with Kelly Hosner & Nick Orf, our August 2, 2009, featured poets.

Kelly Hosner & Nick Orf

back to top


John Amen, our September 6, 2009, featured poet.

John Amen

John Amen is the author of two collections of poetry: Christening the Dancer (Uccelli Press 2003) and More of Me Disappears (Cross-Cultural Communications 2005), and has released two folk/folk rock CDs, All I'll Never Need and Ridiculous Empire (Cool Midget 2004, 2008). His poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including, most recently,  Rattle, The New York Quarterly, The International Poetry Review, Gargoyle, and Blood to Remember . He is also an artist, working primarily with acrylics on canvas. Amen travels widely giving readings, doing musical performances, and conducting workshops. He founded and continues to edit the award-winning literary bimonthly, The Pedestal Magazine ( www.thepedestalmagazine.com ).

back to top


Pat Maslowski, our October 4, 2009, featured poet.

Pat Maslowski

Pat Maslowski is a retired teacher and librarian, living in Drake, Colorado. Her first poetry chapbook is Camping Trip, a series of poems inspired by San Luis Lakes and Burro Bridge campgrounds in Colorado and Canyon de Chelly in Chinle, Arizona. Camping Trip won a First Chapbook Prize in 2009 and is published by Green Fuse Press.

Pat has published poetry in Bamboo Ridge, a Hawaiian literary magazine, and in Crone, Sacred Poetry, Beyond Pluto, and Improv I, 2, and 3 (Green Fuse anthologies). New Verse News online, Teaching the Humanities (Summer 1995), the Journal of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Storm Mountain Emergency Response Team Web Site are other places where her work has appeared.

Her next book of poetry will be titled, Two Years on Ta'u and the Journey of Returning about living and teaching in American Samoa.

back to top


Kit Muldoon & Nahshon Cook, our November 1, 2009, featured poets.

Kit Muldoon & /NahshonCook

Kit Muldoon is a regular at the Mercury Cafe readings in Denver and has thrilled audiences at readings throughout Colorado. Her work is powerful, gritty, honest and revealing. Kit lives in Lakewood, Colorado, when she is not off chasing the muse around.

Nahshon Cook's poetry has appeared in two Cleo Parker Robinson Dance productions and at peace and interfaith conferences in Colorado which have included Mysticism and Social Change, A Celebration of Religious Freedom, and Race, Gender and Class in the Building of the Beloved Community, Peace out Loud... for a change!, and the 2009 Denver Martin Luther King Day parade and march. He has had poems published in Divine Revolutions Magazine and Grafitti-Kolkata. His first collection of poetry A New Beginning will be published in January 2010 by "please” press.

back to top


Julie Cummings, our December 6, 2009, featured poet.

Julie Cummings

Currently residing in Aurora & Conifer, Colorado, Julie Cummings is known for her contributions to the literary world through many facets. In addition to being the standing President of Columbine Poets, Inc, which is the Colorado state poetry society affiliated with the NFSPS, Ms. Cummings also facilitates and conducts workshops on various writing topics on a regular basis. Ms. Cummings' poems have been published in three anthologies over the course of the past several years. Additionally her work is found in a local literary magazine, newspapers, as well as on the internet. Ms. Cummings began writing poetry at the age of 9. Ms. Cummings is strongly influenced by Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer as well as many others. In addition to being a middle school educator, Ms. Cummings also enjoys educating people about social issues through her poetry as well as through workshops. Her poems are available in postcard form as well as in a little self published book of poems in which she donates all of the proceeds to several different social awareness causes.

back to top


Shanon Brown, our January 3, 2010, featured poet.

Shanon Brown is a talented young poet and visual artist from Denver, Colorado. Shanon started writing poetry at age 6, soon after she learned to write at all. Her work speaks from the heart of what it means to be human. Although she is a popular regular of the Denver poetry open mic scene, her appearance on the Poets' Co-op TV Show in January of 2010 represents her debut performance as a featured reader. After viewing her performance, we are sure you will agree it certainly will not be her last! Shanon is currently going to school at Colorado University Denver campus as a premed student majoring in psychology.

back to top


Rosemerry WahtolaTrommer, our March 7, 2010, featured poet.

Rosemerry Trommer

Poet, writer and organic fruit grower Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer uses poetry to help people fall more deeply in love with the world and their lives. She was recently reappointed Poet Laureate of San Miguel County.

She has authored and edited ten books, including:
Intimate Landscape: The Four Corners in Poetry and Photographs;
Holding Three Things at Once;
Insatiable: Poems;
The Christmas Candle Book: Poems of Light;
Suitcase of Yeses (audio CD);
Charity: True Stories of Giving & Receiving;
If You Listen, winner of the Colorado Independent Press Association poetry award.

She’s widely anthologized, including The Geography of Hope: Poets of Colorado’s Western Slope, What Wildness This Is: Women Write About the Southwest, and Improv: An Anthology of Colorado Poets.

In addition to writing, Rosemerry teaches public speaking for Mesa State College,
teaches poetry in schools, independently and with Young Audiences, writes an award-winning linguistics column for the Telluride Daily Planet, sings with a 7-woman a cappella group, and is mother and step-mother to four-year-old Finn, infant Vivian, and 25-year-old Shawnee. Whew. For ten years, Rosemerry served as director of the Telluride Writers Guild and led a poetry discussion series at the Telluride Public Library.

In 2007, she and her husband, Eric, bought a 70-acre orchard and now grow organic peaches, pears, cherries, nectarines, apples and apricots. Her master’s degree in English Language & Linguistics is from University of Wisconsin—Madison.

To witness Rosemerry Trommer’s myriad talents before a group and to hear her
message is to restore one’s faith in humanity
.” —Mike Nobles, Director of “A Gathering of Writers”

back to top


Sandy Tseng, our May 2, 2010, featured poet.

Sandy Tseng (Photo by Mark Chen).

Sandy Tseng's book of poems, Sediment , was published by Four Way Books in October 2009.  Among her awards are The Nation 's 2006 Discovery Award, and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Vira I. Heinz Foundation. She has held residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  Her work has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Crazyhorse, Fugue, Hunger Mountain , Third Coast , and other journals.  Her poems were recently anthologized in Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves (Deep Bowl Press, 2008).

back to top


Autumn Guest, our June 6, 2010, featured poet.

Autumn Guest

Autumn Guest, has been a leader in the Loveland Poetry scene and was the organizer of the popular of performance poetry series called Blue Tattoo.  Her work is highly rhythmic and both personal and universal in theme.

back to top


Lynn Emanuel, our July 4, 2010, featured poet.

Lynn Emanuel

Lynn Emanuel is the author of four books of poetry, Hotel Fiesta, The Dig, Then, Suddenly--, which was awarded the Eric Matthieu King Award from The Academy of American Poets, and Noose and Hook.  Her work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry numerous times and is included in The Oxford Book of American Poetry.  She has been a judge for the National Book Awards and has taught at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Warren Wilson Program in Creative Writing, and the Bennington College Low Residency MFA program. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and has been a winner of the National Poetry Series. Currently, she is a Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh where she directs the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series.

back to top


Heather Gardner, our August 1, 2010, featured poet.

Heather Gardner

Heather Gardner has traveled around the world on her way to Louisville, Colorado, where now resides.  She moved to India when she was three weeks old and continued hopping from country to country.  Niwot's Curse led her to Colorado where she attended graduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  She earned her Master's Degree in English and taught English and Creative Writing at C.  U.  She taught in the Boulder Valley School District for 23 years, during which time she married and settled down with her husband and two daughters.  After a serious car accident, Heather was forced to retire early from public teaching, on disability.  Heather posts a poem a week on her blog and is current working on finishing her first book.

back to top


Rachel Dacus, our September 5, 2010, featured poet.

Rachel Dacus

Rachel Dacus is a California poet and consultant who raises funds for nonprofit organizations. Her poetry books are Another Circle of Delight, Femme au chapeau, and Earth Lessons. Her work appears in numerous anthologies, including Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English, Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po LISTSERV, Italy: A Love Story, and Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous print and online magazines, including Atlanta Review, Bellingham Review, Georgetown Review, Prairie Schooner, and Smartish Pace. She serves as a contributing editor at Umbrella magazine and interviews poets for Fringe Magazine and blogs at http://dacusrocket.blogspot.com. The daughter of a rocket scientist, her name is on a piece of floating space junk. You can read more about Rachel Dacus at www.dacushome.com.

back to top


Andrea Moore, our October 3, 2010, featured poet.

Andrea Moore

Andrea Moore is a poet, theatre artist, and photographer from Denver, CO.  She competed at the national level as part of the Colorado Poetry Slam Team in 2000, and she was the Denver Poet's Day Slam Champion and the Fall Slam Champion at the Third Rail in Cambridge, MA that same year.  For the last decade, she's been doing mostly other things, like running her own portrait photography business in order to fund her artistic adventures and sustain her passion for travel.   Andrea is a co-founder of the No One Way Arts Collaborative - www.NoOneWayArts.com.

back to top


Lynn Wagner, our November 7, 2010, featured poet.

Rachel Dacus

Lynn Wagner’s chapbook, No Blues This Raucous Song, won the 2009 Slapering Hol competition. Her poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Subtropics, 5AM, Chatauqua Literary Review and other journals. Her awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize and fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh. She lives and writes in Denver, Colorado, working as a research assistant at the School of Medicine and teaching poetry to youth at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

back to top


Chris Hoffman, our December 5, 2010, featured poet.

Cris Hoffman

Chris Hoffman’s poetry publication credits include a book, Cairns, and publication in Appalachia, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chrysalis Reader, Sea Kayaker, and EarthLight, among others, as well as in the anthology The Soul Unearthed. He is also the author of The Hoop and the Tree: A Compass for Finding a Deeper Relationship with All Life, a nonfiction book on ecopsychology and spirituality. He works as organization development consultant, ecopsychologist, and poet.  More information is available on his website: www.hoopandtree.org.

back to top


Wayne Gilbert, our January 2, 2011, featured poet.

Wayne Gilbert

Wayne A. Gilbert, aka magmapoet, has been writing since 1969, but has only gone public with his work since summer 2000.  His recent chapbook, MagmaMystic, is published by Might Rogue Press. 

His work from 2000-2005 is collected under the title MagmaPhonic Charts, and was written as “charts” for improvisation with a group of musicians and visual artists. 

Gilbert does not usually publish his work, but performs it in shows with titles like “Progression Degeneration Poems,” “Stone, Bones & Feathers,” “Know-Hope,” “Magmaphonic Librettoes:  selections from the Charts,” “Lorca’s Killing Me,” and “goin’ down the canyon.”  He prefers to perform with free-improv musicians, like Charles Rourke, saxophonist and creative instrumentalist.  He has appeared in a variety of venues throughout the Rocky Mountain region. 

In 2007, he was invited to Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, NYC.  While there he landed a 2nd gig and got to perform w/his 2nd favorite saxophonist of all time:  Sabir Mateen. 

Magmapoet is currently working on two collections of poems:  Sufijazz and Iona Blues:  poems from the Ash Cloud. 

Gilbert has spent most of his life doing third-world missionary work in Colorado as a community college teacher.  His Parkinson’s Disease is controlled for now by Chinese medicine, meditation practice, naps and fewer beers.  He lives with Alice C., his wife of 33 years.

back to top


Suzi Q. Smith & Bobby LeFebre our featured poets for the month of February, 2011.

Suzi Q. Smith   &   Bobby Lefebre

Suzi Q. Smith has been writing poems for many moons. She is mother to an amazing eleven-year-old daughter who fills her life with joy. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and literary magazines, while her name is well known among the slam and spoken word circuit. She has been featured on several television and radio programs, and recordings of her poetry and songs have been sampled and remixed all over the world, earning both high acclaim and controversy. She has shared stages with Gil Scott Heron, Les Nubians, Dead Prez, The Flobots, and many more, performing at Colleges and Universities, night clubs, coffee houses, and festivals throughout the U.S. Her song-laden style and passionate performances have earned her a place among the best spoken word artists in the nation. In 2006, Suzi Q. co-founded Slam Nuba, which quickly became one of the nation's most highly-ranked poetry slam teams. She has also served as the Poetry Editor for Denver Syntax, an online arts review focused on innovative music, literature, and visual arts. Suzi Q. is also known as an Activist working with civil rights organizations, victims advocate organizations, arts organizations, peace organizations, and more. Currently, Suzi Q. Smith performs in schools throughout the United States and teaches creative writing workshops in many learning environments from schools to detention centers. Her second album featuring work with producers from around the world is scheduled for release in Spring 2011.

Bobby LeFebre is an award-winning spoken word artist, actor, and social worker from Denver, Colorado. He is a two time Grand Slam Champion, a National Poetry Slam Finalist, an Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, and has been a member of three National Poetry Slam Teams. LeFebre is a company actor with Denver's only Latino Theater, El Centro Su Teatro, and co-founder of Cafe Cultura, Denver’s largest monthly open mic and artistic expression event serving Denver's inner-city community. As a performer, LeFebre has taught and performed poetry and spoken word at protests, cultural events, schools, detention centers, and colleges and universities across the United States. He has shared stages with the top performance poets in the nation, Grammy nominated musicians Les Nubian, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Dead Prez, UNIVERSES, Saul Williams, Bahamadia, The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word, D.J. Kool Herc, Talib Kweli, Gil Scott-Heron, Sandra Maria Esteves, and The Last Poets.

back to top


Ted Kooser Reading at the Boulder Library, a special feature for the month of March, 2011.

Ted Kooser

Ted Kooser  is a poet and essayist, a Presidential Professor of English at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He served as the U. S. Poet Laureate from 2004-2006, and his book Delights & Shadows won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His writing is known for its clarity, precision and accessibility. He worked for many years in the life insurance business, retiring in 1999 as a vice president. He and his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, the retired editor of The Lincoln Journal Star, live on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska. He has a son, Jeff, and a granddaughter, Margaret.

back to top


Veronica Patterson, our featured poet for the month of April, 2011.

Veronica Patterson

Veronica Patterson received Individual Artist’s Fellowships from the Colorado Council on the Arts in 1984 and 1997 and has had residencies at the Ucross Foundation, Hedgebrook, and Rocky Mountain National Park. She is a graduate of Cornell University, the University of Michigan and the University of Northern Colorado. She also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. Patterson’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, her poem “Postcards” won first place in the Peregrine poetry contest (Amherst Writers and Artists), and her poem “Three Photographs Not of My Father” won first prize in the 1997 Salt Hill Journal poetry competition at Syracuse University.

back to top


Jack Collom, our featured poet for the month of May, 2011.

Jack Collom

Jack Collom was born in Chicago in 1931. His childhood was full of woods and birds and books in small-town Illinois. He moved to Colorado in 1947 and graduated from Fraser High School (in a class of 4). He then attended Forestry School at Colorado State University and graduated in 1952. During his four years in the Air Force, he began writing poetry "on the shores of Tripoli." Back stateside he worked for 20 years in factories, writing poetry at night. He began life of teaching in the mid-70's and has worked as Poet-in-the-Schools for over 35 years. He has taught at Naropa University for more than 23 years and is now an Adjunct Professor. He has also taught at the university of Colorado and several other colleges. Jack has had 24 books of poetry published and has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Poetry, plus many other grants for magazine and book production and especially work with children. He continues to write experimental and nature poetry abundantly.

back to top


Rita Dove reading at the Rialto Theater in Loveland, a special feature for the month of of June, 2011.

Rita Dove

Rita Dove received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Thomas and Beulah and served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995; her most recent poetry collections are Sonata Mulattica (2009) and American Smooth (2004). She has also published short stories, the novel Through the Ivory Gate and the drama The Darker Face of the Earth, which was produced at the Kennedy Center in 1997. In 1998 the Boston Symphony debuted her song cycle "Severn for Luck," with music by John Williams. She is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

back to top


M. D. Friedman reading from his new chapbook, Leaning Toward Whole, at the Innisfree Poetry Book Store in Boulder, Colorado, a special feature for the month of of July, 2011.

M. D. Friedman(Photo by Kenneth Jessen).

M. D. Friedman is a poet, teacher, musician, photographer, digital artist and web designer from Lafayette, Colorado. Thousands of copies of his first four books have been enjoyed by readers throughout the world. His audio poem, "A Good Dog," was the overall winner of the Book Habit & New Zealand Poetry Society 2008 Poetry Contest. His new genre, digital poetry, represents the artistic fusion of all his creative pursuits at once. He is the founder of the popular Internet Poets’ Cooperative web site which features over 20 free volumes of e-books from poets around the world, over 1000 audio recordings of dozens of Colorado poets reading their own work and over 40 videos from the Poets’ Co-op TV Show. His personal web site, www.mdfriedman.com, offers access to all of M. D. Friedman’s creative ventures. His fifth book, Leaning Toward Whole, was just released by Liquid Light Press.

back to top


"The Long Conversation," a Painting and Poetry Group Art Show, a special feature for the month of of August, 2011.

The Long Conversation

On April 8, 2011,The MAC SPA & ART PIMP PRODUCTIONS (Eric Matelski ) presented "The Long Conversation," a Painting and Poetry Group Art Show in Denver, Colorado.  The featured poets were  Janet GlovinskyM.D. Friedman, Hilary DePoloRosanne Sterne, and Kyle Banister.

back to top


" Anita Jepson-Gilbert, our featured poet for the month of September, 2011.

Anita Jepson-Gilbert

Anita Jepson-Gilbert is currently an ESL Instructor at the Community College of Denver and TESL Instructor at Front Range Community College in Longmont. She is an officer in the Columbine Poets of Colorado poetry society and a member of the Denver Woman's Press Club and Children's Writers and Illustrators Association. Anita also is the author of the children's book Maria and the Stars of Nazca / Maria y las Estrellas de Nazca, a bilingual illustrated book about the mysterious Lines of Nazca and the woman who discovered them for the world.

back to top


Clint Locks, our featured poet for the month of January, 2012.

Clint Locks

Clint Locks writes poems about the human collective experience, in one way or another. He believes it is the scattered collective-ness and the collected scattered-ness that bring us all together, which edges us ever closer toward one of the most passionate purposes for his writing--reconciliation, both on an personal and universal level. Clint works as a climbing instructor at the Boulder Rock Club and teaches English lit and comp. He owns a Bolivian Spotted Newt and two small children, and is the author of numerous self-published chap books and one published book of poetry entitled This Ocean Used to be A Desert, published by Boabob Press. You can see Clint perform at The Laughing Goat Coffeehouse on Monday nights in Boulder. Send email to clintsemailaccountATyahooDOTcom, or visit his blog page: justaguyonthewebsite.blogspot.com.

back to top


Ariella Ruth, our featured poet for the month of March, 2012.

Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth is a poet from Boston, Massachusetts. She received her BA in Poetry from The New School and her MFA in Writing and Poetics from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Currently, she is working on poems about floods, stale, dried-up creeks, and stories that arise from red sand. She lives in Boulder, CO. You can enjoy her work also at either of the following blog sites: www.mountainlostinthepalm.com or www.rootsandlimbs.com.

back to top


Rachel Kellum , our featured poet for the month of April, 2012.

Rachel Kellim

Rachel Kellum lives on the eastern plains of Colorado where she teaches writing, humanities and art classes at Morgan Community College, and chairs the visual arts program of MCC's Center for Arts and Community Enrichment. Her poetry has been featured in several online venues, including Barnwood International Poetry Magazine, Four Corners Free Press, Blood Lotus, Slow Trains, The Telluride Watch, and others. In 2008 one of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Kellum performs her poetry from time to time around the state and blogs at wordweeds.com, where you can learn more about her background and read her latest work.

back to top


Dan Abernathy , our featured poet for the month of May, 2012.

Dan Abernathy

Dan Abernathy is known for his art, photography and as a vagabond who walks in dreams of a pure, hedonistic life. This Renaissance man is also known as a writer and a poet, with some of the most illogical views and inspirations seen, or heard. His voice, be it in his words or his art, is a collection of oddities, fascinations, desires, and obsessions – a road map of sorts, tracking the life of a man that can't and won't fit in, but has chosen to wear his life on his sleeve for others to wonder about. Abernathy makes available all his perspectives frozen in frames as well as the fluid, "random thoughts, often meandering and incomplete, rants, praise, love, words of meaning, and words of too much meaning." Abernathy has been published nationally and internationally, has won numerous awards for his photography and writing and has devoted his life to perceiving the world through the lens of a camera and capturing poignant images, but knowingly admits that some sights and experiences are better exposed with the pen than the camera. He left his hometown, Bayfield, Colorado, to join the U.S. Army in 1976, serving in the 1st of the 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Italy before incurring injuries in a parachute jump. Following his recovery in hospitals in Germany and Colorado, he joined the 1st of the 10th Mounted Color Guard at Fort Carson, Colorado. Since 1980, Abernathy's home base has been Pinedale, Wyoming, but he is most comfortable when he is on the road. His visual life expands and evolves as he travels the globe on alert for new sights to capture and experience. Abernathy's devotion to photography, writing and travel continues to lead him all over the world to compose and share. For, "what best describes an artist is the same thing which describes an adventurer," he writes. "The longing for something intense, grand, revolutionary, new horizons with different natural laws."

back to top


Roseanna Frechette & Asalott, our featured poets for the month of August, 2012.

Roseanna Frechette & Asa Lott

Roseanna Frechette is a longtime member of Denver's thriving poetry community. Former publisher of Rosebud Forum magazine, she has great passion for the power of small press. Roseanna's writings have been published by a variety of independent publications, and her award-winning program for youth "The Power of Poetic Voice" has resulted in many of her young students' works being published. From a broad creative background that includes music and dance, she combines elements of moment and sound with spoken word for multi-dynamic performances.

Asalott is the self-given name of composer and solo performer, Allison Lotterhos. She is a singer/songwriter who composes original songs on hammer dulcimer, piano, hand drums, and electronics. Asa won the Colorado Dulcimer Festival in 2009. A judge at the festival, Christie Burns, comments on her blog, "As I listen, what comes out in her playing more than anything else is her direct heart-to-dulcimer connection. This level of focus, imagination, and listening/responding to one's own music as it's being created– these are all elements that comprise the playing of my most favorite musicians." Asa is dedicated to sharing healing music with as many people as possible, and recently released her 2nd solo album in November 2010 in CD and digital format. She is deeply interested in creating a psycho-spiritual concert experience that connects people in a profound way. Please listen to and/or purchase the digital version of the new release, The Wayfarers, at http://hostbodies.bandcamp.com. Upcoming events will be posted on www.soundcloud.com/asalott. Also, watch a video of Asa at the Colorado Dulcimer Festival at http://dulcimergirl.wordpress.com/2009/02/

back to top


Airica Parker, our featured poet for the month of October, 2012.

Airika Parker

Airica Parker’s poems appear most recently in The Fiddlehead and Skidrow Penthouse. The Poetry Foundation selected her as a 2011 finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship. She is an editor for Postcard Poems on Facebook - a forum that celebrates poetry and connection. An accomplished performer, instructor, and healing artist, Airica makes her home in Fort Collins, Colorado. Learn more at airicaparker.com.

back to top


Robert Lashley, our featured poet for the month of November, 2012.

Robert Lashley

Robert Lashley was a semi finalist for the PEN/Rosenthal fellowship, Robert often performs at Northwest spoken word venues and has helped Bellingham, Washington, where he lives, develop one of the nation's finest open mic scenes. He has had poems published in such journals as Feminete, No Regrets and Your Hands, Your Mouth. His poetry was also featured in Many Trails To The Summit, an anthology of Northwest form and lyric poetry. His full length book, Songs My City Taught Me, was published by Radical Lunchbox Press in 2009.

back to top


H. R. Hegnauer, our featured poet for the month of December, 2012.

H. R. Hegnauer

H. R. Hegnauer is a writer, freelance book designer, and website designer who specializes in working with small presses and individual artists. She is the author of Sir (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011). As a designer, HR has worked with over 350 writers and translators. She is a member of the feminist publishing collaborative Belladonna* and the poets' theater group GASP: Girls Assembling Something Perpetual; she has also acted in movies directed by Ed Bowes.

back to top


Theo "Lucifury" Wilson, our bonus featured poet for the month of December, 2012.

Theo" Lucifury" Wilson

Theo "Lucifury" Wilson is a National Slam Champion, and a founding member of Denver Slam Nuba. Theo is an accomplished stage and film actor, and received his BA in performing arts from Florida A&M University in 2003. His passion for the artform makes his live performance uniquely impactful among spoken-word artists. He has shared the stage and opened for various groups, such as Dead Prez, The Flobots, Bahamadia, Saul Williams, Taylor Mali, and Universes to name a few.

back to top


Casey our featured poet for the month of January, 2013.

Casey Coviello

Casey is an emerging spoken word artist with two feet in Los Angeles and a heart in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado. With tongue sharpened by her new place of residence, Casey recently arrived on the slam poetry scene where she lost her second slam by 2 tenths of a point in a tie-breaker against Dominique Ashaheed, the 2012's Women of the World champion.

Casey's work has appeared in TeenInk and Jambalaya Magazine, and she is currently working on her first collection of poetry entitled, When the Fever Breaks. Her appearance on the Poets' Co-op TV Show marks her debut as a featured artist.
back to top


Susan M. Peiffer, our featured poet for the month of March, 2013.

Susan M. Peiffer

Susan M. Peiffer is a widely recognized and published poet, educator, and spoken word artist. Self-described as an irredeemable sesquipedalian demimondaine, she is referenced variously as "ever funky," "vivacious and free," and mysteriously, "Gibby". Susan's confessional and observational poetry covers a variety of subjects, often carries a unique cadence, and ranges in style from modern haiku to competitive slam. Susan invests in the spoken word movement with youth and facilitates workshops in both page and performance poetry for people of all audiences. A recent transplant to Colorado Springs, she was the 2012 RAW Colorado Springs Performing Artist of the year and received the Pikes Peak Arts Council award for excellence in Performance Poetry. Her recently published chapbook, My Starfish Fingers Fumble: Poems that Thestrals Sing, comes on the heels of her three track EP, Getting Gruntled. Susan tries to keep her east-coast wit in check, her awe of the mountains fresh, and her belief that most things come to life at night a secret.

back to top


Valerie A. Szarek, our featured poet for the month of Novwmber, 2015.

Valerie A. Szarek

Valerie A. Szarek was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1954. At 19 years old she opened Breezy Lady Leather in Troy, Michigan. Her days were spent creating custom leather items for everyone, from farmers to bikers, smugglers to cops. Moving to the Colorado mountains of Park County in 1979, she hand-built her own geodesic dome home. She graduated from The Integra School of Energy Healing Arts in 1999 and The Silva Method of Healing in 1973. She maintains a healing practice, Light Heart Healings, founded in 1998. Val has written and created various forms of art for her entire life. She has studied the craft of writing at Naropa University and The Summer Writing Program for the past ten years, and gratefully considers herself a lifelong student. Now at Breezy Mountain Leather, Valerie is still making leather handbags with stone inlays for customers and stores around the country. Her favorite pastimes are performing poetry and native flute, and sponsoring drum circles and rituals around her medicine wheel in her back yard in Louisville, Colorado. Her latest collection, Signs of Life is available through Amazon.

back to top


 

We want to thank the Lafayette Cultural Arts Commission for their generous support in underwriting our 2010 -2011 season.

LCAC LOGO