| April 16 Workshop Information Moderator: Cheryl Miller |
Poetry form: Celebration of National Poetry Month | List of all workshops |
Seven Poets: A Celebration of National Poetry Month
Cheryl Miller presented a workshop entitled Seven Poets: A Celebration of National Poetry Month on Saturday, April 16 at Café del Sol in Lakewood. She began the workshop with a brief history of National Poetry Month. Following was a short history of Colorado’s Poet Laureate program. Participants then listened to thumbnail biographies of Colorado’s seven (eight? Hmmm . . . ) Poets Laureate and read exemplary Colorado poetry from the past century. Miller brought to fellow poets’ attention how poetry has changed in the past one hundred years—descriptions of what is “out there” to more introspection, security in faith to questioning of God, inverted grammar forms to more conversational placement of words, heavy use of adjectives to spare writing, poetry of high patriotism to global references. Inspired by these examples, attendees were challenged to reflect on what styles and subjects spoke to them, draft a poem of their own and share it with the group.
About National Poetry Month
In 1996, the Academy of American Poets established April as National Poetry Month. The Academy chose April when teachers and librarians noted the popularity of Black History Month in February and Women’s History Month in March. Since that time, many government agencies, schools, libraries, poets, sponsors, publishers and art organizations have joined in the cause of promoting American poetry.
The goals, according to the Academy of American Poets’ website, include the following:
- Highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets
- Introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry
- Bring poets and poetry to the public in immediate and innovative ways
- Make poetry a more important part of the school curriculum
- Increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media
- Encourage increased publication, distribution and sales of poetry books
- Increase public and private philanthropic support for poets and poetry
Each year the Academy offers new resources for celebrating NPM: posters, press releases, logos, curricula for teaching poetry, materials for poetry displays in book stores or libraries, ideas for marketing and sales, public readings, contests, and much more. The Academy of American Poets’ website is full of information.
About Colorado’s Poet Laureate Program
In 1915, California was the first state to create the title of State Poet Laureate. Colorado became the second state to do so in 1919. Most designees have been appointed by state governors.* Currently, the position is supported by Colorado Humanities and the Colorado Council on the Arts. Each organization provides $2,000 stipend to cover travel costs.
Applicants must reside in Colorado for at least three years prior to applying for the position. A standard background check is run on applicants who must reflect general standards of decency. Recipients must remain in Colorado during the terms of their four-year renewable appointments.
Advocacy of poetry, literacy, and literature is, of course, the Poets’ Laureate major responsibility. They must give at least eight presentations per year in such places as the State Capitol, schools, libraries, and literary festivals. Each year they provide the governor with a narrative account of the success/impact they have had.
The following is a list of Colorado’s Poets Laureate:
1919 – 1921 Alice Polk Hill
1923 – 1952 Nellie Burget Miller
1952 – 1954 Margaret Clyde Robertson
1954 – 1975 Milford E. Shields
1979 – 1988 Thomas Hornsby Ferril
1996 – 2010 Mary Crow
2010 – pres. David Mason
- Little known fact: John Denver was named Colorado Poet Laureate in 1977 by Governor Vanderhoof. However, Denver doesn’t appear on the “official” (?) list of Colorado Poets Laureate on the Colorado Humanities website.
Poet: David Mason
Born: Bellingwam, WA December 11, 1954
Education: M.A. (1986) ad PH.D.(1989) University of Rochester, Fulbright scholar in
Greece (1996-97)
Married: Jonna Heinrich, Anne Lennox (Scottish photojournalist)
Children:
Career: taught at MN State U 1988-98, Fulbright Scholarship in Greece 1997-98
Civic Organizations:
Writing Style (aka outrageous pigeonholing): “movement, deracination, identity” in
Mason’s words, studies of people and their places, longer narrative poetry, sparse
Language
Writing History: Poetry: The Buried Houses (Nicholas Roerich Prize) (1991),
The Country I Remember (Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award) (1996), Arrivals
(2004), Ludlow (a verse novel) (2007) Essays: The Poetry of Life & the Life of
Poetry (2000), Two Minds of a Western Poet (collection) (2011) Co-edited
numerous textbooks, translations and anthologies
Colorado Poet Laureate: Named Colorado’s 7th Poet Laureate b Governor Ritter. Served
2010 to present.
Died:
Poetry by David Mason
A Thorn in the Paw
Once I was a young dog with a big thorn
in its paw, slowly becoming that very thorn,
not the howl but the thing
howled at, importunate, printing in blood.
Others grew up with chrism, incense, law,
but I was exiled from the start to stare
at lightning hurled from the sky
into a lake that revealed only itself.
Others had pews and prayer-shawls, old fathers
telling them when to kneel and what to say.
I had only my eyes
My tongue my nose my skin and feeble ears.
Dove of descent, fat worm of contention,
bogeyman, Author—I can’t get rid of you
merely by hating the world
when people behave at their too-human worst.
Birds high up in their summer baldachin
obey the messages of wind and leaves.
Their airy hosannas
can build a whole day out of worming and song.
I’ve worked at the thorn; I’ve stood by the shore
of the marvelous, drop-jawed and jabbering.
Nobody gave me a god
so I perfect my idolatry of doubt.
Poet: Mary Crow
Born: raised in Loudonville, HO
Education: College of Wooster, Indiana University, Iowa Writers Workshop,
Fulbright Awards spent researching in Israel, Chile, Peru, Venezuela
Argentina, Scotland, the former Yugoslavia
Married:
Children:
Career: poet, writer, translator, college professor
Civic Organizations: numerous writing associations
Writing Style (aka outrageous pigeonholing): spare writing, introspective, writes of
Relationships
Writing History: Poetry: Going Home (1979), The Business of Literature (1981),
Borders (1989), I Have Tasted the Apple (1996), The High Cost of Living (2002)
Translations: Woman Who Has Sprouted Wings: Poems by Contemporary Latin
American Women Poets (1987), From the Country of Nevermore: Poems by
Jorge Teilier (1990), Vertical Poetry: Recent Poems by Roberto Juarroz (1992),
Engravings Torn from Insomnia: Poems by Olga Orozco (2002), Homesickness:
Poems by Enrique Lihn (2002), Vertical Poetry: Last Poems by Roberto Juarroz
(2011)
Colorado Poet Lareate: Named Colorado’s 6th Poet Laureate by Governor Romer. Served
1996-2010.
Died:
Poetry by Mary Crow
The Morning of the Morning
Why let it matter so much?: the morning’s morningness,
early dark modulating into light
and the tall thin spruces jabbing their black outlines at dawn,
light touching the slope’s outcroppings of rock and yellow grass,
as I sit curled under blankets in the world
after the world Descartes shattered,
a monstrous fracture
like the creek’s water surging through broken ice.
A silent wind bounces spruce branches
in that motion that sets molecules vibrating latitude by latitude
to crack the absolute
of feeling, of knowing what I know, of knowing who I am,
while down the road the town wakes to hammer and saw—
a sound that says to some, if you don’t grow you’re dead—
and then farther down the elk and deer gather
at a farmer’s fence for his handout of hay.
Seven Poets 5
Late January: just outside Rocky Mountain National Park:
a high branch of ponderosa offers a rosette
of needles blackgreen and splayed as in a Japanese scroll painting,
which is beautiful if I focus there and not on the sprawl I’m part of
in this rented condo where I don’t want to live since I, too, need
more rooms to haul my coffee to, more bookshelves for books
I haven’t time to read—bird chatter!—I shouldn’t make one more
resolution
I can’t keep to spend more time with friends.
But it’s morning and morning’s my time of day
as spring’s my season; more light, I say.
I do regret some things I’ve done and if I could,
I’d do things differently: start sooner, say, look deeper.
One flake of snow drifts down slantwise,
a lovely interruption to my tirade—
as each aspen is to the larger groves of taller firs—
and brings me back to what’s happening here.
Poet: Thomas Hornsby Ferril (son of Will Ferril, 1st curator of Colorado Historical
Society)
Born: Denver, Colorado February 25, 1896
Eation:
Married: Helen Drury (1921)
Children: Anne Ferril Folsom (visual arist)
Career: Second lieutenant in WWI, Great Western Sugar Company publicity director for
over 42years, columnist, poet, co-editor of The Rocky Mountain Herald with his
wife
Civic Organizations: Denver Press Club
Writing Style (aka outrageous pigeonholing): known for poetry about the Rockies and
Colorado landscape, themes, and imagery; rhythmic, meant to be perormed.
Writing History: Poetry: High Passage (winner of Yale Younger Poets) (1926),
Westering (1934), I Hate Thursday (1946), Words for Denver and Other Poems
(1966), New and Selected Poems (1982), Anvil of Roses (1983), Thomas Hornsby
Ferril and the American West (1996). His words are engraved in the Colorado
State Capitol first floor rotunda. Columns: The Rocky Mountain Herald, Harper’s
Magazine
Colorado Poet Laureate: Named Colorado’s 5thPoet Laureate by Governor Lamm.
Served1979-1988
Died: October 27, 1988
Poems by Thomas Hornsby Ferril
Blue-Stemmed Grass
There’s blue-stemmed grass as far as I can see,
But when I take the blue-stemmed grass in hand,
And pull the grass apart, and speak the word
For every part, I do not understand
More than I understood of grass before.
“This part,” I say, “is the straight untwisted awn,”
And “Here’s the fourth glume of the sessile spikelet,”
And then I laugh out loud at what I’ve done.
I speak with reason to the blue-stemmed grass:
“This grass moves up through meadow beasts to men.”
I weigh mechanical economies
Of meadow into flesh and back again.
I let the morning sun shine through my hand.
I trace the substance bloom and beast have given,
But I ask if phosphorus or nitrogen
Can make air through my lips mean hell or heaven.
All that the grass can make for any beast
Is here within my luminous hand of bone
And flesh and blood against the morning sun;
But I must listen alone, and you, alone,
For children to be woven from green looms:
We move forever across meadows blowing,
But like no beast, we choke and cannot cry
When the grasses come, and when the grass is going.
Poet: Milford E. Shields
Born: Iowa, “moved to CO as a boy”
Education: H.S. Delta, CO Ph.D.? (so cited in review of Poema Epico Los Cinco
Elementos (Five Elements—An Epic) translated by Kaltovich
Married:
Children:
Career: After high school graduation began working at old Colonial Theater in Delta,
CO. Moved to Durango in 1929 where he worked for the same company as chief
projectionist and engineer at the Kiva Theater.
Civic Organizations: charter member of the Masonic Research Lodge of Colorado (1952)
Seven Poets 7
Writing Style (aka outrageous pigeon-holing): children’s poems, exalted and dramatic
Style, patriotic—Shields believed his job as P.L. was to exalt and celebrate
significant events.
Writing History: Had dreamed of being P.L. since early H.S. days. Had written over
2,500 poems, including poetry to start legislative sessions and odes to politicians’
retirements prior to P.L. honor. Poetry: Colorado and Other Poems (1943),
Dirty Face and Other Poems (1944), Burning Weeds and Other Poems (1945),
Static Land (1949), Engine 315: and Other Colorado Poems (1958), Alaska
Statehood (1958), Poems of International Good Will (1961)
Colorado Poet Laureate: Named Colorado’s 4th Poet Laureate by Governor Thornton.
Served 1954-75
Died: 1975
Poetry by Milford E. Shields
Colorado Day, 1954
Across this land a throbbing cavalcade
Of days and men forged flaming destiny;
They fused as one in their intensity
And firm foundation for our state was laid.
Nor days were measured, nor the sweat of men
Until they mastered mountains in the sky
Ant then raised up the plains as truly high
Creating holy State to God again
“Nil Sine Numine” they set upon the seal—
Their hands and hearts were one in that high time
And all their days were in that day sublime,
That Day of Colorado, mystic, real.
Let us join spirits with their spirits free,
Let us fuse days with their majestic past,
Continue them as long as time shall last
This great one day in our proud history.
Air Force Academy
Let now our strongest eagles come
To this great State that stands so high,
Here where our mountains point them home
To nest within dynamic sky.
Let now America’s high right
To higher place in heaven’s sun
Be blazoned by their matchless flight
Until both tide and time are won.
Let them now wing Old Glory through
Most highest reaches men call space—
Beyond our Colorado’s blue—
We ask it by God’s holy grace.
Poet: Margaret Clyde Robertson (aka Clyde Robertson)
Born: Franklin, IN (descendant of Sir George Herriott of Edinburgh, Scotland),
moved to CO in 1909
Education: H.S. Lyons, KS
Married: William Earl Robertson (engineer)
Children: Sheila Burlingame (artist)
Career: singer with the Columbia Opera Company and The American Opera Company,
1903-08; poet
Civic Organizations: Colorado League of American Pen Women (president 1924-27),
Vice president of the Poetry Society of Great Britain
Writing Style: (aka outrageous pigeonholing): Rhyming narrative poetry, especially about
Leadville and other mining towns
Writing History: Poetry: Fool’s Gold (1934), published in numerous periodicals in U.S.
and Great Britain, wrote extensively of Leadville and other Colorado mining
towns.
Colorado Poet Lauareate: Named Colorado’s 3rd Poet Laureate when in her eighties by
Governor Thornton. Served 1952-54.
Died: 1954
Poetry by Clyde Robertson
The Woman in the Wagon
She stares from out the wagon as The little home beside the hedge
It trails the dimming road. Where hawthorn grew—bereft,
A huddled unkempt being, bowed One canvas-covered wanderings
Beneath life’s driving goad. Were all she now had left.
On, on through torrid summer days, Lone wanderings and memories—
And chill of waning year, She was no soldier brave
On, on through miles of trackless waste, In search of wild adventurings,
Where grinning white skulls leer. Or desert lands to save!
The never-ending grind of days She was a woman who had dreamed
And nights—the dusk—the dawn– Of children and home;
A checkerboard of tortures where It lay—her child—on bleaching plain,
She moves, a helpless pawn. Beneath a pile of stone.
She stares from out the wagon as On, on the wagon creeps apace;
She dreams of other days– Her staring eyes a tale
A youth and maid—a shaded path Of tragedy so great no pen
Where fragrant hawthorn sways. Can paint her soul’s travail.
Her little hand, so soft, he kissed, The stirring stories told of men
And smoothed her curls so fair– Who fought and won new land
She twists with fumbling fingers now From its primeval enemies,
The wisp of tangled hair. Forget that in that band
Back home! back home! her haunted eyes Were women torn by pain and grief,
Have long since ceased to weep, Who stood staunch by man’s side
She only stares and huddles now, Upheld by naught that spurred him on,
A broken, unkempt heap. Adventure—conquest—pride.
The lure of unknown lands had called A woman’s way, to long for peace—
To him, her lover bold; A man’s, to long for war;
Beyond the hills and plains there lay A woman’s lot, to sacrifice
A country steeped in gold. For man, the conqueror.
The spirit of adventure thrilled The woman in the wagon fought
His man-heart—all forgot Her silent fight alone;
The promises he made to her The grim renunciation of
Who vowed to share his lot. Her people—children—home.
Oh pioneers, you valiant men!
Would you have stood the test—
Without the women in the wagon
Would you have won the West?
Poet: Nellie Burget Miller
Born: Fayette, IA June 6, 1875
Education: H.S. @ age 15 (1891). BS with honors Upper IA U (1894),
Honorary Master of Letters Degree CO U (1925), Doctorate of Literature
Upper IA U (1945)
Married: Dr. Lucas Miller (1984)
Children: Dorothy (teacher), Arnold (medical doctor), and Muriel Imogene
(poetry editor and critic)
Career: writer, lecturer
Civic Organizations: CO Federation of Women’s Clubs president (1920-22),
General Federation of Women’s Clubs chairman literature committee (1922),
Poetry Society of America and Great Britain, League of American Pen Women
Writing Style (aka outrageous pigeonholing): Rhymed and unrhymed, simile, vivid
descriptions of surroundings, children’s verse, Biblical drama
Writing History: Poetry: The Flame of God (1924), In Earthen Bowls (1924), The
Living Drama (1924), Pictures from the Plains and Other Poems (1936), The
North American Book of Verse (ed. 1939), Verses for Victory (compiled 1943),
The Sun Drops Red (1947), In the Tents of the Shepherd Prince (1950). Plays:
Land Where the Good Dreams Grow (1926), The Fleece of Gold (1926), The
Blue Moon (1926). Stories: Used different pen names for short stories.
Colorado Poet Laureate: Named Colorado’s 2nd Poet Laureate by Governor Sweet.
Served 1923-52. Wrote annual reports to governors re progress of cultural
works in CO.
Died: 1952
Poetry by Nellie Burget Miller
Drought
The sun drops red through a curtain of dust,
White scars seam the alkali plain,
No sound or motion—save over there
A tumble-weed starts on its endless quest
For God knows what—or where.
The brown grass clings to the fields like rust,
But deep in my heart is the sound of rain—
The stealthy moccasined feet of the rain—
Pat, pat on the sun-baked crust;
Like dear remembered dreams of love
In sleepless nights of pain.
The Shack
A passing motorist glanced gaily back:
“See how the sun lights up that little shack
with Inness gold! Painters do not dare
to give us sunset tints like those.
I wonder if that woman knows she’s in a picture!”
The plains-wife peered from out her darkening door
until the car was lost to sight.
The radiance was gone; the windows of the shack
were like dead eyes left open wide to stare.
About her everywhere
silence tightened like a shell;
a coyote’s wail fell like a knife upon it,
shattering it to bits which flew
each to the other and grew
into another silence
greater than the first.
Slowly she turned and shut the door
against the chill. . .
The car was gone, and shifting sand
had drifted in so soon
and covered up its track.
Poet: Alice Polk Hill
Born: near Shelbyville, Kansas probably in 1845
Education:
Married: William C. Hill (merchant) in 1868 or 1872
Children: F. William Hill
Career: newspaperwoman, teacher, promoter of education, art and music
Civic Organizations: charter ember of Denver Women’s Club and the Women’s Press
Club, founded and presided over the Rocky Mountain News “Round Table”—a
History and discussion group—for over 30 years, chaired committee 20 men and
Herself to frame Charter of City and County of Denver (1904)
Writing Style (aka outrageous pigeonholing): facile rhymes for newspaper, correct
grammar, unmixed metaphors, regular meter; better known for prose
Writing History: Non-fiction: Tales of Colorado Pioneers (1994), Colorado Pioneers
In Picture & Story (1915)
Colorado Poet Laureate: Named Colorado’s 1st Poet Laureate by Governor Shoup.
Served 1919-1921.
Died: August 30, 1921
Poetry by Alice Polk Hill
The Message of the Tree
When this old world was young, then grew a tree,
Beneath it flowers bloomed in dust and sand,
The birds aswing upon its limbs sang free,
And dreary earth became enchanted land.
Then suddenly before the steps of man
Appeared its limbs flung out against the blue:
He with its leafy boughs a home began—
From this first home the earth to Eden grew.
The silent tree that listens by the road;
If it had lyric lips what songs ‘twould sing,
Of good and bad bound in the human load;
Wrecked homes—false friends—the sore from
gossip’s sting,
The cruel word that leaves a lasting smart,
The broken vow that scalds the cheek with tears,
The happy laugh that springs from happy heart—
The silent tree keeps secret thru the years!
The forest stands like tall cathedral spires;
One feels a something sacred and sublime;
A something great that charms and never tires,
Which reaches far—back to the dawn of time,
And points beyond to ages yet to be.
The heavy laden kneeling on the sod,
Inspired and urged on by the mighty tree,
Breathes there a prayer and feels the peace of God.
Within the love-locked branches of the wood,
Deep rooted in warm earth; limbs pointing high—
Christ’s message sings to man of brotherhood;
It falls gently like music from the sky.
Oh, men of Colorado save the tree!
And build in our own state its glory strong,
Here let it sing the message sweet and free,
‘Tis sweeter far than any poet’s song.
Colorado Poets Laureate Resources
http://www.cnn.com/US/9710/13/denver.nc/ April 12, 2011.
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dept/en/facultystaf/david_mason.asp January 18, 2011.
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/English/poetlaureate/ January 18, 2011.
http://www.coloradohunamities.org/content/colorado-poet-laureate-david-mason January 18, 2011.
http://www.fulcrum-books.com/productdetails.cfm?sku=334-2 January 18, 2011.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/poets/colorado.html January 18, 2011.
http://www.marycorw.net/about.html January 23, 2011.
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/47 April 12, 2011.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19470 January 18, 2011.
http://www.springsgov.com/page.aspx?navid=2594 January 18, 2011.
http://www.vintagecoloradopoetry.us/index3.html January 23, 2011.
http://www.westword.com/1996095-23/news/the-odd-couplet/3/ February 2, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Crow January 23, 2011.
Crow, Mary. “The Morning of the Morning.” Plougshares. Fall, 2001.
Hill, Alice Polk, Tales of the Colorado Pioneers. Glorietta, NM: The Rio Grande
Press,Inc., 1884, 1976.
Kinder, Francis S. and F. Clarence Spencer. Evenings with Colorado Poets: An
Anthology of ColoradoVerse. Denver, CO: The World Press, Inc., 1926.
Semple, JamesAlexander. Representative Womenof Colorado. Denver, CO:
Alexander Art Publishing Company, 1911.
Who’s Who in Colorado: Boulder, CO: Compiled by the CO Press Association,
Inc. Extension Division, University of CO, 1938.