Poet and performance artist, Claire Blotter, of California, will be the featured reader at the Bardic Trails Zoom poetry webinar Tuesday, August 3rd at 7 p.m. A production of the Talking Gourds Poetry Program, Bardic Trails is an a free event open to any who pre-register. Register by Aug 2nd on-line at the Wilkinson Public Library to get URL & password. Go to telluridelibrary.org/events.
Marin writer and director, Claire Blotter, performs poetry with movement and body percussion. She has published three poetry chapbooks, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Spillway, the Plant-Human Quarterly, CALIFORNIA FIRE AND WATER: A CLIMATE CRISIS ANTHOLOGY, Lilith and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other magazines and anthologies. She has received two Marin Arts Council Individual Artist’s Grants in Poetry, the American Academy of Poets San Francisco State University Graduate Award and First Place Award in the Bay Guardian Poetry Contest. She was a 2018 Finalist for the Fischer Prize in Poetry and judged the competition in 2020. She represented San Francisco in National Performance Poetry Slams in Boston and Chicago.
She has taught poetry writing and performance at S.F. State University, John F. Kennedy University, Dominican University and the College of Marin. Currently, she teaches poetry to children and high school students in the CalPoets and Poetry Out Loud Programs.
Her poetry-videos were included in two Chicago Performance Poetry Video Festivals and the Chicago Art Institute Archives. Her award-winning video documentary, WAKE UP CALL: SAVING THE SONGBIRDS, about the decline of migratory songbirds has been screened in 11 film festivals from Mill Valley to Chicago. She directed the Bolinas Guerrilla Theater Troupe which riled things up from Northern California’s Redwood Summer Protests to a keening ritual up Market St. in San Francisco to commemorate the casualties of the Iraq War.
Following her reading, there will be a short Question and Answer session with co-hosts, Goodtimes and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
Future Bardic Trails
Sept. 7 with Anna Scotti of California (“Fuel”), Oct. 5 with Renee Podunovich of Cortez (“Tree”), Nov. 2 with Debbi Brody of New Mexico (“The New”), and Dec. 7 with Al Zolynas of California (“Flesh”).
Talking Gourds Poetry Club Meeting
Following Bardic Trails, we’ll have our Talking Gourds club member meeting (for Club members and their invitees only). We will end the Bardic Trails Zoom gathering around 7:30 p.m, then start a new Zoom meeting for the Talking Gourds Poetry Club (all current members will receive the link separately by May 4th). The Poetry Club meeting won’t officially start until 7:45, leaving time at the start for socializing as we used to do in our live meetings.
For those who like writing prompts, the one for August 3rd is “sky.” However, members and guests of members may read a poem or share thoughts on any topic they wish.
Talking Gourds Poetry Club Membership
To participate in the private session, one can join the Poetry Club at the Talking Gourds website. The membership page will ask them to email Galaxy Dancer notifying us of having paid their Club fees to ensure that they receive the Zoom info in time for the private meeting.
A one-time membership donation of $25 (or more) places one on our mailing list permanently and makes one current for the calendar year in which the donation was made. Each following calendar year, there’s a $10 renewal fee to remain current – payable by check or online with plastic.
Club members in good standing receive a monthly PDF copy of the handsome broadsides created by Daiva Chesonis for each featured reader. The PDFs can be printed for free at the Wilkinson.
