Art Goodtimes was awarded the 2020 Karen Chamberlain Award for lifetime achievement for his contribution to Colorado poetry at the Mountain Words Literary Festival at the Center for the Arts in Crested Butte on Aug. 29th.
Previous winners include Reg Saner of Boulder, the late Jack Mueller of Log Hill Village outside Ridgway, Bruce Berger of Aspen, Mark Todd of Gunnison, Veronica Patterson of Loveland, and the late Chris Ransick— former Denver Poet Laureate who had moved to Oregon.
As part of the virtual program at this year’s literary festival, Crested Butte’s David J. Rothman presented the award to Goodtimes, and the two of them engaged in an hour-long dialogue about poetry.
Goodtimes has recovered from his throat cancer after six months of treatment at St. Mary’s Cancer Center in Grand Junction. He has taken back the reins of the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds programming.
The deadline for the Fischer/Cantor Prize has closed, and initial judging of the 200+ entries has begun.
Final winners will be announced in October, although no award service is scheduled for this year, due to Covid-19.
The MycoLicious MycoLuscious MycoLogical Poetry Show, produced by Art Goodtimes and John Michelotti with assistance from Sarah Schwab, was a great success and is available as part of this year’s virtual Telluride Mushroom Festival on-line.
Background
Inspired by the late Way of the Mountain climber, skier, and deep ecologist Dolores LaChapelle, Talking Gourds is a poetry program sponsored by the Telluride Institute. Art Goodtimes of Wrights Mesa and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer of Placerville are co-directors, and Galaxy Dancer is our administrative assistant. Brooke Shifrin is our poster artist.
The Talking Gourds poetry program includes a number of projects where it acts as lead sponsor or as collaborative partner with Between the Covers Bookstore, the Wilkinson Public Library, Ah Haa School for the Arts, the Telluride Arts District, the Telluride Mushroom Festival, Lithic Bookstore & Gallery, the Gunnison Literary Arts Festival, the Telluride Mountain School, and others.
Our projects include:
A national Fischer Prize and a state Cantor Award in poetry.
Talking Gourds is indebted to generous contributions past and present from the Cantor Family of North Carolina, the late Elaine Cantor Fischer and her many friends Peter Waldor, Audrey Marnoy, Joan Shapiro, Eduardo Brummel, Terry Tice, Daiva Chesonis, Elissa Dickson, Laura Colbert, Jess Newens, Judy Kohin, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Danny Rosen, Kyle Harvey, Kate Jones, Molly Daniel, Elodie Jacobson, Brooke Einbender, Elle Metrick, John & Maggie Metrick, Mar Boyd, Buff Hooper, Kyra Kopestonsky, Lee & Billi Taylor, Allyson Snyder, Kathy Green, Amy Levek, David Oyster, Michael Olschewsky & Ruth Duffy, Rick & Marty Hollinbeck, Vicki Phelps, Dean Rolley, Brooke Harless MacMillan, David J. Rothman, Chris Zieve and our many friends and members.
For more info, visit Talking Gourds.
