Talking Gourds Poetry Program and the Lone Cone Library have teamed up for the third session of its new live community sharing series, Stories & Poems. Wednesday, Sept. 20th, beginning at 7:30 pm. Artist and editor Sonja Horoshko of Cortez will perform pieces from her second Southwestern anthology of regionally contributed poetry and prose.
“After several years of Covid-wary avoidance of live events, we’re happy to offer a sharing circle for storytellers and poets,” said Talking Gourds co-director Art Goodtimes. “Poetry may seem intimidating to some, but everyone tells stories.”
Horoshko has worked for many years as an artist with shows of her paintings at galleries in the Cortez area and as a journalist with the Four Corners Free Press, especially covering affairs on the Navajo Reservation.
Fertile (Fourth Corner Press, 2023) follows on the heels of the first of four planned anthologies. Wet was the first volume and focused on water – an essential element of life in southwestern Colorado. Fertile focuses on the soil and how humans connect with the earth, especially timely given the recent Indigenous mantra, “Land Back.” Fertile seeks to bring land back into our minds and actions, to help us learn to live in harmony with the land as Indigenous tribes have tried to do for centuries.
About the anthology, Fourth Corner Publisher Rebecca Levy explains, “Fertile is a collective narrative of exceptional southwest contemporary authors examining the complex inspiration and influence of the planet on humans. A diverse group of authors reach into the ground — surface, mantel, core and exosphere – to share personal stories, including ones in many first languages beyond English, such as Diné, Nuche, Spanish, Hopi, and Mvskoke.”
Stories & Poems will follow a format similar to the Talking Gourds events that happened in Telluride before the pandemic. There will be a featured storyteller or poet, followed by a Gourd Circle where everyone will be invited to tell a story, perform a poem (an original or a favorite written by someone else), sing a song, read a short section of prose, or simply pass the gourd to the next person.
Stories & Poems is free and open to all ages, sponsored by private donors and the Fischer Cantor poetry contests. For more information, text 970-729-0220 or email Art Goodtimes at shroompa@gmail.com.
