Poet, performer and poetry activist Lawton Eddy of Salida will be the featured guest for the Talking Gourds first Tuesday Bardic Trails virtual reading series July 7 at 7 pm MDT.
“Lawton came to town for a special Pop-Up reading this past May,” said Talking Gourds Director Art Goodtimes, “and I was gob-smacked by her reading. She was simply terrific. And so we’ve invited her back for Bardic Trails.”
Originally from New England, Eddy has been a poet since childhood. She was co-creator of the Sparrows Poetry Festival in Salida where she’s lived for the last three decades and has toured since 2005 with the performance group River City Nomads. She currently runs the Season of Words poetry series at the A Church performance space in Salida with fellow nomad Craig Nielson.
She describes writing poetry as “a practice of capturing word play and rhythm to infuse the ordinary stuff of life with mystical musings.”
Her poems have appeared in regional magazines and newspapers and her many performances include the Telluride Mushroom Festival, Crestone’s Poem Fest, the long-running C3 (Creativity Challenge Community) educational program in Denver as well as at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.
My blurb for her 2021 debut poetry collection, Chasing Grace: poems of a life, states “Her pursuit of grace rubs off on you in reading these poems, like the sweet stain of a fruit you want to lick from your fingers, hoping you too will be infused with her contagious joie de vivre.”
In the book she coined the word “harmonasm” (harmony + orgasm) for that feeling you get when it seems that nothing is missing. As she explains, “There’s something in me that revels in the lusty words that poets throw at life.
For those that like prompts, we are suggesting “Chasing Grace,” although poems on any subject are welcome. Virtual attendees are encouraged to bring a story or poem to share each month after the featured reader — their own work or someone else’s.
The Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Program hosts the free Bardic Trails virtual zoom series on the first Tuesday of each month. The Wilkinson Public Library continues as our collaboration partner, with town support from Commission for Community Assistance, Arts & Special Events. Featured reader for August 4th will be Diné poet/performer Kirbie Bennett of Durango.
Participants are encouraged to visit <https://www.tellurideinstitute.org/western-slope-calendar> to get the zoom link each month, if they aren’t already on our mailing list. Or email Art Goodtimes directly.
Thanks to the Cantor Family, the Guttman Family Foundation, CCAASE and our Fischer and Cantor contest participants for supporting our program and projects.
OTHER PROGRAMS
Talking Gourds continues its collaboration with the Naturita Community Library on the second Thursday of each month at 6 pm for the West End Stories & Poems series (although August will see a changed date). July 9th at 6 pm Leslie Ament and myself will host special guest Jami Allred and we will be talking about UFOs – unidentified, unexplained anomalous phenomena. The gourd circle will be a safe place to talk about personal experiences without disparagement.
Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library and Talking Gourds host a live Stories & Poems series at the library’s Magazine Room on the third Tuesday of every month at 5:15 pm. Indigenous poet Esther Belin, poet laureate of Durango, who recently hosted the Four Corners Poetry Festival, will be our featured poet on July 21st. Participants are encouraged to bring a poem or story to share.
The international Fischer Prize poetry contest and the Colorado-focused Cantor Prize poetry contest both opened for submission on April 1st. Deadline for the 2026 contests will be Aug. 31st. Lesley Wheeler of Virginia will be the Fischer final judge, and Scott Nicolay of New Mexico the Cantor final judge.
For more information, visit the Telluride Institute Talking Gourds website: tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds
