Recent Poetry Events

Hello and Happy Father's Day to all. On Friday evening I had the honor of sharing poetry with the students and faculty of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation's closing banquet at Colorado College. And yesterday, Juneteenth, I delivered a brief, 10 minute rap of Black poetry by Black poets at the NAACP's Juneteenth celebration. I started with an African, Hottentot poem, The Ancestors, then to the Phillis Wheatley, the first African American poet to publish a book, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and closed with Lucille Clifton, who recently passed away -- www.poets.org and other web sites provide bios and poems of all of these poets. When growing up, so we could have no accent and be able to get jobs and go to school without being made fun of, our parents did not teach us Italian. I am keenly aware of the great loss of cultural heritage that occurs when one's language, and culture, are denied. Thus, one of my projects as Poet Laureate, is to begin with workshops and readings and "teach-ins" at appropriate community cultural events, community centers, and libraries. Yesterday's performance at Juneteenth will now make it possible to develop writing workshops for young Black poets, workshops for Black elders to record and write their memoirs, and to hold events to celebrate Black literature, at Hillside Center. As we nurture and develop literary talent in our various ethnic and cultural communities, I look forward to the day when the Pikes Peak Poet Laureate may be from our Black Poets, or Latinos, or Asians or other cultural resource in our communities. Cheers to all. Jim