Wise Voices from the East: From Han-shan to Basho and Beyond
Wednesdays, 6-8 p.m.
Wilkinson Pubic Library Telluride Room
Telluride, Colorado
February 15-March 14
Free
“No direction is better or worse, east is just as good as west. Those who know the meaning of this are free to go where they want.” These words, written by Han Shan in the seventh century, were part of the Chinese literary tradition that informed the work of the Japanese tanka and later haiku. For five weeks, we’ll study Eastern poets, including Han-shan, Kukai, Shikibu Izumi, Dogen Kigen, Basho, Ryokan, Issa, Chiyo-ni, and more, as they explore themes of humility, grateful acceptance, non-duality, contradictoriness, love, freedom, courage and death.
Guiding you through the centuries is San Miguel County’s first poet laureate Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Her work includes a poem a day practice and her most recent poetry collection, The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday Life with Rumi.
You are really from Telluride? We’re not far away in Continental Divide, NM, and as a boy our family spent some time in Ouray and Telluride. I was born in Delta and raised in Grand Junction. My youngest daughter, our granddaughters, and our son in law keep threatening to go skiing in Telluride. We’d drive up an spend some time with them. But something always seems to come up. Cool. The Poet Laureate of San Miguel County!
Hi Thomas, nice coincidence that we’re geographically close … yes, here near Telluride in the winters and get this: in the summers we live in Delta. We own an orchard down on the Gunnison River at the base of the Dominguez Canyon Road, where we grow about 75 acres of organic fruit trees. I end up spending a lot (not enough) time in Grand Junction–so many fine poets there. Danny Rosen, Sandy Dorr, Wendy Videlock … they come to mind immediately and there are more. Maybe you could come up one first Tuesday for our Talking Gourds Open Mic and featured reader at the library … it would be great to have you join us with some poems … We have December’s featured reader open … it’s only $100, but we could be the extra incentive to make the trip … of course the skiing could be marginal that early. If you want, you could plan a year ahead and come the first Tuesday of next February. I looked through your blog and you and Ethel would be wonderful guests.