The joint is jumping: this week at Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library

16 Nov The joint is jumping: this week at Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library

This is a story with a happy ending about how more is more.

Writer Sandra Dorr

Telluride's award-winning Wilkinson Public Library had humble beginnings.  In 1965 a bookmobile came into town once a week. Library founders Larry and Betty Wilkinson met with the town's fire department to request space in the old Quonset hut. Once the hut was ready to hold a small collection of books, the library opened two or three days a week, three or four hours a day. The primary line item in the budget was coal-fired heat paid for by donations. At that time, the library's entire collection consisted of hand-me-downs from local citizens or from other libraries discarded titles. Fast forward to the present, the award-winning Wilkinson Public Library boasts 20,000 square foot of well-used, well-loved space. In 2008, for example, its bricks and mortar housed 638 programs, a number bound to be topped by this year's rich, eclectic offerings thanks to the efforts of Program Coordinator Scott Doser. A look at this week's schedule –  FREE and open to the general public – tells the tale.

Telluride Film Festival Cinematheque: ( Monday, November 16, 5:30 p.m. for pre-SHOW reception)
 
The Wilkinson Public Library and the Telluride Film Festival are excited to present program number three of the ever-popular FILM NOIR series.  The TFF Cinematheque is fast becoming a locals' film club, where the cinephiles of the community gather to watch, learn about and discuss great films – not just during the Telluride Film Festival weekend, but year-round.  All community members are encouraged attend.  SHOWS are free to all and include free food and beverages during the pre-SHOW reception as well as between the films.
 
Programmed by Telluride Film Festival Director Gary Meyer, each evening is double-billed as would have been seen in the 1940’s and 1950’s.  Special guest Seth Berg, local cinema aficionado and Colorado Teacher of the Year, will be in house to introduce the films and lead the discussion. The first film on Monday, November 16th will be the not-to-be missed Stanley Kubrick thriller THE KILLING (1956, 83 min.), considered to be his most perfectly crafted film.  After spending five years in Alcatraz, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) masterminds an intricate plot to steal $2 million from a racetrack, but the plan comes unraveled when the wife of one of his accomplices finds out.
 
The film will be followed by GUN CRAZY (1949, 86 min.). Bart Tare (John Dall) has been fascinated with guns since his youth, but it isn’t until he meets Annie (Peggy Cummins) that their mutual love of firearms and Annie’s desire for a wealthier lifestyle leads them down a road of robbery and violence.  A gangster film that ventures into the crime genre with emotion and questions of morality. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis.

The Green Programs at San Miguel Power Association
(A WPL Paton Request Program)
 
Wilkinson Public LIbrary Patrons have expressed confusion about what the green energy programs at the San Miguel Power Association are and how they work for you.  Join SMPA Renewable Energy Technician Brad Zaporsk, Wednesday, 6 pm, to learn what SMPA is doing to move our power association into the “Green.” Brad will be explaining the programs and answering your questions.  Refreshments will be served.

 
“A Friends of the Library Special Event”: Poet Sandra Dorr (Friday, November 20, 1 p.m.and 7 p.m.)
 
Sandra Dorr has encouraged and inspired writers for 25 years, as a passion and a calling.  She worked as an editor and writer in New York in the 1980s’ before moving to Colorado, where she completed an M.A. in creative writing and began teaching at universities in the West: Lewis & Clark College, Linfield College, Portland State University, Pacific College, and the University of Wyoming. In the 1990s, she directed Washington State University-Vancouver’s writing program.

Sandra Dorr also became an NPR commentator, and worked early on with children and adults as a poet-in-residence throughout the West.  The author of two books on women’s health and travel, she is at work on a novel, "Girl in the Sea."  Poems in her poetry collection, Desert Water (Lithic Press, Colorado, spring, 2009) won The Writer/Rosebud’s New Discovery prize, a Salt Hill prize, and first prize in the Colorado Poetry Society’s open contest, among others. Her short stories, essays and poems appear in Ms., The Denver Post, Open Spaces, American Fiction, and other journals. Sandra Dorr studies with shamans, Christian and Buddhist teachers, and lives with her husband and children in western Colorado, in a house they built on the edge of canyon wilderness.

 Workshop:  “Out of Your Mouth:Performing Stories and Poems in Public”
 
Sometimes reading in front of a crowd dries your mouth, freezes your throat, and jams your tongue.  This is a workshop for writers, young and old, to bring in samples of work, in poetry or prose, and, through several passes, improve the quality of their reading and thereby make the work, and their voices, live in public.  Poet and novelist Sandra Dorr will read short excerpts of her work, and explain some of the basics in elocution and just plain enjoyment in reading to an audience.  Come learn how to enjoy reading aloud
 
 
The Reading:  The Library Program Room will re-open at 6:30 pm
 
Wild Mustard

Abandoning the paper on the driveway,
I walk out into the stillness of the desert
tingling from the night's rain, sage and juniper
pale silver in the dazzle of light tilting the buttes,
the cloud of blue mesa lying on the horizon
when an unmistakeable lime scent pours off the wind
from the first tips of green standing in water,
a speck of purple blossom I scoop up on my finger
to smell its scraggy moist leaf, its perfect four-petalled cross
sprung up through the hard brown clay of winter:
wild mustard, the desert's first flower.
How can something so small awaken this land,
this lingering bittersweet greenness
that makes my body tremble for more of its fragrance
as it drifts through this bright air, announces its presence
to the horses standing in shimmered grasses,
the flying bellies of geese
the child tying a string on her bike,
and I who stand dumbstruck on a walk
through a field of wild sweet mustard.

What is it in this life I cannot find?
What god is it I am looking for?