Telluride Arts Presents 15th Annual Mark Fischer Poetry Prize

10 Jun Telluride Arts Presents 15th Annual Mark Fischer Poetry Prize

Poetry reading and awards ceremony, Friday, June 14, 6-8 p.m., Arroyo Telluride

Telluride Arts announces the Fifteenth Annual Mark Fischer Poetry Prize. Poetry readings and awards will be presented on Friday, June 14, 6-8 p.m., Arroyo Gallery in Telluride. The winners of this year’s prize will read selected poems and celebrate poetry with wine and friends in memory of Mark Fischer.

The Mark Fischer Poetry Prize is named in the memory of Telluride’s much-loved poet, lawyer, skier and raconteur. Mark Fischer was a daring experimenter who combined a polyglot’s command of languages with a quirky sense of humor and a passion for obtuse words. In that spirit, prizes are awarded to entries that best exhibit the qualities of originality, novelty, complex meaning, linguistic skill and wit.

Judge Wayne Lee, last year’s winner of the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize will be there to announce first, second, and third place prizes, as well as our honorable mention. We invite these poets, in no particular order, to read 3-5 poems during the ceremony. Our top 4 poets are: Deb Barr, 
Kyle Harvey, 
Samantha Wright
,and Tony Saab.

In addition, Wayne Lee will offer “The Music of Poetry” workshop, also  at Arroyo the following day, Saturday, June 15, from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. In a three-hour workshop, he will explore repetition, syncopation, theme and variation, pace, accent, pauses, dynamics, timbre, tone and other basic building blocks of music to enhance the written and spoken word.

Price of entry: $35 pre-sale/$45 at the door. For more info contact Telluride Arts.

About Wayne Lee:

Wayne Lee is a Santa Fe poet who played violin for 22 years in a Seattle string quartet and worked as a music critic for the Washington (D.C.) Times, The Seattle Times, Jazziz and other publications.
He has taught at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, Western Washington University (where he received his M.A. in theatre/dance), the Cornish School for the Arts, and the Institute of American Indian Arts. Lee is the winner of the 2012 Mark Fischer Poetry Prize and the 2012 SICA Poems for Peace Award, a Pushcart Prize nominee and author of two poetry collections.