Talking Gourds: Fischer Prize Winner Featured at Bardic Trails 10/6!

30 Sep Talking Gourds: Fischer Prize Winner Featured at Bardic Trails 10/6!

The Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Program proudly announces the winner of the 29th Annual Fischer Prize for Poetry, Claire Blotter, will perform at upcoming Bardic Trails on 10/6.

For more information on the Talking Gourds Poetry Program and its national Fischer and Cantor poetry contests, visit tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds

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 the Gourds mailing list. Or email Art Goodtimes directly.

Go here for more about Talking Gourds.

Blotter, courtesy Talking Gourds.

“I was delighted when Blotter won last year’s Fischer Poetry Prize,” said Talking Gourds director Art Goodtimes. “She is an amazing performance poet I first heard in Aspen a dozen years ago.”

Blotter has published three chapbooks and a full-length poetry collection, EXPANDING.WATER.WAYS. (Kelsay Books,2024). She’s been reading and performing these poems along U.S. wetlands threatened by a 2023 Supreme Court decision. Her work has been published in Rattle, Slipstream, the Plant-Human Quarterly, California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications.

Blotter represented San Francisco in National Poetry Slams in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, has taught poetry writing and performance at San Francisco State University, Dominican University and the College of Marin. She currently teaches first grade poets at four Mill Valley elementary schools.

Her award-winning video documentary, WAKE-UP CALL: SAVING THE SONGBIRDS, has been screened in 11 film festivals from Mill Valley to Chicago. She is currently writing a poetry-prose memoir about her experiences listening to trees and nature and how their voices have shaped her life. Her website is claireblotter.com.

For those that like story or poem prompts, Talking Gourds is suggesting “Healing,” 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 Nov. 3 will be poet, professor, and 2021 Chamberlain Award winner Kate Kingston of Trinidad.