by Nancy Best
Warm, welcoming, peaceful, calming – Margery Dorfmeister’s well-appointed home is all these things. It invites you to come in and stop awhile. Leave your cares by the road. Your worries won’t even make it through the front door.
When you step in, your eye is captivated by large windows joined to make an even larger one. The view makes you stop and simply look. If you gaze down over the back porch, you see the Arkansas River and a walkway leading down to it. Look up, and the Sleeping Indian lies in tranquil repose. Straight ahead, tall trees add interest to the scene without blocking the pieces. Through open windows, the sound of flowing water falls on your brain like candy, while songbirds and hummingbirds flitting about feeders provide the finishing touch.
And then there is Marge herself, who has lived in this slice of heaven for over 12 years. Friendly and interesting, she sits comfortably surrounded by organized books and tasteful décor that brings the natural world indoors. The living room reminds one of music and art and family. A journalist suddenly becomes a poet.
Perhaps poetry is catching. Certainly, not all are born to it. Marge, however, certainly was. “I’ve been writing poetry practically all my life. My mother was a teacher and taught me to write even before I started school. I started writing poems on my own from that very early age.”
The nationally known and esteemed Beloit Poetry Journal was the first to publish her work. “That was in 1975. I beat out 1,000 other entries.” Her poem appeared on page one.
The Pen Woman, another national literary magazine, also bought her work, as did smaller publications in Wisconsin, where she was living at the time, having grown up in a rural community in the southern part of the state.
“I attended a one-room school with all the grades mixed together. Sometimes you might be the only one in your grade, or there might not be anyone in a particular grade. You could learn from those above you and jump ahead.”
Upon moving to Buena Vista in 1978 with her husband John and two children, she began submitting work to the Denver Post, which accepted several of her poems for its Poet’s Corner. All three volumes of Valley Voices, anthologies of Central Colorado Writers compiled by the Chaffee County Council on the Arts Writers Exchange, included poetry and short stories by Marge.
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Her work “Scones” is found in Poetry on Track, a 2013 member anthology celebrating 35 years of the Columbine Poets of Colorado, the state chapter of The National Federation of State Poetry Societies, as well as the anthology Parade of Poets. “The Parade of Poets is by our local Columbine chapter, Shavano Poets. We each had two pages to fill, so we could choose long or short works. My two pages have three poems – ‘Back in the Future,’ ‘Lure of the West,’ and ‘Chocolate Lover.’”
Shavano Poets was founded over 20 years ago by Jessica Saunders, who passed away in 2012 and in whose honor the group put together the Parade of Poets. “My poems were almost always free verse until I met Jessica. I got serious about learning the different types of poetry then. She taught us the forms, would give us assignments, and encouraged us to publish.”
Moving beyond free verse, Marge explored limericks, the villanelle poem form, five-line cinquain poetry, acrostics, haiku, gloss poetry, homophones and plot device MacGuffins. She also had a poem published in Colorado Central Magazine about meeting the Salida author Kent Haruf.
She even tackled playwriting. “My first job in BV was running the Chamber of Commerce. I got tired of sending tourists to Leadville and Cripple Creek for any type of theater.” So she helped found the Pick & Shovel Players in 1981 and created their material. “I wrote a trilogy of melodramas based on women in early Buena Vista history, a melodrama based on the Climax Mine, and a straight mystery. My friend Janet Steiner and I collaborated on dozens of mini-melodramas for BV town events.”
Combining her literary talent with those of pianists and composers of mostly pop-style songs, her melodramas were musicals. “That was the most fun I’ve had in my life.”
After her son and daughter were grown, Marge herself continued to grow, achieving a degree in journalism, and at the age of 60 taking up watercolor painting. Now twenty years later, she’s slowed a bit. “I like to sit on my porch and watch the rafters. Because they’re concentrating on rafting, they don’t look up. They don’t know I’m here.”
The Shavano Poets now fulfill her creative needs. “Since Jessica passed, we volunteer to take turns leading the meetings and giving assignments. We meet on the first Thursday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Salida. We have members come from Leadville, Montrose, Westcliffe, South Park and Twin Lakes. Anyone is welcome to join.”
Marge names one poet as an influence and favorite. “Ogden Nash. I’m definitely not a very serious poet – most of my poems are humorous. I’m a pretty upbeat person. Depressing poetry doesn’t interest me. I had a happy childhood.” Despite losing her much-loved husband of 65 years in April of 2015, she maintains a positive outlook. “I haven’t had those bad experiences in my life to be angry or sad. I’m adjusting to being a widow.”
She always wants to leave her visitors with a smile. Let this limerick be yours.
Chocolate Lover
By Margery Dorfmeister
There was a young miss from Andover
who couldn’t resist Russell Stover.
As each piece passed her lips
she said, “This one’s for the hips”
but the truth is they settled all over.
Nancy Best has called Buena Vista home for going on seven years. When not playing pickleball, she writes for the Chaffee County Times and volunteers with the Boys & Girls Club, both of which pay about the same. She also meddles in civic and educational affairs and is part of the Claim Jumpers Melodrama troupe. Any one of these is clearly a serious offense, but as of this writing she has yet to be ridden out on a rail.
