Article by Lynda La Rocca
Poetry – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
SO HAS IT REALLY BEEN just five years since Sparrows: Colorado’s Performance Poetry Festival first burst upon the local poetry scene?
It’s already hard to remember a Salida winter without Sparrows, which has grown into a four-day gathering of poets and poetry lovers who come together to celebrate the written and spoken word in humorous, dramatic, memorable, original — and most of all, entertaining — ways.
This year, Sparrows takes wing February 24-27 with a series of poetry-related workshops and performances at the Salida Steam Plant Theater, Bongo Billy’s Salida Café, the Victoria Hotel & Tavern, and downtown restaurants.
Its theme, “Roots & Rhythm: Voices from the Tribe,” is reflected in an evening of performances on Friday, February 25 focusing on the “roots” of Sparrows, namely, poets and musicians (both individuals and groups) who have appeared at Sparrows in the past. These include Art Goodtimes, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Danny Rosen, TVs & two fingers, SETH with Art Compost and the Word Mechanics, and The River City Nomads.
Then on Saturday night, “rhythm” takes center stage–literally–with featured performances by new members of the Sparrows “family,” including Denver poet Chris Ransick, winner of a 2003 Colorado Book Award for his first book, Never Summer: Poems from Thin Airr. Among those joining him will be poets John Macker of New Mexico and South Dakota’s Phil Woods, along with Slim Wolfe of the San Luis Valley, and The Salida Drum and Dance Troupe, a group of local drummers and interpretive dancers.
And that’s not to mention two days of poetry workshops on subjects ranging from “Poetry as a Spiritual Discipline” to “Tai Chi Dance Poetry,” the return on Thursday, February 24, of the “Troubadours,” groups of roving poets who will perform that evening at four downtown Salida restaurants, and the traditional opening Poets’ Party and closing Poets’ Reception.
And to think that, in the winter of 2000, none of this was even a glimmer in the eyes of Salida poets and Sparrows’ co-founders Jude Janett and Laurie James.
Although this will be Sparrows’ first year without Janett, who is currently living out-of-state, James is making sure that Sparrows’ poetic nest remains well-feathered.
“Just call me ‘the little engine that could,'” laughs James, who has put together a 10-member, volunteer organizing committee that includes as “co-head honchos” local poet Craig Nielson and long-time Sparrows’ poet, performer, and workshop leader Michael Adams, along with Peter Anderson, Art Goodtimes, Lawton Harper, Lynda La Rocca, Kathleen Nelson, Rhonda McCormick, and Cheryl Tischer.
“I just prod everything — and everyone — along,” James observes good-naturedly.
So why a poetry festival?
“It’s hard to explain in just a couple of sentences, but it’s partly because poetry is such a major force around the world. It’s a means of expression that’s shared by every culture,” says James. “Sparrows is a way and a place for different people and different poetry styles to all come together. We’ve got everything from the academic to the truly wild.”
“Everyone who attends Sparrows loves words, that goes without saying,” James continues. “But you don’t have to be a poet to enjoy Sparrows. All the events–the workshops, the performances–are very heart-opening and eye-opening. If you really listen to what these performers and presenters say, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be astounded. You’ll come away transformed.”
O.K., then, but why a poetry festival in Salida — and in the middle of the winter?
Many Sparrows’ participants point to Salida’s reputation as an “artsy” community that doesn’t just welcome, but assists and supports all of its artists, from all venues.
And because winter in Central Colorado is so long and hard, it virtually begs for a reason for us to gather together and share “Stories Poems and Relations [that] Raise Our Winter Spirits,” the original words from which the Sparrows acronym was formed.
As for the name “Sparrows,” that was James’ idea. “There were these sparrows hanging out on a vine in my backyard, and they were the only things that were vibrant and full of life in the middle of the winter,” she recalls.
But since Sparrows has alighted to brighten the season, and our poetry scene, it’s made the winter in many souls blossom into what French novelist Albert Camus so famously described as “an invincible summer.”
Lynda La Rocca is a poet and writer living in Twin Lakes. She is a member of the Sparrows’ organizing committee and the poetry group The River City Nomads, which will again perform at the 2005 Sparrows poetry festival.
