On the first morning of this month, I was in Telluride for a workshop led by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. I’ve known of Rosemerry for a good nine or ten years, but it’s only been within the past year I’ve begun getting to know her. One of the results of my having finally reached out to her was my being included in a Facebook poetry group.
I’m not much of an out-reachy sorta person—blame it on my being a powerful introvert. (Which may explain some of why I waited so long before contacting RWT, via a FB Friend request.) Too, I see myself as a teensy fish in the wide expansive pond that is Colorado writers. (And an even teensier fish, still, when it comes to poetry.) So it was with something of surprise and delight when some members of the FB poetry group sent Friend requests to me. Fortunately, I was wise enough not to turn down such acts of wonderful grace. Two of these poets, Michelle Haynes and Amy Levek, live in Telluride, so while I was in town, I e-contacted each asking if they’d be available to meet. Amy was out of state, but Michelle agreed to meet me at her favorite hangout, and after having just gotten home from working all day(!)
Michelle had recently returned from having met another member of the poetry group, Debbi Kapp Brody, in her hometown of Santa Fe. As these things happen, Debbi had already contacted me, saying she’d be in Salida during the 4th of July weekend, and wanted to meet. Michelle’s words of high regard for Debbi confirmed my suspicions of the woman. And, sure enough, July 6th, I got to join Debbi and her husband, and also two local poets who knew Debbi already: Laurie James and Lynda La Rocca.
Within the same calendar week, I’d gone to a poetry workshop, met and gotten to know two other poets, and spent time with two other poets whom I already knew—three already-known poets, if you count the wisps of time I had with Rosemerry. Writing, as any creative art, can be isolating and insular. Add “powerful” introversion into the mix, and the need to connect with others, especially with those of your tribe, becomes essential. And for me, to be still more fully woven into the tapestry of other local poets made it seem more legitimate and true that I am a poet, never mind a writer also.
Write. More. Now. 