ROGUE VALLEY

ROGUE VALLEY

The Down Towne Poets, a monthly reading held in Dan and Sarah Goyette’s Down Towne Coffee House, in Talent, was started in 2005 by Deborah Thornley, who moved to Tucson in 2007, leaving the program to be coordinated by Dave Harvey. Co-host Carol Brockfield and he have continued to hold it on the second Thursday evening of each month. All poets are welcome to read, and there is coaching as well as applause.

The group which plans and coordinates all Rogue Valley OPA activities agreed that it’s time to make Down Towne Poets a function of the OPA’s Rogue Valley Unit. The Poets’ big event comes on the second Thursday of April each year (April 9, this year), when the winners of the year-long contests are announced and receive prize certificates and money.

At this year’s meeting, we will announce Down Towne Poets’ new formal status as an OPA program. Debbie Thornley has told us she will come from Tucson to be present.

On January 29, Friends of William Stafford invited several local poets to read at an evening commemorating the life and work of William Stafford. Angela Decker, Samara Diab, Michael Jenkins, Amy Miller, Julian Spalding, and Pepper Trail each read one by Bill and one of their own, related to the Stafford poem each had chosen. Other audience members were invited to read Stafford poems that were especially meaningful to them.

Workshops at the Medford Branch Library are held on second Saturdays. In November, Dave Harvey gave one on “Light Verse,” looking at, and encouraging the participants to create their own examples of, such forms as the limerick, clerihew, dorklet, pompouselle, and Ogden Nashie. In February, Dee Chadwell repeated her Valentine’s Day workshop of a year ago: the sonnet, especially the sonnet expressing love. Linda Barnes plans one in March, using body movements to inspire poems.

Amy Miller gave a workshop on using CreateSpace to publish your book in early February. It was so well-attended that she has a plan to give a repeat in March.

Laura Kimberly, Branch Manager of the Medford Library, plans to furnish seven pies for our annual Poetry and Pie event in April Further workshops are planned for March and May, with a planned “throttle-down” for the summer.

— Dave Harvey

3 thoughts on “ROGUE VALLEY”

  1. Hi Dave,
    Was going to be at the CoffeeHouse Thursday but have bronchitis—honking doesn’t go well with readings. Plan to be there for the next month’s open mic.

    Meanwhile, what’s protocol? Number of poems? Time?

  2. I am a retired professor at UC Santa Cruz. My field was music: music theory and ethnomusicology. I am now involved in reciting poetry. My wife, an artist, and I are contemplating moving from Fallbrook (San Diego Couty) to Ashland. Could you please summarize the range of poetry activities currently available in the Rogue Valley of Oregon? Thank you. Joh Schechter

  3. Open mic still going strong at Talent’s Downtown Coffee Shoppe on second Thursdays, about a dozen regulars. Willamette Writers meets in the area regularly on certain Saturdays. OLLI classes on poetry, and this term, “Sharing What You Write” and a songwriting class. A church in Ashland near the high school has noon poetry sessions on first or second Mondays. I know that much, and I’m a hermit. The particulars easily filled in once you arrive. This is a start.

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