Poetry Jam
returns
to nexStage
By DANA
DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
The 5th
Annual Poetry Jam, co-hosted by Iconoclast Books and the Sun Valley Center
for the Arts, takes place Saturday night at the nexStage Theatre in
Ketchum. The event, which starts at 7 p.m., is free of charge.
The Jam
started in the Center’s gallery space but outgrew it. Last year, it was
moved to the nexStage Theatre, where more than 12 poets read their work,
followed by a brief response from a collection of interpretive dancers, in
front of approximately 150 audience members.
Opening the
Jam is "couplet," the performing poet duo of Josephine Jones and
Judith McConnell Steele perform their work as, they said, "Two
voices, woven together in one poem."
The duo are
working more and more in this fashion. They have performed at the Log
Cabin Literary Center, and the Rocky Mountain Writers Festival. Though
both are well regarded published poets on their own, Jones said, "We’re
doing this more and more. I prefer it to solo." She added that
"Having another voice to use to express an idea is like having two
musical instruments instead of one, so the musical and emotional range of
the oral delivery is much greater."
Jones was
awarded a 1998 Idaho Commission on the Arts Literary Fellowship, and has
released a solo spoken word CD. She is project director for the Boise Log
Cabin Literary Center's BookFest 2002.
A series of
her poems is forthcoming this fall in the Backwaters Press anthology about
women's relationships on the high plains, "Times of Sorrow, Times of
Grace."
Judith
McConnell Steele was a reporter and columnist for The Idaho Statesman in
Boise for 15 years. Her poetry and short stories have been published in
"cold-drill" literary journal, "Cabin Fever," the
anthology "Woven on the Wind," and Boise magazine.
In
collaboration with the work of artist Chris Binion, her poems were part of
the recent exhibition "Artists and Writers: Collaboration and
Inspiration" at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts gallery and in
three group exhibitions at J Crist Gallery in Boise.
With the
"Gang of Four," a group of four writers, Steele and Jones
performed at the Log Cabin Literary Center, Borders Books and Music,
Verbose City, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, the University of Idaho,
and Lewis-Clark State College for the Talking River Reading Series.
That group
also included Jones, Diane Josephy Peavey and Gay Rigby Whitesides.
The first
time Jones and Steele read together, Steele said, "We realized we
were having too much fun to stop. We continued to read together until
Diane and Gay left Boise. At that point, Josephine and I looked at each
other and said, "couplet." Our work together has evolved from
the round-table readings of the "Gang of Four" to the
performance approach of "couplet," said Steele.
This event
is free to the public. To sign-up to read your poetry at the Jam, call
Iconoclast Books, at 726-1564.