| October 20, 2003Pike's Peak's Philosophic Burro / Eugene Field October 27, 2003In the Rockies / Edith Colby Banfield November 3, 2003Just Like Colorado / James Barton Adams November 10, 2003Cherry Creek Emigrants' Song / Anonymous November 17, 2003Bacon / Badger Clark November 24, 2003America the Beautiful / Katharine Lee Bates December 8, 2003Creede / Cy Warman December 15, 2003The Rise and Fall of Creede / Cy Warman December 22, 2003Christmas in the Miner's Cabin / Harriet L. Wason December 29, 2003Colorado Snow-birds / Helen Hunt Jackson January 5, 2004Winter in Colorado / Eugene Field January 12, 2004The Message of the Tree / Alice Polk Hill January 19, 2004A Cowboy at the Carnival / Anonymous January 26, 2004ears popping over la veta pass / Tony Moffeit February 2, 2004A Colorado Girl / Cy Warman February 16, 2004Our Colorado Girl / James Barton Adams February 23, 2004A Cowgirl's Sweet Confession / James Barton Adams Colorado's Past Poet Laureates March 1, 2004Preface--Tales of the Colorado Pioneers / Alice Polk Hill March 8, 2004Drought and The Coming Rain / Nellie Burget Miller March 15, 2004The Woman in the Wagon / Clyde Robertson March 22, 2004Air Force Academy / Milford E. Shields March 29, 2004Autumn Beckons the Ice Cutter / Thomas Hornsby Ferril National Poetry Month-April 2004: Vintage Poems / Contemporary Poets April 5, 2004The Morning of the Morning / Mary Crow, Colorado Poet Laureate April 12, 2004Head On, Off & Still Running / Art Goodtimes April 19, 2004Me, Crow, Fish, and the Magi / Linda Hogan April 26, 2004Sod Huts on the Plains near Aurora, Colorado / Reg Saner May 17, 2004The Market Train / Arthur Chapman May 31, 2004A Colorado Horse on the Battle Field / Jean Milne Gower June 7, 2004Courtship / Harriet L. Wason June 14, 2004Ute Pass / J. Ernest Whitney June 21, 2004Getting the Newspaper from the Lawn / Jim Ciletti June 28 & July 5, 2004Where the Columbines Grow / Arthur J. Fynn July 12, 2004The Yucca / Virginia Donaghe McClurg July 19, 2004Mariposa Lilies / Edith Colby Banfield July 26, 2004No Flies on Colorado / James Barton Adams August 2, 2004Estrella Mountains & Junkyard / Janet Kenning August 9, 2004Where the Wild Flowers Catch the Dew / Cy Warman August 16, 2004Charming Again / Sandra McNew August 23, 2004Death of the Cow-Boy / Eugene Field August 30, 2004Anasazi, the First Coloradans / Reg Saner September 6, 2004Spirit That Form'd This Scene / Walt Whitman September 13 & 20, 2004From a Coyote Primer / Thomas Hornsby Ferril 2 Laureates / 2 Poems September 27, 2004Round / Mary Crow, Colorado poet laureate September 27, 2004Visiting Mountains / Ted Kooser, U.S. poet laureate October 4, 2004Towards Denver City / Lawrence N. Greenleaf October 11, 2004Painted Pods / Jean Milne Gower --First Anniversary Poem-- October 18, 2004Pikes Peak Obscured / Steven D. Schroeder October 25, 2004Discretion / Carol Lawrence Dier November 1, 2004Colorado, On the Adoption of Equal Suffrage / Anna Pritchard November 8, 2004The Bunkhouse / Arthur Chapman November 15 & 22, 2004A Miner's Thanksgiving / Rufus L. Porter November 29 & December 6, 2004The 13th / Abelardo "Lalo" Delgado December 13 & 20, 2004Straw Barn / Jane Morton December 27, 2004Where Does It Go? / Charles Edwin Hewes January 3, 2005Diary of a Country Gentleman / Gertrude McDaniel January 10, 2005The Fields in Winter / Lisbeth Fish January 17, 2005Las Ventanas Azules / Millicent H. Velhagen January 24, 2005Tiny Town / Nellie Foster Seibert January 31, 2005A Bachelor's Reverie at the "Peak" / Job Straight February 21, 2005Passing By / Nellie Burget Miller February 28, 2005Out Where the West Begins / Arthur Chapman March 7, 2005A Tale of the Indian Massacre at Pueblo, in 1854 / T. O. Bigney March 14, 2005A Month with the Muses / T. O. Bigney March 21, 2005Spring Fever / Jamie Sexton Holme March 28, 2005Wildcat Ledge / Lilian White Spencer National Poetry Month -- April 2005 April 4, 2005The Writing on the Wall / Bill Tremblay April 11, 2005Flagstaff Mountain / Tom (WordWulf) SternerHowe April 18, 2005Return to the West / Alan Swallow April 25, 2005On the Colorado River & The Old Laws of Recurrence / Mary Crow May 2, 2005 A Cowboy's Prayer / Badger Clark May 9, 2005To a Sentinel Marmot / Steven D. Schroeder May 23, 2005They Tell Us Peace Has Come / Charles N. Sellers May 30, 2005No Mark / Thomas Hornsby Ferril Archives, continued (please click) |
| Regional poetry seeks to illuminate places, people, and local ways. The poets you'll read here write with varying degrees of skill, sentimentality, high or low art, but all create vivid "word pictures" of Colorado, the West, and lives lived. Vintage Colorado Poetry aka Colorful Colorado in Regional Verse: "Poems of Place" as History & Geography currently features more than 150 poems by 80 poets. The gold rushes at Cherry Creek and Pikes Peak mark the earliest mining verse (Colorado was still Kansas Territory) in the Rocky Mountain News in 1859 & 1860. Next, journalists and literary wags (Harriet L. Wason, James Barton Adams, Arthur Chapman, Eugene Field, Cy Warman, and Alice Polk Hill) contribute late 19th century and early 20th century poems of "local color." Literary poetry of regional Colorado is advanced by Helen Hunt Jackson in the 1870s and by Edith Colby Banfield, her niece, in the early 1900s. "Poems of place" are reprinted from the Poetry Society of Colorado, a lively group (including state poet laureates Nellie Burget Miller and Clyde Robertson) during the Society's artistic 1920s-1940s heyday. Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Colorado's most enduring poet, had several early poems in the Rocky Mountain News, in the years after World War I. He is also represented by a World War II poem. Belle Turnbull, a favorite of Harriet Monroe's Poetry magazine, was another 1920s & 30s Colorado poet of note. With the mid-20th century and on, more and more Colorado poets (Wyoming-born Alan Swallow, for one) turn inward to "modernism," although the West's varied landscapes remain visibly present in much of the new poetry. Here also are well-wrought "poems of place" by all six of Colorado's governor-appointed poet laureates; the first laureate, Alice Polk Hill, was appointed in 1919; the current laureate, Mary Crow, was named in 1996. Again noting, Thomas Hornsby Ferril, a Yale Younger Poet 1926 and Colorado's most acclaimed poet, was appointed the fifth laureate in 1979. Contemporary Colorado poets of national reputation include Linda Hogan, Reg Saner, and William Tremblay. Colorado does not want for "poetry of place" and probably never will given its natural spendor. Vintage Colorado Poetry hopes you enjoy the web site, a gathering together of popular and literary poetry from the past and today. |
| 2009 - From the Archives January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December 2008 January / Other Men's Dogs / Adele Cropsey Hudson February / Skiing Alone Near the Divide / Reg Saner March / The Missing Gold / Mary Lucretia Barker April / Catching Mountain Trout / James Barton Adams May / Our "Soddy" / Leora Smith Blankenbeckler June / July -- Denver After Dark: two poems and a photo Denver at Dusking / Jean Milne Gower 17th Street at Night Looking East / Harry M. Rhoads Night in Denver ... 1944 / Helen Thomas August / September -- I am not mountain-born / Nellie Burget Miller October / December -- Nellie Burget Miller / The Editor 2007 January / Ground Blizzard, Interstate 70 / Reg Saner February / The Columbine / Cy Warman March / Len B., Timekeeper / Clyde Robertson April / Pike's Peakers of '59: A Humorous History / Lawrence N. Greenleaf May / A Biking Ballad / Blanche Trennor Heath June / The Wright Stuff / Art Goodtimes July / Red Mountain / Robinson Jeffers August / On the Cache la Poudre & Old Milne Ranch / Jean Gower Milne September / Out Among the Big Things / Arthur Chapman October / The Lost Boy / William Tremblay November / Casey's Table d'Hote / Eugene Field December / Ranch Christmas / Jane Morton - & - Santa's Tree / Marvin Hass |
| Archives |
| Editor's Background I've pretty much been interested in literary regionalism all my grown life, although I'm not a poet. I've been the recipient of a Colorado Council on the Arts fellowship in creative writing for stories published in South Dakota Review, New Mexico Humanities Review, and WIND Magazine. My story "Bonefinder" appeared in Steve Rasnic Tem's anthology High Fantastic: Colorado's Fantasy, Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction. My background also includes editing two anthologies of short stories published by the University Press of Colorado -- Where Past Meets Present: Modern Colorado Short Stories and Vintage Colorado Short Stories: When Past Met Present. Both of these anthologies open and close with regional poems. My one-act plays "Father, Son and Trinity Site" and "Airwaves" were produced in Denver at the late, great Changing Scene Theater for the Summerplay series. For thirty years and going, I've made my living as an academic librarian -- Milton College, Huron College, Western Montana College, Adams State College, and now the Colorado Springs campus of National American University. My degrees include a Master of Fine Arts in English, Iowa Writers' Workshop, University of Iowa. I'm married, Jayne, and father of highschoolers Andrew and Charlotte. |
| Vintage Colorado Poetry James B. Hemesath, Editor and Publisher Founded October 2003 // jimhemesath@comcast.net |
| October 2009 -- Archives Favorites |
| Discretion / Carol Lawrence Dier Cowboy's Halloween / Marvin Hass |
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| Happy 6th Anniversary to Vintage Colorado Poetry! First poem: October 20, 2003 |