I have some big goals for Colorado Poetry Calendar and connected endeavors, so it feels very good that an organization like Colorado Poetry Center wants to help this site get rolling. My aim is that this site will become a solid and consistent resource for us, one that collaborates with the poetry community at large. That means building upon, not duplicating what already is, and amplifying what I can while I can, building something that continues forth in community trust, even when I am ready to step away from it.  

Full disclosure: I am currently part of the working board of Colorado Poets Center as an assistant events coordinator along with Beth Franklin (President/Secretary),‍ ‍Lawrence King (Treasurer),‍ ‍Jesse Clark (webmaster), poets/writers Uche Ogbuji,‍ ‍Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer,‍ ‍Nancy Viera and Kathryn Winograd  (Newsletter Poet Interviews).

One of my intentions with Colorado Poetry Calendar is to help amplify events and interviews that CPC hosts. You can find these happenings as well as many other community-submitted events on the front page of the Colorado Poetry Calendar website. You can find poet directories, interviews and information about events on the Colorado Poets Center website and social media pages.  

You are also invited to submit poetry events to this calendar. Submissions to the poetry calendar are free.  

I wanted to work on the board of Colorado Poets Center because of the consistent work that occurs there over a long breadth of time. The organization was founded in 2003 by poet Robert W. King and Elizabeth Franklin — a partnership between two people who devoted their lives to education and the written word. Robert W. King was a Denver native who earned his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and went on to a distinguished career at the University of North Dakota, where he retired as Professor Emeritus. His poems, short fiction, and essays appeared in numerous journals including Poetry and The Missouri Review, and he was the 2000 winner of the National Writers’ Union Prize for Poetry. Bob passed away in 2017, but his legacy lives on in the organization he helped build — and in the annual Robert W. King Poetry Awards given to high school students each year in his name.  

Since Bob’s passing, Beth Franklin has continued as Executive Director and President of the Colorado Poets Center. A poet and painter herself, Franklin is also a professor emerita at the University of Northern Colorado, where she specialized in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education. Under her leadership, the CPC has grown into a free directory of hundreds of Colorado poets, sponsors free monthly poetry readings in Boulder, Denver, and other parts of the state, and publishes the free quarterly Colorado Poet Newsletter.  

Everything CPC hosts is free to the public, and this is a commendable commitment. 

Learn about some poets from the Colorado Poet’s Center directory:

In the spirit of National Poetry Month, Colorado’s Poet Laureate Crisosto Apache has been sharing a different poet from the Colorado Poets Center’s directory every single day throughout April on his social media pages. The daily showcase brings light to the varied landscape of poetry in the whole state of Colorado past and present.  

Thank you again, Colorado Poets Center, for believing in Colorado Poetry Calendar. I feel humbled to be part of the board, and to be supported in getting this calendar started towards a sustainable future for our poetry communities in Colorado.