For the last month two poets have been in the Roaring Fork Valley working with students in Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Basalt and Aspen. Organized by the Aspen Writer’s Foundation, they held workshops on poetry encouraging, guiding and mentoring. And, what they were about in these sessions; was slam poetry.
The poetry sessions culminated in public poetry slams, one of then at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen last week (2-13-2014.) We’re featuring some of the poems performed at the Wheeler and we’ve asked a local poet to guide us along as we listen. Kim Nuzzo could rightly be called the Roaring Fork Valley’s own poet laureate. Nuzzo is a published poet and co-founder of he Aspen Poet’s Society.

We will hear poems by the two professionals who led the student workshops; Myrlin Hepworth and Logan Phillips. Also performing are three students; Riley Marshall from Roaring Fork High School, Tibet Boyer from Carbondale Middle School and Karyme Lara from Basalt High School.
About Kim Nuzzo:
Kim Nuzzo is a local performance poet/actor who has appeared in many local productions with the Hudson Reed Ensemble: The Crucible, Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, The Beats, Red Herring. He also appeared recently in ACT’s 1776 as John Hancock. He is President of the Aspen Poets’ Society and a Host/Cofounder of Live Poetry Night at Victoria’s Wine and Espresso Bar in Aspen. He is the author of HolyFunk: Polaroids and Poems and is currently working on a new collection of poems: The Sayings of Twilight Jesus.
For more on the series of learning workshops here and Slam Poetry in general visit these links below:
From Aspen Writer’s Foundation:
http://www.aspenwriters.org/special-events
About Myrlin Hepworth:
About Logan Phillips:
About Kim Nuzzo:
http://www.amazon.com/HolyFunk-Polaroids-Poems-Kim-Nuzzo/dp/0985415355
http://aspenpublicradio.org/tags/kim-nuzzo
About Slam Poetry: