This town - in words & pictures

This Town is the poem, mostly about Mountainair, written at Sunflower Writing Workshop. Please see Dale's introduction, "Mountainair in the company of poets." She writes, "the poem that we wrote together...is a love letter to Mountainair and to all the other little towns we've ever lived in or wanted to." Today I added another post "This Town - in pictures"

The workshop theme was poetry of plance. Before writing, Dale sent workshop participants out on a "poet's tour" of Mountainair with instructions about observing and taking notes on what they saw. Next, they wrote initial drafts incorporating these. The resulting poem was performed at the Poets & Writers Picnic in four parts with successive stanzas or "rounds" read by the poets who wrote them. The text layout duplicates this arrangement.

Many voices speak of Mountainair and small town life. Not all write about Mountainair. Some write about their own towns: not every specific reference is to Mountainair. Yet, these rounds tie their towns to this town (Mountainair) while connecting "this town" to other small towns everywhere. I hope you will recognize both familiar locations and resemblances between Mountainair and other towns in other places.

And now a brief sampler from "This town" (by Maureen Hightower, Karin Bradberry, Dale Harris, Sylvia Ramos, Shirley Blackwell, Susan Paquet, Terry Sedal, Nadine Lockhart). So please don't anyone hand me that line about PWP and Writing Workshop "not supporting" or contributing...

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This town –

Between missions
Containing crossroads
Eccentric hotel –
“Pueblo Art Deco” –
I love it!

This town –
Small shops
Funky houses
No golden arches –
Pre-generica America

This is my town

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This town celebrates its history on walls
Trains run through buildings on Broadway
Puffing between red rocks, mountains
and the Enchantment Salon.
An eagle swoops to pounce on its prey
Peeling paint and sly trompe l’oeil,
This is my town

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More Mountainair in the blogosphere: Seven Days On The Road In Colorado & New Mexico
Mostly about Mountainair, where they apparently stopped a few days. Wonderful pictures. Stayed at the Rock Motel, lunched at & looked around Shaffer, admired train mural & Treasure of the Gypsy but wanted to know more about both. Pictures of train station and tracks. She thought the Greyhound station storefront and and "Tomahawk garage" across from the Shaffer were for real.