WyoPoets Officers

President - Myra Peak Vice President - LeeAnn Siebken

Treasurer - Nancy Curtis Secretary - Abigail Taylor

Historian - Midge Farmer Newsletter Editor - Christine Valentine

Historian Notes by Midge Farmer, WyoPoets Historian, November, 2006

The history of any group is important and should be retained and constantly maintained. The records show when, how and why we began, what has happened since that start and the roads traveled to where we are today. Our successes, both as a group and as individuals, are noted. Sometimes even things that did not work are mentioned so we can know that years later. Our official paperwork is kept here.

Test Your WyoPoets Knowledge

Did you know we were born in the fall of 1977 as a “committee” of Wyoming Writers with 25 members? Did you know our name was Poets of Wyoming Writers when we joined the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) that year? Did you know we could not call ourselves the Wyoming State Poetry Society because a fly-by-night scam had operated in WY the previous year under a like name? Did you know we compiled a beautiful book of poetry called WORDWEAVERS published by Wyoming Writers, Inc. in 1986?

Do You Have History With WyoPoets?

All this and more is in our files. The most interesting historical tidbits are often copies of the newspaper clippings, photos, fliers, certificates, programs, etc. that members send when they give readings or work in the schools or do anything to share poetry in our state. Please add your history to our history. Send historical items to:

Midge Farmer

1117 Indian Hills Drive

Gillette, WY 82716

307♦682♦3488

Email: WyoPoets Historian

April 2008
Note From The Prez

We are fresh from our annual writing workshop led by Dawn Senior-Trask. Our thanks to her and her husband, Jule, for spending two days with us in Casper.

Dawn sparked us with use of random words which she stores in a box. She brings them out to play with us, and we wrote surprising poems from others’ words. We used newspaper articles from the 1920’s and 1930’s, photos of ancestors lost to their families, and different types of art paper to develop more poetry.

I think I was the only soil scientist in the workshop (except that Dawn’s husband had a soil science class once), and my news page included an article advertising for soil scientists to work for the U. S Government. There weren’t many soil scientists at the time.

My table mate received a page with an article about women needing to create their own sources of income. With her husband this past week they had pursued new avenues for retirement funds. She admitted it was mostly his money; she was trying to find the message in that. I suggested that it meant she should take the money and run with it. Of course, she won’t do that.

The physical process of opening ourselves up to new ideas at a workshop and to receiving (but maybe not being worthy) of praise from our fellow writers creates a demarcation from which we can start writing anew. The apparent coincidence of my table mate’s and my news articles are, of course, probably not coincidence but signs that we are doing what we should do. Now we need to write what we should with surprises about purple politicians’ hearts and blue sky sinks of comets.

The open mikes on Friday night and Saturday afternoon were well attended, and the sharing of poetry and life were incentive for us to write more. Dawn’s critiques of our poems, for those of us who sent poems ahead of time, will give us the support we need to develop them and others into shared poetry.

For our workshop, we were blessed with good weather, a wonderful meeting room, a spectacular lunch, and the camaraderie of poets we have known and poets new to our group. We also had a worthwhile and effective business meeting, the news of which will be reported in our next newsletter.

WyoPoets will have another business meeting at the Wyoming Writers, Inc. workshop June 6 – 8 in Casper at the now Ramada (which used to be the Holiday Inn). WWInc. has a poetry track of workshops with Ray Gonzales. Fiction and non-fiction will also be tracks offered at WWInc., and they are writing forms from which poets can learn and to which we can contribute.

Dawn left us thinking about how the tangible objects of life, can be transformed and rearranged into poetry with new life and meaning for us and our readers. What do you have around your house that is ordinary or taken for granted but that is important to you? Combine some of those things into a poem with surprise and new impact.

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WyoPoets Meetings

WyoPoets meets during the Wyoming Writers, Inc. annual conference, and also meets at WyoPoets sponsored workshops around the state, conducted at various times during the year.