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Paonia’s Harvest of Voices Fills Not One, but Two Venues

September 26th, 2015

Filed under Community, Entertainment, Featured, News, Paonia

Harvest of Voices 9.24.15 Sylvain

Diane Sylvain at the mic.

 

Harvest of Voices Fills Not One, but Two Venues

By Thomas Wills

Award winning poet, Beth Paulson, who made the drive up from Ridgeway to read a single piece during the September 24 Harvest of Voices in Paonia, was amazed at the turnout for a spoken word event.

“This is amazing,” she said several times as we sat together on the stage waiting for the second half of the program to begin.

This year the program of fourteen local writers reading (and singing) works aloud for a very appreciative audience not only filled the Blue Sage Center for the Arts to capacity but also was, thanks to videographer David Jacobson, livestreamed across the street to the Paradise Theatre where75 to 100 more people watched the event projected onto the big screen. The end result was about 200 people   present for local writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to get a rare chance to publically read their stuff. It was also an example of how arts venues around town could move beyond competition to collaboration.

Diane Sylvain, who besides being an excellent essayist and editing other writers at the High Country News, and also a very accomplished artist, was nervous about appearing fifteen feet tall on the movie screen.

“What if I slip or something?” she worried.

Sylvain, an elegant, beautiful woman, who it is always a treat to hear read, walks with the aid of a crutch due to an accident many years ago. At the microphone she admitted her nervousness and then quickly drew the audience into one of the few pieces of the evening that truly resonated with the changing season and the theme of “harvest.”

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             First group of writer on stage with  the witty Sharon Bailey introducing them.

   Another non-fiction standout was new Western Slope Conservation Center director, Alex Johnson, reading from his book in progress about a trip he and husband Pete took paddling the Yukon River.

One show stopping moment of the evening came when Jeanine Devlin, instead of reciting her poem/lyric, sang it in a powerful, soulful, unaccompanied performance that had many mouths agape in amazement.

Later, Gustavo Brett, who is another one of those do-everything creatives, also being an accomplished musician, performed a comedy monologue and was a great follow-up the Herald’s Marla Bishop who could probably read the phone book, or the Book of Revelations,  and have people rolling on the floor.

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             Writers off stage in front row.  R to L – Sylvain, Beth Paulson, Marla Bishop and Eric Goold (who always give us that look when we take his picture.)

 

I ended up having to follow those two with a semi-serious short-short story (the time limit was six minutes) about a woman who fell in love with a space alien who was visiting on official business.  Not a good idea.

The last reader of the evening, Eric Goold, Paonia Town Councilman as well as writer and publican, brought the evening to a close on a more somber note when in reading an excerpt from a book in progress about the history of Paonia, reminded the audience that history continues to the present day and the past was not always a rosy, heroic thing.

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