AURORA | The poets would come back week after week to mingle with friends, stock up on caffeine and test new verses.
For a time in the late 1990s, it looked as if the weekly poetry reading at the now shuttered E-Steamers coffee shop on Chambers Road was well on its way to becoming a local cultural institution. The attendance stayed steady, local writers kept cranking out new material and the open mic component of the evening drew guest readers from far outside of Aurora. The group of E-Steamers poets even found a way to commit their verses to posterity.
“It was amazing, we even published a book,” said Wayne Gilbert, a former Community College of Aurora English professor who took part in the event. Now retired, Gilbert remains an active poet who reads at venues across the metro area. “It was very well attended by students and people in the community. Then it just sort of faded away.”
The crowds dried up and the poets moved on long before E-Steamers shut its doors in 2011. But poetry may be on the verge of making a comeback in Aurora, as city officials look at new ways to jump-start the local scene. An initiative making its way through the Aurora City Council to create an Aurora Poet Laureate position and plans for an upcoming poetry festival in the Aurora Cultural Arts District are both designed to encourage local writers and revive Aurora poets.
“I’m hoping that it inspires a lot of creativity and appreciation,” said Aurora City Councilwoman Debi Hunter Holen, who’s among those leading the charge to create the Poet Laureate position. “It’s another way for our citizens to get involved and possibly to have their voices heard in a different light.”
Holen, who was part of the original E-Steamers poetry group, isn’t ready to write off its success as a one-shot deal. A former student of Gilbert’s at CCA, Hunter Holen said she’s looked to creative writing and poetry as an outlet since junior high school. She sees the group from E-Steamers as a model that could flourish across the city with the right kind of encouragement.
“It’s time to get it going again,” said Hunter Holen, who worked with Library and Cultural Services Department Director Patti Bateman in crafting the proposal.
The Poet Laureate initiative received initial approval from the Aurora City Council last week, and the council will cast a final vote on the question by the end of the month. A finalist chosen by the Aurora Public Library’s Board of Directors and the City Council would serve as Aurora Poet Laureate for a year, and would receive a modest stipend of $500 to $1,000 for the entire year. Duties would include public readings, leading literacy and creative writing programs in public schools and penning original verses about the city.
“It’s a way to promote the arts, to bring in business,” said Hunter Holen, who cited successful Poet Laureate programs in Denver, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other big cities. “I appreciate so much anyone who can put their pen on paper and come up with words that penetrate differently than prose. That’s something that should be admired and appreciated.
The Poet Laureate proposal comes along with another upcoming events organized by officials at the Aurora Cultural Arts District. The first Poetry@Play Festival is slated for Sept. 20-21 at sites up and down East Colfax Avenue in north Aurora. The two-day festival is set to include a beat poetry reading in Fletcher Plaza and local poets reading original verses at the Collection gallery and the ACAD gallery and studio center. The festival is also set to include a youth poetry reading through Aurora Public Schools to be held at Aurora West College Preparatory Academy. Published poet and CCA faculty member Michael Levell is scheduled to perform during the festival.
The event is a move to define an arts district that’s still looking for a solid identity. While the area’s theater scene has grown with new companies and new stages in the past year, the district’s organizers are still looking to add different elements to the area.
“I’m still going through the district and figuring out what the niche is,” said Tracy Weil, ACAD’s managing director. “I think the theater schedules are real solid, but as far as art and poetry and other sort of creative efforts, I’m working on trying to create these signature events,” he added, hinting at the possibility of a yearly poetry festival.
These brands of efforts feel familiar for Gilbert, who spent decades teaching in Aurora. Gilbert said he will likely perform during the upcoming festival, but he remains a bit skeptical. The demise of the E-Steamers group is only one example of a creative effort in Aurora failing; it’s part of the reason Gilbert sticks to coffee shops, book stores and other venues in Denver to read his own verses.
“For years, I’ve thought the dearth of cultural events and support for cultural events in Aurora has just been really sad,” Gilbert said. “People are not very interested. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the city, being so divided.”
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of local talent. Some of the biggest names in Denver’s slam poetry scene are Aurora natives who took classes at CCA. Ken Arkind, Suzi Q. Smith and Eddie Eifler have all made waves, and they all got their starts in Aurora. Luring that kind of native talent back to Aurora will be a key to making the Poet Laureate post and the new poetry festival successful, Gilbert said.
“If it’s going to happen, those are the people who really have to get committed to it,” he said. “I think they’d be a great draw. They have a name.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com
The Poetry@Play poetry festival
Is scheduled for Sept. 20 and 21 in the Aurora Cultural Arts District in north Aurora. The festival is set to feature the following events:
Youth poetry reading in collaboration with Aurora Public Schools, reading at Aurora West College Preparatory Academy 10100 E. 13th St. 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Friday, September 20.
Poets will be reading their favorite Beat Poems outside in Fletcher Plaza near the MLK Library, 9898 E Colfax Ave. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 20.
Poets will be reading their favorite Original Poems at the ACAD Gallery & Studios, located at 1400 Dallas, with some of our featured poets. A Poetry and Art Exhibition will take place at the same time. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Sept. 21.
Original Poems at the Collection Gallery, located at 9801 E Colfax Ave. 9 to 11 p.m., Sept. 21.