
LITERARY ARTS
Texas High Plains Writers, as part of the 2019 Amarillo ArtsFest, is seeking local poets, authors,and artists to participate in this year’s event.
If you are an artist who wants to participate in the poetry interpretation competition, please see the Rules for Works of Art Inspired by Poetry.
For a list of literary events, dates, and times, click here.
If you are interested, please fill out the form below. The event is still in the planning stages. We will keep you apprised as planning progresses.
TITLE AND DESCRIPTION OF LITERARY EVENTS
Poetry Readings
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – Various Times
Room 81 and Elsewhere in concourse
Refrigerator Poetry
Duration of ArtsFest
Literary Room 64
Express yourself through “refrigerator” poetry.
Exquisite Corpse Poetry
Duration of ArtsFest
Literary Room 64
Help create a poem by adding words to the end of the previous person’s contribution without seeing what was written beforehand. Come back to see what was created!
Six Stories in 60 Minutes
Friday, May 10, 2019—8:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Literary Room 64
Six of the region's finest flash-fiction authors—Seth Wieck, Ryan McSwain, Jenny Stalter, Noah McCalister, Jonathan Baker, and Mike Akins—will entertain with their urgent and unusual short stories.
Meet Your Local Authors
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – Various Times
Concourse in North End of Mall
Visit with local published authors and discover your summer read.
Poetry-Inspired Works of Art
Duration of ArtsFest
Literary Room 64
View works by local artists inspired by poetry. Participating artists can choose to create a work based on one of these poems: Tumbled by Wes Reeves, Forgive Us Our Deudas by Seth Wieck, Amarillo by Chera Hammons, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, and The Summer Day by Mary Oliver. Go to www.amarilloartsfest.com for rules and deadlines.
Poets and Poetry at High Noon
Saturday, May 11, 2019—Noon
Literary Room 64
A conversation with three panhandle poets—Chera Hammons, Seth Wieck, and Wes Reeves.
So You Want to Write a Novel
Saturday, May 11, 2019—2:00 p.m.
Literary Room 64
Tales from the front lines of fiction with local authors Jodi Thomas, Bethany Claire, Ryan McSwain, and Linda Broday.
Keys to Self-Publishing
Saturday, May 11, 2019—4:00 p.m.
Literary, Room 64
Self-publishing options and marketing secrets for as-yet-unpublished authors, with Bethany Claire, Ryan McSwain, and Craig and Nancy Keel.
Haiku Smackdown
Saturday, May 11, 2019—6:00 p.m.
Literary, Room 64
Watch competitors pitch their best haiku poems—3-line poems of five, seven, and five syllables. Sign up is in front of room 64 at 5:45. Participation is on a first-come basis.
Slam Poetry
Saturday, May 11, 2019—7:00 p.m.
Literary, Room 64
A form of performance poetry that combines the elements of performance, writing, competition, and audience participation. This is an adult event. No one will be turned away, but this event is rated PG13 to R for possible strong language and adult content. Three-minute time limit. No more than 15 spots available. Sign up is in front of room 64 at 6:45. Participation is on a first-come basis.
Limerick Smackdown
Saturday, May 11, 2019—8:00 p.m.
Literary, Room 64
A competition consisting of humorous and frequently rude poems consisting of five lines. This is an adult event. No one will be turned away, but this event is rated PG13 to R for possible strong language and adult content. Sign up is in front of room 64 at 7:45. Participation is on a first-come basis.
RULES FOR WORKS OF ART INSPIRED BY POETRY
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Participation in the ArtsFest is free.
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Only one artwork (2-D or 3-D object) per person will be accepted into the show.
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All artworks are subject to review.
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The artwork must be appropriate for viewing by all ages.
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Artworks must be dry, complete, and ready to show safely.
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Artwork dimensions cannot exceed 3 feet in any direction.
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Artwork must be delivered to the Art Institute, Suite 117 in Sunset Center, by 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 7.
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Artworks will be judged on creativity, style, artistic ability, and how well the artwork
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expresses the themes of the chosen poem.
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Prizes will be awarded to one outstanding artwork in three divisions:
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Ages 5-12
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Ages 13-18
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Ages 19 and older
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Ribbons/certificates will be awarded to additional outstanding works at the discretion of the judges.
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Artworks must be picked up from the Literary Room, Suite 64, between 5 and 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 10.
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When dropping off your artwork, you will be asked to provide:
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Your name.
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Your age.
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Your mailing address.
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Your email address.
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Your phone number.
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The title of the poem that you chose to interpret.
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The title of the artwork, if it has one.
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Artists may choose any one of the following poems for interpretation, regardless of the artist’s
age:
Tumbled
By Wes Reeves
Yes, our years are
tumbled dust
mingled with those
of the great bison,
the men who chased them
and the women who
sanctified them.
We are the hours
of bumbling
cussing oxcarts and
boy-faced farmers with
their pious brides,
softly weeping.
The microseconds of
finger-jerking lariat
throws, mule kicks to
the head and Krakatoa
gushers of corrupted
Permian daylight.
We are sons and daughters
of ancient soils aching
under a mocking sky,
drying and dying
and rising again on
the breeze.
Forgive Us Our Deudas
By Seth Wieck
The front door exhales new construction scents: PVC adhesive,
latex VOCs breathed onto gypsum dust; clouds of California
carcinogens caught on the wind. New coats on new walls.
Depending on the day
Dad calls this new development:
Seventy forever homes to nest in empty;
Downsized-dreams for retirees; Master suites
for a booming demographic who need
tall toilets and shower-rails escrowed through daisies.
Dad’s kinda funny.
“¡Pepé!” Dad calls. The house echoes like a dark canyon.
Then we find Pepé’s tools. Left tools is left livelihood.
Pepé chased a girl from Jalisco to Amarillo.
Didn’t catch her but learned to pronounce it like we do:
consonants like corners. We don’t roll R’s and L’s.
We roll walls with gallons of yellow.
Pepé was the tenth of ten niños.
He went to work at ten años.
Half his paycheck ayudó his madre.
A payment he’s made for twenty years.
“¿Dónde está, Pepé?” I call.
Pepé’s name is José. But as a niño en la escuela
there was uno José, dos José, tres José,
so he say, “Call me Pepé.”
Pepé’s son is José Jr.
I learnt to sprechen the broken Mexican by pushing crews
at 22. I’ll get the Dad & Son Co. when Dad’s dead & gone though,
which is our kinda funny way of saying something sad.
“Te amo, Papá,” I sometimes tell him.
Dad doesn’t understand that.
Dad does understand that Pepé has blown, dusted, hit the wind,
maybe been deported. Dad estima/esteems Pepé
—I estimate this as love. “The hombre can work,” he says, which he’s
also said of me. Not mano a mano.
We were bound over books and lunch break burritos and library-
loaned novelas. Él leyó Louis L’amour en español: El Hombre
de las Colinas Quebradas regresó El Cañón Oscuro.
I read the whole yard of Dad’s bookshelf when I was a kid.
“Su historia es la historia de la frontera americana.”
That’s from The Sackett Brand. Them Sacketts was cool.
I still owe him Los Dolientos.
From Jaliscan dust came José-Pepé, like agave,
the spirit in him kin to tequila that sweats from his skin;
the flesh threshold that keeps me from him; the squared
puerta, cousin and cognate, gust ajar aliento a soplo
breath to breath Dad & Son Pepé y José Jr. and dust and Adam
returning to dust, American.
Amarillo
By Chera Hammons
There isn’t anything pretty
to look at here. No landmarks,
and the land flat scrub with no trees,
dirty blonde, dry beaten with summer,
even the people bleached bare, all the same kind.
This is the ugly part of Texas.
People always say it as they drive through,
their too-hot tires in danger of throwing
tread on the shimmering asphalt,
the ironed-out snakes smeared greasy slicks
and the bitter lemon skunk smell
of the highway rushing under the license plates.
They can’t get out of town fast enough.
Neither can we, if we are careful.
Loving one thing can trap you here,
draw you into the narrow neck
of a wide bottle, and root you
like the spiny mesquites,
who have survived so long they are native.
Georgia O’Keeffe stayed
for a year herself, it is that hard to leave.
The yellow yards are feral, jagged with stalks,
ruthless with vine weed
tangling through the fences, white flowers palms to the sun like Baptists
swaying, that I have to keep pulling out,
and the grackles and pigeons
hang to the white hem
of a sky brown with acres of cattle.
Born under a bright horizon
of clouds slow-rolling over the plains
like bison, thundering, spitting windy rain,
that is what native eyes first see
and why they have to stay.
The roots stick, fly-paper sweet,
and you get stuck.
In a room I am alone.
In a house we are alone together,
unsustainable.
It is not that we are a simple people.
We stayed because it all started out so well.
Then we learned how to wring beauty
from anything we could.
Where the Sidewalk Ends
By Shel Silverstein
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?