Join us on the first Tuesday of every month for an online gathering of words, wit, and wisdom! The brilliant brainchild of the Talking Gourds Poetry Program, each Bardic Trails poetry night will feature an award-winning guest poet sharing their new and exciting work. July's featured poet is Joanna Spindler, the current poet laureate of San Miguel County in southwestern Colorado. 

She has performed public poetry for nearly a decade across the San Miguel watershed through the Talking Gourds Poetry Program, Poetry Brothel, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Mushroom Festival, Summer Vaudeville, and at the Norwood Livery. Her work has been published in 85for85: Artists Advocate for Bears Ears National Monument, Grits Quarterly, the Telluride Daily Planet, the Durango Climbing Zine, The Sage Green Journal, and more. She works with local independent radio to share poetry over the airwaves, is developing poetry programming for the youth in her community, and has also birthed an interactive public poetry piece, The Poet Is In, creating on-the-spot personalized poems for free.

Joanna is also a public programming librarian, festival emcee and presenter, ranch caretaker, community advocate, master gardener, freelance writer, ordained minister, kicker of hornets’ nests and poker of bears. Joanna found poetry as a very young soul and realized it taught her Freedom. She's been chasing it ever since.