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Poetry – Ideas…Matter

Ideas….Matter

By David J. Rothman – for Wendy Videlock

They scatter
and sing
their truths,
their liberty,
and invisibly
change everything.

Meanwhile, the dust,
mostly space,
remains a squatter
and does nothing
except face
what it must.

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David J. Rothman serves as the Director of WSCU’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing, and directs the Poetry Concentration. His most recent volumes of poetry, both of which appeared in 2013, are The Book of Catapults and Part of the Darkness. A book of essays about mountains and mountain towns, Living the Life, also appeared in 2013. His poems, essays and scholarly work have appeared widely in journals and scores of other newspapers and periodicals. He co-founded the Crested Butte Music Festival, was the founding publisher and editor of Conundrum Press, and has served as Poet-in-Residence of Colorado Public Radio for several years. “In general, Ryan Warner (host of CPR’s daily interview program ‘Colorado Matters’) and I agree on a theme or topic several weeks or months in advance, we throw versions of the poem back and forth for a bit (he’s an excellent editor), then we record it. We’ve recorded poems on everything from recent elections, to the rhetoric of the ‘fiscal cliff,’ to Valentine’s Day, July 4th, the opening of baseball season, the boulder floods, and so on.”
WSCU’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing offers an MFA, an MA and a Certificate in Publishing. The graduate program offers a low-residency curriculum. Students come to Western’s campus for two weeks each July to participate in Summer Intensives. Each Intensive concludes over the final weekend of July with a conference, Writing the Rockies, which features scores of nationally renowned guest speakers and teachers, and is open to the public.
David currently serves on the board of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. He lives in Crested Butte, Colorado.