Teaming up with Telluride Arts and thanks in large part to a CCAASE grant, the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Program is once again holding live performance events in town. Stories & Poems Telluride will debut Sunday Dec. 1st at 4 pm at the Telluride Arts Headquarters on Colorado Ave. with Art Goodtimes and Karen Bellerose as featured performers.

The free program will start with a one-hour performance at the Telluride Arts venue, and then move across the street to Mangala Yoga and the Viceroy Café, where after some warm-up drinks participants will remove shoes and enter the yoga studio to meet in a Gourd Circle, sit on pillows, and share their stories and poems.

“We encourage people of all ages to bring stories of any nature or finished poems to share,” said Goodtimes. For those who like prompts for stories or poems, the first week’s prompt is: “Old Telluride.”

Stories & Poems Telluride will start Dec. 1 with Goodtimes and Bellerose, and then continue Dec. 8 with Elle Metrick and Bob Mckeever, Dec. 22 with Ruth Duffy and Mike Olschewsky and Dec. 29 with Peter Waldor and Paulo Munguia – all on Sundays starting at 4 pm. The performance half will run from 4-5 pm at the Telluride Arts HQ, and the Gourds Circle half will run from 5:30-7 pm at Mangala Yoga.

For more information, text 970-729-0220 or email Goodtimes at <art@tellurideinstitute.org>. To visit the website: www.tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds