Subtexts
Poetry reading by Tania Pryputniewicz, Barbara Rockman, and Robyn Hunt; Kay Taylor Burnett reads from her thriller Ginger Quill
Verse and mystery
Santa Fe-based poets Barbara Rockman and Robyn Hunt are joined by Tania Pryputniewicz, from San Diego, for “Facing Forward, Looking Back,” a poetry reading at Garcia Street Books (376 Garcia St., 505-986-0151) at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 9. The three women share an affinity for themes of family, changing relationships, and the power of myth and story to reclaim memory. Rockman’s book Sting and Nest (Sunstone Press) received the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for poetry in 2012. She is the workshop director for WingSpan Poetry Project, which offers writing classes to clients of Esperanza Shelter for Families, Inc. Hunt is the development and communications director for Las Cumbres Community Services, a social support organization in Española for people with emotional and development issues. The work in her debut collection, The Shape of Caught Water (Red Mountain Press), shares musicality with Rockman’s book, but her sounds are harder and her enjambments more uncomfortable, while Rockman relies on implicit comparisons between her subject matter and ideas that exist outside of the poems. Pryputniewicz’s voice is both lyrical and narrative, and like Rockman, she often works in collaboration with visual artists. Her debut collection, November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press), was published in 2014.
The Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Northern New Mexico, and the Santa Fe Institute provide the backdrop for Ginger Quill (iUniverse), a thriller written by Kay Taylor Burnett. Burnett, the retired publisher of the Desert Mountain Times in Alpine, Texas, lived part-time in Santa Fe for many years before settling in Naples, Florida. She was a longtime trustee of SFI and, in yet another strong connection to small creative communities, founded Marfa Public Radio in Marfa, Texas. In Ginger Quill, Mae Maguire flees her exhusband only to become immersed in a mystery involving a World War II camp for German prisoners in Santa Fe. Burnett reads and signs copies of her book at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, at Collected Works Bookstore (202 Galisteo St., 505-988-4226). — Jennifer Levin