Since it began (roughly) 10 years ago, The Boulder Poetry Scene project has been a complete total complete fa-fa-fa-failure.

I say things like this to myself sometimes (or alot). I’ve got this Beast over here, see, a counterproductive coping creature who suggests it. Doesn’t mean it’s true, but sometimes hard to say it definitely isn’t true. So sometimes you need to do a little further inquiry to get a better sense of what reality really is. So I guess let’s do it here… 

I first had the idea for the project in 2013 when I was reading Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, which documents several influential indie bands of the 80s. Often I like to view my literary life as if it was a rocknroll life (perhaps, certainly, not at all, definitely, I dunno to its detriment). But I particularly liked the notion of the old punk zine ‘scene report’ in which people would write about the musical happenings in their own local area. The idea was that if mainstream media wasn’t going to cover you, if you had the Audacity, you and your friends could cover yourself often at a bare minimum of expense, and, in theory, it might be just as legitimate. Ya know, Dee Eye Whyyy.

So I thought it would be cool to do this for the local poetry scene, which has been this really meaningful thing for me and others, that, aside from maybe a Daily Camera or Boulder Weekly article every so often, didn’t really seem to receive much outside attention.

The original vision was a print magazine that might come out on a monthly basis, sort of an equivalent to the local music scene’s Marquis, with several local writers contributing articles and photos on various readings, events, poets and associated institutions. 

In the summer of 2013 we had a meeting at the Noname bar with a few of the core people in the scene at the moment – Elyse Brownell, Chris Shugrue, Dank Phart the Pirate Poet, and Sopa Garma. And, after some initial excitement, we soon realized that the expense and hassle of a print mag might be unsustainable. 

It’s hard to imagine now, but back then, in the it-should-feel-more-recent-than-it-does past, it wasn’t automatically considered to just do something online. I think the proliferation of the smart phone, which was just under way at that moment, would eventually have a paradigm shifting influence on things like that. But we didn’t know it yet, and it took a couple months after the print idea fizzled that I even considered doing it digitally.

At around the same time, Dank Phart, Troy Suben, and Rachel Palmateer had their own idea about a website for the local scene and set up a WordPress for it called Boulder Poetry Tribe (it was in fashion at the time for certain countercultural types to call themselves “tribes,” as they assumed it was more in honor of indigenous cultures than offensive to them), but had not really utilized it. So by that fall I got permission to post whatever I wanted on there.

It began on October 4th, 2013 (Yeah, I fully intended and failed to post this 10th anniversary article on that precise date. But as I explain in a bit yaknow, yaknow, yaknow…) It was a piece about my friend, Denver author Nancy Stohlman, who was putting on a theatrical performance of her novel “The Monster Opera” at the Mercury Cafe. I was actually one of the performers in the show and approached the article gonzo style, not hiding the fact I was directly involved in the story myself. In fact, that would be an ongoing part of the BPS ethos – this would be a project about the relationships between people in the scene, friends celebrating their friends rather than objectively reporting on or critiquing anything. If you thought someone’s work was shit or you had personal problems with them we didn’t wanna know. In this world, in which it’s very easy for an artist to feel ignored or under-appreciated, and this internet, in which there is widespread anonymous bashing of dehumanized anonymous others, this would be about boosting people up that you actually knew.

I followed that up with a piece about the old 303 Vodka reading, started by Max Toast and party bus company Bus to Show (which eventually would become StarWater Wednesdays), that was, again, a lot about my own personal experience with it (getting there late on its first night cuz I was hung up at the strip club… which was part of my ‘bad boy’ phase at the time) but also aimed to be informative, getting the word out about regular events people could attend. 

And then I wrote one on my best friend in the scene, Rob Geisen, calling him the Greatest Living American Poet (which I stand by). The piece also focused a lot on a celebration of Del Taco crinkle-cut french fries. Then I followed that up with “In Boulder Colorado You Can Go to A Poetry Reading 7 Nights A Week” (which is somehow our all time most read article), which included alot of fictional elements and exaggerations (or did it?). So another part of the vision was to be as weird and creative as you felt like.

The next step was getting others involved. I was talking about the project with Phil Me Brightly at 303 one night, and he said he was a fan of the stuff (future Punketry mogul) Matt Clifford was doing, which at the time was hosting a regular event at the old Left Hand Bookstore called “All Knowledge Must Be Shared” (an open mic where people literally just signed up to share random things they had some expertise on). And I told him about the core tenants I’d just thrown together – Personal, Positive, Informative, Creative. And he delivered an article about Cliff we literally titled “fluff piece.” 

From there I started soliciting articles from more people in the scene to write about whomever they wanted to in whatever way they wanted to. Rob, Marcus, Dank Phart, Caitlan Mitchell, Eric Fischman, and Elyse Brownell all contributed by the end of that year. Each one adding their own style, but the intentions were cohesive, and I started to see the greatest value of the project might not necessarily be helping people gain more publicity but rather giving people a platform to express appreciation and be generous to each other. In other words, it benefited contributors just as much as contributees.

What happened next would be a recurring pattern that would be one of the biggest issues holding back the success of the project – for significant stretches of time I just didn’t feel like it. Maybe it was a seasonal thing. Maybe my job at Boulder Yellow Cab was fucking with my mind and body again. Maybe the Other Me just takes over sometimes, and there’s nothing I can do about it. But whatever reason, we didn’t post anything else for another nine months.

I did get things up and running again in September of 2014, (after a summer getting my head straight in Mt Shasta, California), with a Neil Young inspired article called “Hey Hey My My The Boulder Poetry Tribe Can Never Die” and was able to get people psyched up again about contributing. We had a nice collaboration with the monthly Bouldering Poets reading series, where we’d do a write up for whoever their features were for that month. 

But by mid 2015, I had faded away again and the site faded away with me. It was becoming clear that no matter how much I wanted this to be a consistent community project it was pretty much entirely dependent on my own erratic moods. 

Despite this we did keep coming back. We had a particularly strong run in 2016-2017. Eric Fischman, who’s been a long time regular contributor (check out his Jules Verne inspired “20,000 Leagues under Longmont,” for an example of some top notch BPSing) started keeping an events calendar for us (which he still maintains today). We had recurring contributions from Hillary Leftwich, Genelle Chiconas, (Australian Correspondent) Olatundji Akpo-sani, and Thomas Ivory Jr (AKA Johnny Opium AKA Urwill Rocks). We even got featured in a Boulder Weekly article by Sarah Haas. 

I started adopting a bit of a straight more journalistic style in that era and wrote some articles I was particularly proud of (“A Politician for the Poets?!,” about Boulder City Council candidate Eric Budd, “An Article about Someone who’s Written Articles about Us,” about Sarah Haas, and “If a Poetry Reading Goes 30 Years Its Really a Church” about Tom Peters’s long running So You’re a Poet Series.)

From 2018-2022 we hit another real dry spell, only putting out a few articles all written by me. After branching out to write some for the Boulder Weekly myself (on Writer’s Block and StarWater Wednesday), I only seemed to be motivated to write obituaries for BPS. Jim “the man of” Steele in 2019. The only thing I did in 2020 was on the closing of Innisfree Poetry Bookstore, and we didn’t post one single article in 2021. 

I was discouraged by a seeming lack of support for the project from the community, and also I was starting to be less involved in the scene anyway. Too many core people had left, replaced by new people who didn’t even know who me or what BPS was. I figured that the project had probably just run its course.

In 2022, maybe thru some kind of post pandemic zeitgeist and the realization of just how much I suffered being away from a creative community, I decided to reboot the project. We rebranded as ‘Boulder Poetry Scene,’ and I solicited several articles, some from old friends, some of the fresher people on the scene like Krystal Summers, Rin Hart, and Maggie Saunders. 

And then I got the crazy impulse to expand the whole thing to a press. I got a business credit card, bought a 100-pack of ISBNs, and put out 9 of my own books at once, with the help of designer Naropa/Innisfree alum Andrea Becker, and had a kick-ass multimedia variety show at the Junkyard Social Club.

And then with the help of Andrea we started putting out books from others in the scene. We did the I Love Your Poem series, in which local people submitted work on behalf of local poets whose work they, well, loved. And they went up on the site thru the spring of ’23, and we released an anthology with a fake wedding (if you love it so much why don’t you marrrry it) at the First Congregational Church of Boulder in June. 

We followed it up with “I Don’t Think This Is Going to Help” the first poetry book from, Greatest Living American Poet Rob Geisen, in 13 years.

And then we put out up-and-comer (and my former FRCC student) Sarah Lee’s ridiculously quirky story collection “A Messs of Milque” and released it at Mi Chantli with a bunch of weird interactive stations related to the book, like “Scream like a Monkey” and “Put your feet in a Bucket of Milk.” 

And the last couple years have been a particularly exciting time to be part of the scene, post-pandemic there was a a lot energy in the air, lots of ‘meetings of the mind’, and production sessions, and we designed logos and put out merch and posted photos and a daily events story on Instagram and partied at Chickasaw Manor in Longtucky and contributed to library exhibits and attended local lit festivals and generally tried to make connections with everyone who seemed currently invested in the scene.

But at the same time I was always conscious of everything we couldn’t cover and all the significant make-happeners who I didn’t meet and all the things we weren’t included in (purposely? cliquishly? paranoid delusionally?) 

And then I got a full time gig at my college, and that reshuffled some priorities, and I soon got exhausted by my own expectations to be as deeply involved in the scene as possible, and by the last couple months of 2023 I was starting to ask myself things like “wait, why do I want to go out to a thing considering how comfortable my couch becomes after 5pm? why get back to people at all when it takes an hour just to figure out how to word a one sentence reply perfectly? why do any of this at all when I don’t get paid or really get much credit for it? and would anyone really care if I just stopped all together?” 

So where does that leave the future of Boulder Poetry Scene? The lowercase boulder poetry scene continues on regardless of what I do, which is awesome. But does it even benefit anymore from a project like this, inspired by a 40 something year old arts/media paradigm? As Tech relentlessly renders even cutting-edge-a-second-ago things obsolete? As anyone can easily promote themselves and has little use for any kinda consolidated media entity? As anyone can easily take their own pictures and videos of events? Anyone can easily record their own podcast? Anyone can easily self-publish thru Amazon’s KDP? Anyone can find their niche groups online and don’t need to identify as part of geographically oriented community? As people lose patience with this very type of long form essay I’m writing here? As so many others seem to easily understand, have expertise with, can consistently keep up with the current literary paradigm better than I can? So easily seem to form consistent efficient professional cooperatives and not get worn down by The Beast perpetually growling “YOU SUCK” and “NEVER ENUFF?”

I dunno, man. 

I think about just focusing on myself for awhile. I have a new book I want to put out this year. I have a lot of other competing priorities (work, exercise, birds, dog, rest/do-nothing time). 

But as it’s January I’m getting ideas for more cool BPS projects. Updating the website. Taking submissions for a new round of I Love Your Poem and maybe other people’s 10th anniversary articles on what the scene means to them. Putting out at least another couple books (I’ve been prodding pro-skater/redemption story George Pappas to get a manuscript together). Organizing a Naropa alumni reading for the 50th anniversary. Getting a podcast/video series going. Doing more outreach to get other Boulder Poets in the fold, making more relationships with local venues and organizations, and planning group field trips to events outside of Boulder. Getting more people to feel like part of the Boulder Poetry Scene project, and maybe delegating some things I don’t have the time/energy for, and maybe the project becoming something bigger than it ever has.

So is Boulder Poetry Scene really a failure or not? I can certainly envision its full potential and see exactly how it has fallen short. On the other hand we’ve posted 126 articles on the site, in addition to publishing 12 books, and however many events, social media posts, etc.. and maybe most importantly we have never completely packed it in.

And what do the famous quotes say about failure, again? Something like can’t be failure if you never quit? Or it’s good to fail cuz it makes you stronger. Something uh by Thomas Alva Edison. Or, wait I know a specific one, as Jack Black’s character says in School of Rock – “Rock n Roll ain’t about being perfect.” Ah, yes, I like that the best – the old punk idea that it is actually cooler to fail. And wasn’t that sorta part of the original idea?

So what d’ya say to that, Beast? 

I still suck… well, okay… but, you said that 10 years ago too… so… I dunno, I guess we’ll just have to see what happens in the next 10… 

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Jonathan Bluebird Montgomery is the creator and Editor-in-Chief of Boulder Poetry Scene. The author of Pizzas and Mermaid, The Reality Traveler, and Nine Books (at Once!), he’s been on the Boulder poetry scene since he first came to get his MFA at Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School in 2003. You can find more of his work at jonathanbluebirdmontgomery.com