{"id":42888,"date":"2022-01-06T19:46:15","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T02:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-writer-aims-to-inspire-teens-to-embrace-poetry\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:10:16","slug":"mancos-writer-aims-to-inspire-teens-to-embrace-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-writer-aims-to-inspire-teens-to-embrace-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos writer aims to inspire teens to embrace poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Mancos Public Library has returned to its pre-pandemic hours. (The Journal file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A longtime writer, Lisa Taylor asked herself what she could bring to the community when she moved to Mancos about a year ago.<\/p>\n

Hailing from Connecticut, she\u2019s a published author<\/a>, and has a poetry book releasing this year.<\/p>\n

On a local level, she\u2019s using that talent to inspire teens to channel their creativity and musings into poetry with a new program, \u201cWriting for Resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor will lead poetry sessions at the Mancos Public Library every Tuesday from 4:30 to 6 p.m beginning Jan. 25 through early May. She\u2019s tapping into local organizations to bolster the program, including the Mancos Creative District.<\/p>\n

She plans to contract artists from the district to create poetry broadsides \u2013 illustrations of the written pieces.<\/p>\n

After reading poetry, the artists will then intuitively paint the words into a visual reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to pay the artists a fair amount to because that\u2019s important. \u2026 It\u2019s an important statement that this grant valued artists enough to say that artists need to be paid. And they do,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s launching the program with a $17,000 grant from the Colorado Creative Corps American Rescue Plan grant by the Colorado Creative Industries and National Endowment for the Arts.<\/p>\n

Taylor taught writing at the high school level, as well as at Eastern Connecticut State University for 13 years, and beginning next month, she\u2019ll be a teacher for Writers.com.<\/p>\n

Although she spent 18 years as a counselor, going back to school later in life to master in creative writing was the best decision she ever made, she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d love to inspire an emerging mind to pursue the same path, she said.<\/p>\n

Taylor enjoys working with teenagers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like their energy,\u201d she said. \u201cI think poetry is really natural for them. They may not know that, but I think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poetry, she said, is more lenient and free and doesn\u2019t always have to abide by the conventional rules of grammar.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow I teach is going to be radically different from how they probably are used to getting taught in school, because I really believe in unqualified acceptance of all the kids, that their individual voices matter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Everyone is welcome, and no concept is off-limits, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was my other motivation for doing this \u2014 was to give kids who aren\u2019t the sports kids, and aren\u2019t the kids that have so many niches, to fit into a creative outlet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She can relate \u2013 sports weren\u2019t her forte, she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s willing to be a mentor for anyone who might be interested in continuing on beyond the program, she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s already dreaming up ways to breathe life into the programs, like hosting poetry slams, inviting a guest poet to speak and celebrating National Poetry Month in April.<\/p>\n

Jenni Kitchen, youth director at Mancos Public Library, is excited for the writing program to join a lineup of monthly events geared toward 12- to 25-year-olds at the library, including game nights and cafe-style talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a lot of fun,\u201d Kitchen said. \u201cIt\u2019s good to get together.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll be facilitating the program at the library.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m probably going to write some too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

was awarded a $17,000 grant from Colorado Creative Corps American Rescue Plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,167,83,29,2599],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-mancos","tag-newsletter","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85492,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42888\/revisions\/85492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42888"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}