Episode 52 Interview with Star Coulbrooke – Poet Laureate of Logan, Utah

Interview with Star Coulbrooke the Poet Laureate of Logan, Utah. Our life stories are poetry in the making. Poetry is story at its most distilled; story where every word matters; story rich in image and sound and power. Today I am excited to introduce Star Coulbrooke, Poet Laureate for the City of Logan, Utah, she is also the co-founder and coordinator of Helicon West, a bi-monthly open readings venue. She is published in literary magazines and anthologies, her poems are also available in chapbooks, notably Thin Spines of Memory and Walking the Bear. Star is also the director of the Utah State University Writing Center.  Poetry is a genre that is close to my heart. I have written poetry since I was a child, so I’m especially excited to discuss how poetry and story align. Stay tuned for our interview with Star – a wisp of a woman with spiky red hair who has a story you won’t want to miss. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee and I’m excited about for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. The power of story serves you best when you know how to use it.   Listen to the podcast to get the details of the discussion with Star. To contact Star Coulbrooke: [email protected] Send requests for the Poet Laureate to Diane Buist [email protected] the USU English Department media specialist. Or, to Joseph Anderson [email protected]  the Logan Library adult literature director. Or, Teresa [email protected] –the Logan City recorder–for posting on the Facebook sites they maintain for the Logan City Poet Laureate.    Poets take language and weave it into a story that explores the dark corners, the emotional epiphanies, the roller coaster ride of living and dreaming, and the mundane.  Poets weave truth, imaginings, blessings, and riots of color. They weave the raw, the vulnerable, the real,  and then they sleep on it and start again in the living of their own stories and watching the world and the stories unfolding all around us. David Carradine said, “If you can’t be the poet, be the poem.”  Your challenge for this week is to live poetically or maybe find a moment to sit down and put some of your thoughts on paper. I find when I write and write, unedited, that I find poetry as I sift through the words.  You are a poem. Your life story is a poetry all its own. You can write it out to make sense of it – very therapeutic, or you can just keep on living the richness, the simpleness, the greatness of each smile, each moment of gratitude, each brave moment of acceptance and daring, each small and poetic tear and tantrum, each day in your own way. Have fun creating your story this week. Share this podcast – subscribe, rate and review! Thanks for listening.