Durango Poet Laureate Program
A vision to make a vibrant platform for local poets to share their unique voices while engaging with the community at large.
- Zoe Golden
Rising Poet Laureate, 2024 to 2027
The 2024 Rising Poet Laureate is Zoe Golden, a junior at Durango High School who has published poetry in the Cambridge Hall of Poetry Magazine, the Durango High School newspaper. She is a community bike coach for Everypedal, a member of the National Honors Society, and a member of Durango Climate Action. Zoe will serve a three-year term and will receive an annual stipend of $500.
This exciting opportunity will allow Zoe to inspire and engage with young voices in the community, as she has already demonstrated through poetry readings at her school and at The Hive. “Poetry has changed my life and I believe it has the power to change the world,” she said. “Being the first Rising Poet Laureate of Durango is completely and utterly a dream, my dream, and I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity as well as very excited to share the joy and journey of poetry with the community. While I will claim poetry as my best confidant throughout the years, poetry lingers and grows in everyone, belongs to everyone, and I am more than delighted to spark fires of poetry into the hearts of all here to listen.”
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Poems By Zoe Golden
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
by Zoe Golden
the T stands tall, back straight, arms reaching
the Os an ouroboros, loop of love; to eat and thus be eaten
the M a river wave, we learn to sail across
the Rs a craned neck, hopeful for sunshine
and the W an open cup, filled with what we make of this.
tomorrow
is our mother and
our muse,
a promise
and a love letter.
yesterday we sharpened our bones
and cried our songs.
i hope we stay this changed forever,
are composed of stone and song,
love our mothers the way they’ve loved us,
i hope we build a house with a crowded table,
and are defined by the things we create.
let life rip us open
and let love eat us whole.
now,
tomorrow, we get to build cities.
we get to be the hearts and the hands,
feel pride and shame,
fight for peace,
and create.
now we get to work in the name of art,
carve stars into our skin,
dance dangerously in the streets,
and know all the colors on our lips.
now we make castles of kindness,
and hurt without claws,
share spider’s homes
and fall endlessly in love with ourselves.
now,
we are resilient,
we are afraid,
we are colorful in the most devastating ways.
we are worthy,
we are brave,
we are healing all the light inside this cave.
we are return and belonging
all in one.
and
we are poetry
that will never be done.
blue with blue
by Zoe Golden
ten-der
of body, of food, of soul
sensitive, easy to cut, needing protection
of character
gentle, sincere, sympathetic.
tender is the heart
hurt by the way of a human,
tenderness:
the level of bloodshed willing to be tasted
in a steak,
tender equals rare in a butcher’s kitchen.
tenderness also:
raw portal through the eyes
soft at touch,
still a muscle,
soft at touch,
sadness still a strength.
five letter captions
by Zoe Golden
in which there must always be
specifications
forbidding of opening a book
to find stories
not written in complete sentences
not completely written in sentences.
description is useless
there is nothing to imagine
but however you take truths in your mind.
without a reminder
of what you are getting yourself into;
a lot of lines you have to see between,
a lot of inferring what metaphors mean,
obnoxious words,
coal covered screams.
hope you don’t pick up the wrong
typewriter’s dinner
and find yourself alone
at the plate.