National Poet Slams at CU Denver

STUDENTS ATTEND READING AND DISCUSSION

The Emmanuel Gallery is a hideaway for good art to be seen, heard, and felt. Both Auraria artists and those artists who visit briefly add to the gallery with visual installations or with performances. Blythe Baird is a 19-year-old National Poetry Slam Tournament competitor, published author, former actor, and ordinary student attending Hamlin University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

While she manages the schedule of a busy college student, she still takes the time to perform her poetry at colleges across the US—including CU Denver. Baird performed a collection of poems followed by a group discussion on feminism. As a young writer, Baird sees performing as an opportunity to create change.

“I feel like there is a shortage in youth voices in basically everything,” Baird said. “There is not a lot of opportunity to listen to young people.” As a voice for young writers, she specifically addresses topics such as homophobia, racism, misogyny, violence, and sexual assault on college campuses by drawing from her own experiences.

Baird knew she wanted to be a poet early on. “Before I started writing, my high school had this event called Writers’ Week,” Baird said. “I was in treatment for an eating disorder for three months, and my first day back was during Writers’ Week. There was this slam poet named Sierra DeMulder, and I saw her do a piece on anorexia. I was profoundly affected that day by something I had never had exposure to.”

Baird was inspired to become a writer from then on. “I took recovery seriously,” Baird said. “I didn’t have a method of communication that was plausible for me yet. Slam allowed me to really zero-in on that.” Baird highlighted how poetry slams allow writers to share their poetry in an engaging way through competition.

“The competition culture is something I’m really interested in,” Baird said. “I’m not a competitive person, but I’m a strategic person. If somebody has a funny poem and I have a funny poem, if mine can’t be funnier I’m not going to throw it; I’m going to do something totally different. What plays in that strategy is a very productive way to spend my time. It’s like baseball for English majors.”

Slam poetry is blunt, loud, and moving. Videos of slam poems have spread like wildfire across the internet through the advent of YouTube channels such as Button Poetry or Poetry Slam Inc.

Baird highlighted how Slam poetry is an effective style for poets to take on. “When I was 16, I went to Slam Poetry Camp,” Baird said. “I was really bad at it. But I worked really hard on it, because I saw something in spoken word. I saw this ability to communicate in an effective and concise and artistic way.”

Baird just published her new book, Give Me a God I Can Relate To. Her book is currently available on Amazon.

Emmanuel Gallery

1205 10th St.

(303) 556-8337

Website

Tues.–Fri.: 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

Sat.: 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

—Liam O’Dowd-White

photo courtesy facebook.com/fem&co

Student Attends Art Dubai as VIP Guest

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND MEDIA AMBASSADOR

When photography student Delia Tharnish travelled to Dubai last March for the first time, she noticed something familiar. The second time she travelled this past March, it stuck out like a sore thumb. She couldn’t help but notice the overlap between Dubai and the US.

“Dubai feels very western,” Tharnish said. “I feel like that’s the way it’s been set up because their overall population is mostly people from other countries.”

Tharnish travelled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates on March 15 to attend the 10th annual Art Dubai International Art Fair as a VIP guest. The art fair is held to showcase local and international artist’s work, and hosts 90 contemporary galleries, 20-30 modern galleries, and marker galleries.

The show is held for artists to gain exposure, as well as shed light on new, upcoming artists. In addition to the show, there are booths that showcase film and radio programs. There is also the critically acclaimed Global Art Forum, a panel of around 50 artists, musicians, filmmakers, and writers who present and debate ideas around a specific theme.

Tharnish was invited back to Dubai because of her trip with the CU Denver International Ticket Program. Tharnish, with two other students and faculty advisors, served as ambassadors. Tharnish, who was an ambassador for Arts and Culture, had the chance to meet several directors of different art programs.

Tharnish spent seven days in Dubai traveling with a group of 15 to 20 people. She visited different art galleries within the city, as well as sites such as Sharjah, and the Ismaili center, where she learned about the architecture and culture.

“We went to a park and talked about the concept of urban landscape and the development of parks as part of the community,” Tharnish said. “It was a great opportunity to learn about the amount of people who work in the art world.”

On Tharnish’s first visit to Dubai in 2015, she and colleagues chose the place because of how far it was from the US. “It seemed the furthest from our culture,” Tharnish said. “Every time I go, I learn more interesting things about the city.”

Tharnish is grateful that such opportunities exist for students of the College of Arts and Media.

“Being open to student ideas, and providing opportunities and support for students—they recognize that a lot of learning goes outside the classroom when it comes to the arts,” Tharnish said. “It’s important for us to see real world experience and see practicing, working artists in the field.”

As far as the experience, Tharnish now understands how lessons she’s learned can be applied outside of the classroom.

“I found a lot of work similar to the work being done in our thesis class,” Tharnish said. “I learned a lot, and a lot I can’t wait to share with fellow students and faculty, the new ideas that are being discussed on a global level.

College of Arts and Media

777 Lawrence Wy.

Arts Building, Suite 176 & 177

(303) 556-2279

email

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—Dilkush Khan

photo courtesy of tripadvisor.com

Local Artists Work in Unique Harmony

LEISURE GALLERY: ELUSIVE YET FLOURISHING

Leisure Gallery is a blank slate. The walls are painted white, and the gallery space—which also doubles as a studio—is minimalistic, placing all of the focus on the work as opposed to its surroundings. The art gallery is currently host to a collaborative show entitled Fun Size.

Denver-based artists Alex Page, a CU Denver student, and Zach Barnes-Fagg recently exhibited the joint show on March 4 at Leisure Gallery for First Friday. The joint show was humorous and eccentric, as if these two artists were reviving aspects of the Pop-Art movement by focusing on graphics, design, and commentary, as opposed to a clear subject.

“For instance, a lot of themes of video gaming are present in my work in this show specifically, mostly referencing my coddled interactions with minimal people growing up,” Barnes-Fagg said. “With Al, I think we were just trying to make a visually appealing show that supplemented our individual approaches as well as highlighting the parallels in our work.”

Page has a BFA in Drawing from CU Denver and Barnes-Fagg is currently studying Animation at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. “Working with Zach was great,” Page said. “He is one of the most creatively positive guys you’ll find. And he was pretty accepting of the ridiculous ideas that I had. In the end we just did what felt natural and it mixed well I think.”

Considering that one of the collaborative pieces was a panel of blue camo with a white croc fixed to some makeshift pole, it is safe to say that these two worked together in a very unique harmony.

“Well, initially we had a really great idea to kind of capture the essence and aesthetic qualities of a King Soopers, which would have been incredible and hilarious,” Barnes-Fagg said. “But after looking over each other’s work, we found that we share a really light-hearted and fun quality even though our presentation and compositional choices are pretty different, so we just wanted to highlight the fun spirit of our mutual works.”

In a city like Denver where art students and musicians are bountiful it can be difficult to find one’s niche in the expanding art scene. Leisure Gallery gives artists an unused canvas, as it were, to showcase their talent.

“This town has a lot of things going on,” Page said. “I hope it keeps developing and doesn’t hit a ceiling. Everyone is supportive of each other, which is one of the stronger parts about it. Places like Leisure is what we need more of.” The joint show exhibited perfect unison, both artists showcasing works that lean more toward Pop- Art than portraiture. It is clear that these two artists truly did work together rather than create their own individual pieces and put them in a gallery at the same time.

Although the sometimes elusive Leisure Gallery is never clearly open, the works of these two artists channel something that made a balanced and cohesive showcase.

Leisure Gallery

555 Santa Fe Dr.

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—Sarai Nissan

Above: Artists Alex Page and Zack Barnes-Fagg revisit the Pop-Art movement.

photo: Nicole Elizabeth • CU Denver Sentry

Author Uses Poetry for Advocacy

NATALIE DIAZ READS FOR STUDENTS, FACULTY

“‘Angels don’t come to the reservation,’” visiting poet Natalie Diaz read from her abecedarian, solidifying the night’s theme of effectively ironizing difficult cultural narratives.

Diaz shared poems from 2012’s When My Brother Was An Aztec and upcoming collections with students and faculty of CU Denver on March 2. Located in the Zenith room in the Tivoli, the reading drew a crowd large enough that many audience members had to stand flush against the walls to attend. In addition to hosting such an accomplished poet, the event’s popularity was ensured by also being the third annual Jake Adam York Memorial Reading.

York is highly regarded as one of the integral developers of CU Denver’s current Creative Writing program; he was also the founder of the university’s national literary magazine, Copper Nickel. His 2012 death was considered tragic and sudden, and the university has aimed to honor him since.

Diaz, like guests of previous years, was invited because she shares York’s belief in using art for social advocacy. “Jake’s work left a big impression. He created space on and off the page for tenderness, and taught us how to treat poets with kindness,” said Brian Barker, a fellow poet and English professor at CU Denver, before Diaz’s reading.

The audience was enraptured from the moment Diaz took the mic. Her delivery was bold, assertive, and utterly alive: A perfect complement to the poems she so expertly crafted. Her topicality ranged from the intensely intimate—failing to communicate the beauty of poetic moments to her meth-addicted brother—to national concerns—police brutality against marginalized people. The audience could barely abstain from applauding each stanza.

In the boundless lyric essay “Body of Ethics,” the poet explored a tension that surfaces in much of her work: As a queer Native woman who is commonly misgendered, where does Diaz’s personhood emerge among the slippage of so many intersections? Which division of herself will surface in a moment of crisis? What makes her vulnerable, and what affords her protection?

Following the reading, Diaz spoke about the motivations and philosophies of her writing. As director of a Mojave language revitalization program in Arizona, the nature of language itself became foregrounded. “Poetry is a compression of language. We don’t have many words, so we have to pick the right ones,” Diaz said.

Audience members pressed her to speak about language as an element of intersectional identity. “English is a beautiful language, but it’s the one that silenced mine,” Diaz said. “[Words] are not something I type or text or font. Language is an energy to me; it’s not utilitarian.”

In a brief amount of time, Diaz addressed everything from violence enacted against people of color, the nature of knowing, and the messiness of mental illness. Through it all, she was capable of making each subject multiplicitous: She infused even the bleakest of narratives with humor, and always created space for hope. Those who waited in line for the signing following the main event left with a potent transcription on their book’s title page: “Sumaeh ‘ahotok.” Dream well.

—Taylor Kirby

Above: Poet Natalie Diaz uses themes of social justice in her work.

photo: Robert Westbrook

Type Adds Dimensions to MATTER

RICK GRIFFITH DABBLES IN STUDIO AND TEACHING

MATTER is a studio where printing supplies line nearly every wall. Letters— block letters, letters packaged as puzzles, pieces of paper covered in words and sentences, both sensical and non—litter the area; it’s the true mark of an establishment of passionate typographers.

Design Director and owner of MATTER Rick Griffith is also Denver City and County Commissioner of Culture, and a CU Denver adjunct professor. “I’ve got any number of projects going at the same time,” Griffith said.

His hands never stop moving, pushing blocks of letters together, apart, onto paper, and against scraps of metal. The piece that he’s working on states, “You’re a strong, independent black man and you need to be respected.”

“That’s what I always say to my family, students, whatever,” Griffith said. “I use it as a way of creating a mirror. I say that to people when they’re wrong, too, and it works whether it’s to a middle-aged white kid, or a young black woman. It works because it treats language as a mirror.”

One could say that Griffith’s work as a whole treats language in this manner, reflecting meaning onto its viewer to serve as a sort of self-realization. There is no doubt that an underlying obsession with words and letters fuels the work of the studio.

“You can attempt to type as a design or you can attempt to design as a typographer,” Griffith said. “We attempt to design as typographers here.”

After decades of working with letters, Griffith has seen a great deal of evolution in his work. “When I was younger, I said, ‘I don’t know what they call the guys that make album covers for a living, but I want to be one,’” Griffith said. “That was how I found design in the first place.”

This magnetism toward design led him to advertising. “Someone made me an offer to work for some cigarette company,” Griffith said. “Then I started to realize that design was bigger than that. I thought, ‘Wow, I can really experiment with typography.’”

He pauses while telling stories of his work’s evolution to constantly keep letters moving around with precision. “Sorry, I’m just looking to see if these are lined up,” he said occasionally.

Now his work has expanded to include professorships at CU Denver, the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, and the University of Denver. He has contributed to the art community as Denver City and County Commissioner of Culture, and as an education reform panelist. In all of these positions, Griffith looks to promote something he calls “diversity of purpose.”

“I want cities and groups to assemble with a thought of diversity of ideas,” Griffith said. “I work in so many groups and government spaces and I’ve learned that that’s the part that really feeds good collaboration. We should be hunting for diverse ideas and for diverse purposes, and encouraging people to diversify their knowledge-base.”

To Griffith, that means encouraging black people or women to enter into unexplored fields so that they can be valuable in very authentic ways. “Not just for a sense of tokenism, but for a sense of purpose,” he said.

Griffith admits that he sounds like a walking bumper sticker at times, but seems to accept the quality as “his thing.” But even more so than sometimes bumper sticker-esque ramblings, his thing is letters and words.

“It just feels elemental to me,” Griffith said. “I don’t think that I could avoid the work if I wanted to. Type is my work.”

MATTER

2134 Market St

(303) 893-0330

MATTER

MATTER Studio

—Mariah Taylor

Above: Rick Griffith always keeps his hands moving inside the MATTER studio.

photo: Nicole Elizabeth • CU Denver Sentry

Student Life Hosts First Trivia Night

TIVOLI STARBUCKS IS SCENE FOR FUN AND GAMES

Cheers and laughter escaped the Tivoli Starbucks on Tuesday evening, where students were enthusiastically waving their pieces of paper in the air and participating in trivia amid coffee beans and grinders.

Student Life Event Coordinator Joshua Blair held the first trivia night on Feb. 23. This event is the first of many to occur on the last Tuesday of every month, with hopes of involving more students outside of academia. “We try to reach out to students and get more people to come to the events,” Blair said.

For the first trivia night, 10 students sat comfortably on chairs with paper and pencils in hand, as MC Asa Erlendson asked questions from four different categories—“Late night jams,” “Goal,” “Wildcard,” and “Calling all fandoms.” Erlendson had infectious energy and a connection with Blair because of their involvement in the Bovine Metropolis Improv group.

The rounds started off easy—so simple that some players didn’t have to think twice with questions like, “Who played during the halftime show at the 49th Super Bowl?” However, as the rounds progressed, questions became trickier, causing several people to stop and talk among their teammates before coming up with the answer. Questions like, “Who has had the most Oscar nominations,” had a different answer than players expected.

Every person walking into the coffee shop immediately noticed the trivia crowd, and some even joined in on the fun, which added to the energetic and competitive atmosphere.

Blair modeled the event like a traditional trivia night, which is typically held in a bar. “We wanted to make something of a similar feel where students can grab drinks and have a nice place to sit down,” Blair said.

Trivia Night is one way in which Blair hopes to promote awareness for events outside of academics, and get more students to participate in campus activities. “Getting them outside their comfort zone allows them to have new experiences,” Blair said. “It’s so that students have a reason to be here aside from school—to make new friends, make new stories, and have greater experiences.”

CU Denver student Rae Migliorini participated in the all-ages fun, and is active in the community. “It helps with socializing with people,” Migliorini said. “It makes the campus a bit smaller and makes things fun on campus.”

Based on the response from participants on trivia night, Blair sees the program growing and becoming an even bigger event. “They seem to really enjoy it,” Blair said. “This would be a good tradition for students.”

Office of Student Life

Tivoli #303

Joshua Blair: email

Trivia Night at Tivoli Starbucks held on the last Tuesday of the month.

5–7 p.m.

 

—Dilkush Khan

BookBar Hosts ‘Copper Nickel’ Editors

CU DENVER PROFS’ PROSE SERVED WITH GOOD SPIRITS

Beside the narrow streets of Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood are various restaurants, bars, boutiques, and the BookBar—a wine bar and bookstore that many writers call home.

On Feb. 20, CU Denver professors Nicky Beer and Wayne Miller hosted a literary event at the BookBar to showcase their poetry. Miller’s new book, Post-, is set to debut on April 12. Beer is currently working on the manuscript for her new book.

During the event, both poets performed with distinctive styles. As the poet Wendell Berry said in his work, Miller performs “a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.” Miller read a series of elegies from Post-. His quiet discourse on birth and death was heavy enough to crush the listener’s heart.

Beer shattered the silence when she performed. Her voice echoed through the room as she performed poems from her collection The Octopus Game. The poems employed expressions of sea creatures to articulate her enchanting metaphors. “We live in a culture where sometimes the arts seem like they’re second until you lose them completely,” Beer said.

The contrast between the two styles of the readers fostered a memorable experience for the audience. “I love doing readings,” Beer said. “Getting to read my poetry makes it seem like it’s becoming what it’s supposed to be.”

Miller agreed that he enjoys performing at events such as these. “I’ve had times where in the process of reading I sort of discover something about the poem I wasn’t aware of,” Miller said. “This is one of the first times I’ve read some of these poems. I’m kind of excited for the potential for discovery.”

But Miller and Beer don’t just read poetry to strangers. Both writers edit CU Denver’s premier literary journal Copper Nickel. After a brief hiatus that ended in 2014, the journal relaunched by publishing two new issues containing impeccable fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Readers are currently waiting for the journal’s third issue to debut on March 15. They oversee a staff that mainly consists of students.

“When work is not going how you want to go, you’re teaching,” she said. “You get to go and talk about literature and you’re excited. If a student comes up to you asking for guidance, you get to be there to help them.” Miller also felt the same passion about his role on campus. “Helping along the next generation of writers is basically our job,” Miller said. “That is what we are paid to do on this, is to foster talent and to encourage it.”

Without a space for writers to work, they cannot forge art. The BookBar is a place that allows artists to convene and chat, just as coffee shops in Paris in the 1920s could house notable writers like Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway.

The BookBar is a setting designed for literature to be read, either in a quiet nook alone or out loud in front of an audience. The BookBar is an ideal locale because it makes small, savory dishes using local and organic food, enabling hungry bookworms to snack without having to put a story down.

BookBar

(720) 443-2227

4280 Tennyson St.

Mon-Sat: 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

Sun: 10 a.m.–8 p.m.

Website

—Liam O’Dowd-White

Above: CU Denver Professor and Copper Nickel editor Wayne Miller read from his new book Post-.

photo: Nicole Elizabeth • CU Denver Sentry

Storytelling Brought to Life in Tivoli

RED FEATHER WOMAN SHARES THROUGH SONG

Rose Red Elk—also known as Red Feather Woman—brought her unique blend of storytelling and folk singing to the Auraria Campus for The Art Of Storytelling. Her songs, based on Native American ideals, reflected the stories that she recited.

The Feb. 22 performance included stories about the significance of a Medicine Wheel, Red Elk’s personal history, and folk songs to accompany both. “This workshop is about storytelling and my tribe,” Red Elk said. “There is a story in everything.”

Her stories, derived from the rich tradition of storytelling in Native American culture, entertained as well as enlightened her audience gathered in the Tivoli room 320. Each anecdote was designed to be enjoyable to listen to, as well as teach a virtue or life lesson.

Telling and listening to stories is one of the most important and universal human experiences. Whether it be through music, movies, books, or talking with friends, storytelling is one of the ways we learn and understand our culture as well as other’s. “Storytelling is an art form that has been handed down for centuries,” Red Elk said. “It is an incredible way of communication. You can make a story out of anything.”

Born in the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, Red Elk began storytelling professionally over 19 years ago after finishing her degree in Sociology and Anthropology at Texas A&M University.

“I decided in 1997 to start the Red Elk Enterprises and Multimedia Production Company,” she said. Red Elk wanted to share the culture and ideals of her Lakota and Assiniboine ancestry with others in an artistic way.

Because of her success, Red Elk has now recorded three albums of folk music, a book, a comic series, and has traveled the world. She is the Winner of the Native American Music Award’s Best Folk Recording in 2014 for her album Keeper of Dreams and in 2006 for The Keepers Of The Earth. “One of the things that makes me unique is that I tell stories orally, and I also play guitar, I’m a folk singer,” Red Feather Woman said.

Red Elk’s performances are a learning experience for both the audience as well as herself. “Even amongst our own people it’s ongoing—learning about who you are, your tribe on the reservation. I’m still learning; I’m still researching all the time.”

The stories reflect the culture of her ancestors, their spirituality, and the ideas that they believed in. In these stories are what she calls “spiritual connections with the unseen world.”

“I’m not here to really talk about religion,” Red Elk said. “We as Native people are not what you would consider religious, but spiritual.”

According to Red Elk, historic Native Americans would gather as a community for storytelling. The stories could be about anything from what they did that day to the meaning of existence, and everything in between. “Storytelling is everything, and everything is connected,” Red Elk said. “I started telling stories to give a sense of pride to my own people and to be remembered.”

Red Elk currently resides in Berthoud, Colorado, and continues performing and telling stories around Colorado and the world.

Office of Student Life

900 Auraria Pkwy.

Tivoli #303

(303) 556-3399

email

—Dylan Streight

photo courtesy cudenverlive.com

Warped Love, Doctors, and Terrorism

AUTHOR V.V. GANESHANANTHAN READS ON CAMPUS

“I recently went to an appointment with a terrorist,” so began author and teacher V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Feb. 16 reading. It proved an enthralling evening, despite initial frantic chair rearrangements.

The event was held in the Tivoli and hosted by CU Denver’s own literary journal, the Copper Nickel, in their first reading of the year. Ganeshananthan read from her short story, “K Becomes K”, which is the first part of a long-gestating novel.

The novel will be her second published, after 2008’s Love Marriage, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize and one of Washington Post Book World’s “Best Of 2008.”

“K Becomes K” first published in the Fall 2013 issue of the literary magazine Ploughshares, and later republished in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014, edited by Daniel Handler. Best known for the young adult 13-parter A Series Of Unfortunate Events written under his pseudonym Lemony Snicket, Handler might seem an odd source of recognition, but the incredible scope and eloquence of the story shows why it has received such attention.

There will be significant differences between the story Ganeshananthan read and her novel. “It’ll actually be sort of stretched out over the first part of the novel,” Ganeshananthan said. “It probably won’t be all crammed together like this.”

She began this novel before writing Love Marriage, after 9/11 but before the Sri Lankan civil war, which forms the backdrop of the novel, ended. Love Marriage and her newest novel have a complicated history. “I started it when I was a student,” Ganeshananthan said. “I was kind of going back and forth between the two of them.”

She is hesitant to announce when the work will be done. “I have previously said things like ‘I’m almost done!’ and then I haven’t been,” she said. “So I feel like I’m almost done, but every time I say that it turns out to not be true.”

Still, her long project seems to be nearing its home stretch. “One of the great things about teaching is you get to teach wonderful students, and then you get the summer off,” Ganeshananthan said. “I don’t think it’s impossible that I’ll wrap it up in the next year.”

Ganeshananthan trained as a journalist, which is evident both from the meticulous research that goes into her stories, and from her calm delivery. Even intense scenes during her reading were soothing and eloquent. Calm shouldn’t be taken as humorless, though. When a cough obliged her to interrupt the reading, she remarked “I’m hydrating at a cliffhanger here.”

Ganeshananthan explored the Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan militant organization responsible for several assassinations, wars, and the invention of suicide belts. Simultaneously, she kept the information grounded with a complex personal relationship between a doctor and the future terrorist that doctor met when they were both children.

The Sri Lankan backdrop comes from extensive work on Ganeshananthan’s part. “I have spent time in Sri Lanka, and I have met people who worked with the Tigers,” she said. She has done extensive research in libraries, helped by the wealth of anthropological work that has been done in Sri Lanka. “I’ll never be able to spend enough time there to satisfy myself,” she said.

One definite change has come from the relationship between the two main characters. “For lack of a better word, there’s something warped,” Ganeshananthan said.

Copper Nickel

900 Auraria Pkwy. #267

Website

Upcoming Readings: Natalie Diaz

Wednesday, March 2 at 6:30 p.m.

Tivoli #640

—Gideon Simons

Above:  V. V. Ganeshananthan read from her newest short story “K Becomes K”

photo: Nicole Elizabeth • CU Denver Sentry

Copper Nickel Continues to Grow

JOURNAL BRINGS NEW ISSUES AND NEW PROJECTS

With two issues already under its belt, Copper Nickel, CU Denver’s literary journal, has its 22nd issue due out in March. The national literary journal continues to expand, always focusing in on short fiction, poetry, translations, and essays that astound with quality and inventiveness.

“The ‘something’ that Copper Nickel is looking for, in my experience, is always a fresh narrative—something that is strong and can stand alone,” said Carley Tacker, associate editor and double major in English Literature and English Writing at CU Denver.

As an undergrad, Tacker is privy to a unique experience when it comes to a national literary journal like Copper Nickel. “It’s undergraduates, graduates, everybody, reading for the journal,” Tacker said. “Normally, too, on a traditional literary journal, they only accept graduate students. Copper Nickel is unique in the way we allow everybody to come in and read slush and submissions.”

Opening up the process to interested students, regardless of their status as an undergraduate or graduate, allows Copper Nickel to educate students in ways that don’t necessarily fit the traditional classroom model.

“One of the things that’s great about this university and its relationship to Copper Nickel, at least so far, is that it’s committed to using the journal as a teaching journal,” said Wayne Miller, associate professor and managing editor of Copper Nickel. “With that benefit, it’s high impact learning.”

The experiential side of Copper Nickel offers no shortage of surprises and successes for the students who work there. “One of our poems by Mark Halliday just got accepted into Best American Poetry,” Tacker said. “It’s kind of a huge deal for us. We’re becoming more and more nationally recognized, and it’s a great opportunity, especially for undergraduates, to get their feet wet.”

Student staff at Copper Nickel don’t just read the writers published in the journal. They also get the opportunity to directly learn from them as well. Copper Nickel’s website, which rolls out updates on their writers, gives fresh students the chance to create their own work. “As we continue to grow, students can do more work interviewing our authors and creating their own work in the context of the umbrella of what the journal’s doing,” Miller said.

ven as they stay busy publishing an issue each semester, Copper Nickel still has more projects in the works. “We’re partnered with Milkweed Editions to do a book prize,” Miller said. “If you win our prize, you’re getting a big independent press publisher out of our prize, with all of the clout and publicity and potential marketing power that that brings to the table.”

With all the growth and new endeavors in its future, the journal will rely even more on the students who keep it moving. “Our student involvement has been really robust, which I’ve been grateful for,” Miller said.

And the students themselves are grateful for all that the Nickel offers too. “It’s an incredible opportunity to learn a different facet of your English degree or your business degree or something,” Tacker said. “It’s for everybody.”

Copper Nickel

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—Jordan Anthony

photo: courtesy facebook.com/coppernickel