Rock Canyon Poets are proud to announce they will be reading poetry for the sixth time at The Round stage on Friday, June 20, 2025 from 3:00 – 8:45 p.m. as literary artists for the Utah Arts Festival.
Rock Canyon Poets boasts diverse membership, ranging from 19 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.
The Utah Arts Festival takes place Thursday, June 19 – Sunday, June 22, 2025 12 noon to 11pm, on Library and Washington Squares in downtown Salt Lake City (200 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111).
The Rock Canyon Poets are proud to release a special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, the seventh collection of poems by living poets in Utah, Colorado, and original out-of-state members. Learn more in our interview with RadioACTive on KRCL 90.9 FM, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets also shared poems included in the anthology. (The interview starts at 17 minutes into the show.)
Orogeny is the seventh printed anthology by Rock Canyon Poets members and is currently available for pre-order, with print copies available to ship this spring. Cost is $10 plus shipping.
Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. Members meet twice a month at Pioneer Book in historic downtown Provo. The group sponsors poetry readings and an open mic on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.
For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
Click below to listen to an interview with Rock Canyon Poets, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets also shared poems included in the anthology. (The interview starts at 17 minutes into the show.)
The Rock Canyon Poets are proud to release a special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, the seventh collection of poems by living poets in Utah, Colorado, and original out-of-state members. Tune into RadioACTive on KRCL 90.9 FM at 6pm, Monday February 3 at 6pm for an interview with Rock Canyon Poets, including anthology editor Trish Hopkinson, graphic designer Austin Beckstrom, and Marianne Hales. Hear about the first ten years of Rock Canyon Poets and the poets will also share poems included in the anthology. Live stream here.
Orogeny is the seventh printed anthology by Rock Canyon Poets members and is currently available for pre-order, with print copies available to ship this spring. Cost is $10 plus shipping.
I am honored to present you with our special 10th anniversary edition of Orogeny, Volume 7. In the last ten years, Rock Canyon Poets have produced exceptional work, performed at several events, met monthly to encourage and inspire each other, welcomed new members, and mourned the loss of beloved members Darin Whittaker and Colin Douglas. Our members continue to amaze me with their kindness towards each other and their commitment to the literary arts. The themes in this edition reflect not only the diversity of our members, but their experiences, beliefs, and their unwavering empathy for the human condition. It is a privilege to witness the words of these poets.
—Trish Hopkinson, Co-founder/Editor, Rock Canyon Poets
You can sample previously published poems included in the anthology below:
In “Conjure,” by Felice Austin, one of the beautiful poems in this powerful new anthology, the speaker of the poem remembers “Always turning to / the match strike sucking sound of fire coming alive / by swallowing the dark.” In the resultant light, what do we see, what do we feel? Only everything: the precise naming of things, the shift of memory and feeling, the terrible losses, the evidence of love, the taking back of the premises on which we have built our lives, and building them anew. A book like this is a way to conjure, to spell things fresh. Open its covers and listen to its many voices.
—Lisa Bickmore, Utah Poet Laureate and author of Ephemerist
Arising in a particularly salty part of the Great American Desert, The Rock Canyon Poets look into the fundamental landscape to question accepted homogeneities, and find them crumbling rapidly. These poems observe and examine evolving scenes of love, family, and community in the crucible that is twenty-first century Utah, USA, and sees the world reimagined. The fact that this group of writers has lasted long enough to collaborate on a 7th anthology is a testament to the power of small diverse groups of humans who come together with the common urge – to write – and thus, find ways to move through the modern wilderness with increasing grace. Picking up the frayed pieces of their lives these poets collectively decide that, as one of the prime movers of the group, Trish Hopkinson, says, “When the garden grows poison, make pie.”
In “Breadcrumbs,” one of the poems in this anthology, Stacy Julin writes, “A blue umbrella / from my aunt’s favorite drink, / a smooth purple rock / from the dirt / up the canyon. / My painted heart locket on a silver chain, / scattered through drawers, / boxes of our house.” To me, those lines are like a metaphor for this whole book. It isn’t just a box full of 49 poems. It’s more like a home—with a poem in a drawer here, a poem like a switched-on lamp over there, a hurt poem talking to her friend on the phone, another poem cooking in the kitchen, a poem that smells like tangerines, a poem in place of the TV news, poems turning and falling from November limbs or coloring the Wasatch Mountains out the window, all coming together like a note on the table to remind us what to remember.
This well-sequenced volume carries us down a river of bright sensation: the poems are streaked with visual beauty, sensual grasp, tricky faith and saving disillusion. Violence and shelter. Along the way: birth, un-birth; naming, renaming. Intimate artifacts of death. Fallen peaches, wayward seedlings, and you’ll never stop seeing tangerines. Settle into your favorite reading place and savor the seventh Orogeny. Twice and again. Gorgeous.
—Karin Anderson, author of What Falls Away and (forthcoming 2025) Things I Didn’t Do
About Rock Canyon Poets
Rock Canyon Poets is a regional poetry group boasting a diverse membership, ranging from 18 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.
Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in January, 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. In recent years, the group has expanded to include western Colorado poets, as well as original, out-of-state member poets. Members meet twice a month virtually to inspire each other and workshop poems. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.
Rock Canyon Poets are proud to announce they will be reading poetry for the fifth time at the Big Mouth Stage on Friday, August 27, 2021 from 7:20 – 8:00 p.m. as literary artists for the Utah Arts Festival. You can read about our 2015 performance in this Daily Herald Article: Newly formed Rock Canyon Poets perform at Utah Arts Fest.
Rock Canyon Poets boasts diverse membership, ranging from 19 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.
The Utah Arts Festival takes place Friday, August 27 – Sunday, August 29, 2021 12 noon to 11pm, on Library and Washington Squares in downtown Salt Lake City (200 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111).
Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. Members meet twice a month at Pioneer Book in historic downtown Provo. The group sponsors poetry readings and an open mic on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.
For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book are please to present Utah poet Natasha Sajé. The event begins with an open mic at 6:30pm and runs until 8:00pm at Pioneer Book (450 W. Center) in historic downtown Provo on Tuesday, March 10, 2020. Sajé will read her work and present a poetry writing prompt.
Natasha Sajé is the author of three books of poems, including Vivarium (Tupelo, 2014); a book of poetry criticism, Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory (Michigan, 2014); and a book of creative nonfiction, Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity UP, 2020). She teaches at Westminster College in Salt Lake City and in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program. http://www.natashasaje.com
Sajé visits Pioneer Book as a guest of the Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book. The reading and open mic are open to the general public.
For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
Where: Pioneer Book – 450 West Center Street, Provo
Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book are please to present Utah poet Kimberly Johnson. The event begins with an open mic at 6:30pm and runs until 8:00pm at Pioneer Book (450 W. Center) in historic downtown Provo on Tuesday, February 11, 2020. Johnson will read her work and present a poetry writing prompt.
Kimberly Johnson is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Uncommon Prayer, and of book-length translations of Virgil and Hesiod. Recipient of grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, she has recent work in New England Review, Harvard Review, and The Cincinnati Review. She teaches Renaissance literature and creative writing at BYU.
Johnson visits Pioneer Book as a guest of the Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book. The reading and open mic are open to the general public.
For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
Where: Pioneer Book – 450 West Center Street, Provo
Utah poets Karen Kelsay Davies and Peter Davies will read their work as featured poets at the monthly poetry reading and open mic at 6:30 p.m. on October 8, 2019 at Pioneer Book in Provo. Karen will read her own work and Peter will read the work of John Whitworth.
Karen Kelsay Davies has been writing free verse and formal for the past twenty years. She is the founding editor of The Orchards Poetry Journal and the Managing Director of Kelsay Books, a rapidly growing poetry publishing company that has published roughly seven-hundred titles in the past eight years. Karen’s poetry has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize. In 2012 her book Amytys Leaves Her Garden won the Association for Mormon Letters Award.
Peter Davies, born in England, has lived in the United States for the past thirty years. He retired from running a distribution business IN California and now works at Kelsay Books as a copy editor. Although he doesn’t write poetry, he has a natural talent for reading it and has performed at numerous events across the United States. Peter lives in American Fork and travels to England often.
John Whitworth wrote poetry that was both popular and proficient. He has been described as a “master of metrical whigmaleerie.” Whitworth graduated from Merton College, Oxford. His work appeared in many English journals. John taught a master class at the University of Kent and was a well-loved formalist poet. His last book “Joy in the Morning,” was published by Kelsay Books.
The Davies visit Provo as guests of the Rock Canyon Poets. The reading is open to the general public.
Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book are please to present Utah poet Michael Lavers. The event begins with an open mic at 6:30pm and runs until 8:00pm at Pioneer Book (450 W. Center) in historic downtown Provo on Tuesday, September 13, 2019.
Michael Lavers is the author of After Earth, published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in Crazyhorse,32 Poems, The Hudson Review, Best New Poets 2015, TriQuarterly, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. He has been awarded the Chad Walsh Poetry Prize, the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize, and the Michigan Quarterly Review Page Davidson Clayton Prize for Emerging Poets. Together with his wife, the writer and artist Claire Åkebrand, and their two children, he lives in Provo, Utah, and teaches poetry at Brigham Young University.
Lavers visits Pioneer Book as a guest of the Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book. The reading and open mic are open to the general public.
For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
Where: Pioneer Book – 450 West Center Street, Provo
Rock Canyon Poets are proud to announce they will be reading poetry for the fourth time at the Big Mouth Stage on Thursday, June 20, 2019 from 5:45 to 6:30 p.m. as literary artists for the Utah Arts Festival. You can read about our 2015 performance in this Daily Herald Article: Newly formed Rock Canyon Poets perform at Utah Arts Fest.
Rock Canyon Poets boasts diverse membership, ranging from 19 to 70+ years in age with many backgrounds–including literary journal founders, editors, ex-military, business professionals, a playwright, and a periodontist. Individually, they have received several awards and been published in magazines, anthologies, journals, chapbooks, and full-length books of poetry. Rock Canyon Poets offer poetry with the tactile clarity of tin-can messages through fuzzy strings to the ears of an audience. These poems are tumbleweeds in semi-truck grills. They get stuck in your teeth, build bridges of spun sugar, and make it possible to mount a camel without a sturdy ladder.
The Utah Arts Festival takes place Thursday, June 20 – Sunday, June 23, 2019, 12 noon to 11pm, on Library and Washington Squares in downtown Salt Lake City (200 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111).
Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. Members meet twice a month at Pioneer Book in historic downtown Provo. The group sponsors poetry readings and an open mic on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.
For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
The City Art reading series hosts co-founders of the Rock Canyon Poets Trish Hopkinson and Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen on Wednesday, May 1 at 7:00 PM in the 4th Floor Conference Room of The City Library. Click here for the official event page.
Trish Hopkinson is author of three chapbooks and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including Tinderbox, Pretty Owl Poetry, and The Penn Review. You can follow Hopkinson on her blog where she shares information on how to write, publish, and participate in the greater poetry community at http://trishhopkinson.com/.
Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen is a poly-artist and humanitarian residing in Utah. Her poetic work has been featured in anthologies and journals including CrabFat, Peculiar, Quarterly West, Rust+Moth, andSWIMM. She blogs sporadically at secondsetofwings.com and provides regular taxi service for her four children.
Co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in 2015, Rock Canyon Poets was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. Members meet twice a month at Pioneer Book in historic downtown Provo. The group sponsors poetry readings and an open mic on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.
For more information, City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com.
Event Info
Date: May 1, 2019
Location: Salt Lake City Public Library (Main Branch)
Address: 210 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Don’t miss two incredible Utah poets: Nancy Takacs and Jan Minich! Both former professors at Utah State University Eastern.
Nancy Takacs is the winner of the Juniper Prize for her book of poems The Worrier (U of Mass. Press, 2017). She was a 2016 runner-up for the Missouri Review Editor’s Prize. Previous poetry publications include two books including Blue Patina, winner of the 15 Bytes Book Award for Poetry and finalist for the Lascaux Poetry Award; and four chapbooks, the most recent Red Voice, Echo poems from Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in New Poets of the American West, and in the Harvard Review, Kestrel, Hayden’s Ferry Review,Nimrod, and Weber. She lives with her husband Jan Minich in Wellington, Utah.
Sly and forthright, delightful and unsettled, her poems read like an explorer’s field notes, veering off in unexpected directions across what we thought was charted terrain. —James Haug, 2016 Juniper Prize for Poetry Judge
Jan Minich’s Wild Roses: Poems, was published by Mayapple Press in 2017, tracing the emotional lives of Utah outlaw women, and other female historical characters. He is the author of The Letters of Silver Dollar, and two chapbooks: History of a Drowning, and Wild Roses His poems have appeared most recently in Verse Wisconsin, Sugarhouse Review, Kestrel, Clover, and Weber. He is a former wilderness studies and literature professor at the Utah State University Eastern. Although Utah is home for him, summers he cruises Lake Superior in a small boat.
These thrown voices trespass on our moment in ways that startle—in ways that are completely memorable. This is a quietly scary book, a great book. —Norman Dubie, 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize winner
Takacs and Minich visit Provo as guests of the Rock Canyon Poets. The reading is open to the general public. For more information, contact the Rock Canyon Poets, rockcanyonpoets@gmail.com.
Where: Pioneer Book – 450 West Center Street, Provo
Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book are please to present Utah poet Kimberly Johnson. The event begins with an open mic at 6:30pm and runs until 8:00pm at Pioneer Book (450 W. Center) in historic downtown Provo on Tuesday, February 11, 2020. Johnson will read her work and present a poetry writing prompt.
Rock Canyon Poets 