The Saturday, June 16, 2018 Just Words event at the Tranquilbuzz Coffee House (112 W Yankie St.) will feature Bonnie Buckley-Maldonado, Jessa Tumposky, and Melanie Zipin. Once upon a time (October 2015) Virus Theater presented a performance piece based on the poetry of Bonnie Buckley-Maldonado as part of the Southwest Festival of the Written Word. Bonnie Buckley-Maldonado provided the words. Jessa Tumposky played the child Bonnie on stage. Melanie Zipin played the adult Bonnie. On June 16, 2018, they will share the stage again with readings from their own work. Open mic will follow their performance. That means your poems, stories, observations. The event starts at 2:00 p.m.
Bonnie Buckley-Maldonado was selected as the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Silver City/Grant County New Mexico in 2012. She spent most of her adult life balancing college teaching, administration, and community service with a family to care for, her love of writing and nature to sustain her. With several books of poetry to her credit, she thinks of her life as one long poem recorded on scraps of paper until her retirement at age sixty-nine when she finally had time to create manuscripts. She was inducted into the New Mexico Women’s Hall of Fame for extensive work in the area of community service. You can find out more about her at http://bonniebuckleymaldonado.com/about.html
Excerpt from Bonnie Buckley-Maldonado’s poem “Don’t Admit It:”
I rehearse saying
“I feel great,”
unwilling to admit
that years
of creating a garden
out of rock and caliche
and waving the wild forest,
has wrecked my right thumb
and left shoulder.
It was worth it.
(From Bonnie Buckley-Maldonado’s poetry collection Too Personal for Words.)
Jessa Tumposky has been growing her family and making art in Silver City since 2005. She has participated in various nonprofit and community projects, including Virus Theater, the Southwest 
Festival of the Written Word, and The Lotus Center. She enjoys the first person and the collective. She self-published one chapbook of poetry in 2008, called radiant rants.
Excerpt from Jessa Tumposky’s poem “East Brew:”
We swim up from the deep East
rushing with narrow rivers past golden siren banks
drawn through tunnel waterways
We swim up and up and burst out, sealed like eggs
‘Til we sing our first haiku blues song in our first breath
Multi-media artist, Melanie Zipin, composes her musings from the shifting world around her. Her writings are an amalgamation of joy and sorrow, often reflecting on the commonality of our individual journey. She has one son and lives with her husband in an undulating house they built from hand-piled mud.
Excerpt from Melanie Zipin’s poem “forever together:”
I can still see you
and hear you
and find you
I will still know you
and love you
always
I can still reach you
and nothing can stop me
forever together
we are our own way
For open mic: Come read two or three poems or a few minutes of prose. Or read some favorite words by someone else you admire.
