Last night, the Denver poetry scene was reintroduced to the national stage with the first preliminary rounds of the Women of the World Poetry Slam. With two bouts each at Mercury Cafe, Eden and Leela European Cafe, the night ended with the first scores for 72 international competitors. Hundreds of…
In a nation of widening waist bands and shrinking candy bars, Colorado’s obese population is going the way of King Size Snickers. The results from a new Gallup-Healthways poll show the state came out on top (again) as the least obese in the nation. And while Boulder and Fort Collins…
So today is International Women’s Day, and regardless of whether you already knew that or even care now that we’ve told you, Denver is placed particularly well for some serious celebration this year. Today marks the first day of competition in the Women of the World Poetry Slam, which is…
Today, approximately a hundred advocates of women’s health took to the Capitol as part of Pro-Choice Lobby Day. The event, held in Denver annually for more than a decade, brought the Protect Families Protect Choice Coalition together with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to train supporters as citizen advocates…
After months of waiting and sifting through discovery, Mercer Lewis, 21, became the first Occupy Denver activist to take his case in front of a jury yesterday. After the trial, Lewis, who was found not guilty on the charge of obstructing a street or passageway, had a great deal to…
The Thunderdome, the original kitchen and symbol of Occupy Denver, has launched no shortage of projects since a frequent police presence encouraged its members to distance themselves from the organization in November. Along with a weekly radio show and the ongoing construction of three mobile food carts, the Thunderdome has…
The Thunderdome, Occupy Denver’s onetime kitchen and an erstwhile mobile vegan experience, is known for a lot of things — dick jokes and anarchist sentiments included — but gentility is not one of them. This explains why, in the group’s new series of cooking videos, the time lapse between pressing…
So you think you’re a Radiohead fan. But have you spent hours considering what the band’s songs would mean if they were all really about sex? If they were sung by Barry White (or, in some cases, Marilyn Manson)? If, instead of doom and gloom, they were just about getting…
Visitors to Occupy Denver’s website will notice that the local chapter of the national movement has increased its online persona in recent months. Accompanying its newly redesigned site is a push for more extensive coverage of the group’s events that includes more frequent actions and educational opportunities, as well as…
Hosted and facilitated by — and dedicated to — female poets, the Women of the World Poetry Slam keeps close to its gender roots. Sponsored by Poetry Slam, Inc., the competition is in its fifth year, but its first in Denver. “You have to put in a bid like it’s…
In January 2008, the night before the presidential election, Gilbert Ortiz received his first strange phone call. The following morning, the Pueblo county clerk and recorder would receive thousands repeating the report, but his relative caught him first. She asked why he had changed her polling location the night before…
An outlet for radical and revolutionary expression for over thirty years, P&L Press will open its first public infoshop this week. Located in the Jefferson Park neighborhood near the space occupied by the Denver Anarchist Black Cross and P&L itself, the store will provide resources on anarchism, prisoners’ rights, indigenous…
Editor’s note: This is the latest profile in Kelsey Whipple’s ongoing series highlighting local political activists. Denver’s Road Home executive director Bennie Milliner’s career in service began the day he saw Calvin step out of his brand new, canary-yellow Chevy Impala. Emerging in an expertly starched uniform, Calvin struck a…
When Gosia Kung moved from Krakow, Poland, to Denver at 25, she immediately gained twenty pounds. This has a lot to do with the fact that she stopped walking everywhere. While she never applied for a driver’s license in her dense urban home city, it was first on her list…
Update: The decision to stage a “Fuck the Police” rally is controversial even for the Occupy Denver members who support Saturday’s event — get details below. Still, occupier Tim Holland explains why the organization as a whole hasn’t signed on: While Occupy Denver (by which he means the entire group…
“That happened at my stepmom’s school, Columbine,” says one Girl Scout, about eleven years old, at the front of the group. “They shot lots of people.” Behind her, another Girl Scout asks where Columbine is. Another just asks, “Why?” Too young to have read about the event in the papers…
In January, the Denver branch of the national TED think tank staged its first-ever salon (and second-ever event). The evening’s three hours of discussions and performances featured seven area personalities sharing their Ideas Worth Spreading — with a couple even marking return performances with progress updates. The low-key evening, styled…
Before she committed the lessons to the page, state senator Morgan Carroll had delivered hundreds of workshops and seminars on citizen advocacy. Since her career in politics began, the forty-year-old Democrat continues to be overwhelmed by the disconnect between paid lobbyists and the average citizen. So when she finally did…
Denver’s share of the country’s slam-poetry scene is already a large one, with two nationally competitive teams and a role as the reigning national champion city. But from March 7 to 10, its role will grow even bigger as Denver hosts its first national slam competition, the five-year-old Women of…
In the almost five months that Occupy Denver has maintained a presence downtown, the group has experienced more than 100 arrests. Add to this mix upwards of seventy lawyers, hundreds of court dates and an attempt at a federal injunction, and the results become tough to track. Yesterday, Westword caught…
In order to make his neighborhood more livable, Jason Roberts had to break the law. In fact, he and 1,500 other people didn’t stop at just one city ordinance; they violated dozens of them, more than once, without getting caught. But their idea definitely caught on: Since April 2010, when…
Suzi Q. Smith — profiled in this week’s cover story “Slam, Bam, Thank you, Ma’am” — has performed poetry for more than a decade, and slammed competitively since 2006. Onstage, the Denver artist augments both her voice and her physical stature, increasing both her volume and her height as her…
