Helicon West celebrates 10th anniversary by publishing anthology

Helicon West, Logan’s longest-running open mic poetry organization, is looking to publish an anthology celebrating its tenth anniversary. The publication will be the first of its kind.

“We really want to give our writers more than just the opportunity to read and to network but to actually get out there in a tangible publication,” said Star Coulbrooke, a professor at Utah State University and the poet laureate of Logan.

Chadd VanZanten, who is in charge of the publication and funding for the anthology, said Helicon West hopes to publish the anthology this year.

“We’ve set July 2016 for publication, but we do not have an exact date yet,” VanZanten said.

VanZanten and Coulbrooke, among others, have started a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund the project.

“If we do not reach our Kickstarter goal of $3,000, then the project will not be funded,” VanZanten said. “Which will, unfortunately, make it very difficult for the anthology to ever see the light of day.”

VanZanten said the anthology’s success could affect similar publications in the future.

“This anthology is intended to be the first in a series of collections, so the fate of those future books also depends on this Kickstarter campaign,” VanZanten said.

Coulbrooke said the idea of the anthology for the 10-year anniversary came from her colleagues in April of last year. The anthology will feature the writings of over 60 authors who have participated in Helicon West readings over the years. Many of the writers are from Utah, but others come from around the nation.

USU English professor Shanan Ballam has played an integral part over the years in broadening Helicon West’s writer base. She has helped arrange for many well-known authors and poets to attend Helicon West and read their material. Gary Dop, Lisa Roullard, Cat Dixon and William Trowbridge — who is the poet laureate of Missouri — have all contributed to Helicon West over the years. Their works will be included in the anthology.

Ballam said the various cultural influences and perspectives of the writers, particularly those who are local, help create Helicon West’s flavor.

“I think a lot of people deal with the natural world,” Ballam said. “Also religious issues.”

Jennifer Sinor, another professor of English at USU, said Helicon West is set apart by its open nature.

“The thing that I love about Helicon is that it’s this collaborative community event,” Sinor said.

Sinor said it is not uncommon in open mic poetry events for an attitude of pretentiousness or exclusiveness to be present. She said Helicon West is unique because of its open nature and combination of all perspectives and skill levels of poetry. She said unlike an art gallery, Helicon West does not set a bar or prerequisite for the readers who contribute.

“Helicon West is much more democratic,” she said. “No one is turned away.”

VanZanten said there is no other organization like Helicon West in Cache Valley.

“Helicon West is Cache Valley’s largest, longest-running, and mostly widely known open mic program,” he said. “There’s really nothing else that comes close. Helicon West is free of charge, open to everyone, has featured guest readers from across the country, and has been running in its present form for at least 10 years. If there were another arts program with these aspect and longevity in or anywhere near Cache Valley, you’d hear about it.”

Coulbrooke said Helicon West’s success is not surprising because Logan has always been a literary city.

“Logan’s always had a tremendous literary community,” Coulbrooke said. “When I attended my first poetry reading at a bookstore down on 1st East in 1993, Ken Brewer, the former late poet laureate of Utah, who was a professor here and my mentor, invited Stephen Dunn and that just blew me away.”

Coulbrooke said Logan’s literary nature is also evident because the Logan City Council elected her as poet laureate.

“They’re just amazingly open to literature, and reading and writing and education here in the valley,” she said.

Even though Helicon West doesn’t have much money, Coulbrooke said, they wish to be able to pay the authors for their work.

“We won’t be able to pay them much, but we do want the to know that their writing is worth something,” she said. “Not just to get out there and enrich the world with their wonderful literature, but to be compensated monetarily, which is so important in today’s world.”