Arts Council’s Performance Poet award goes to Sucharski

       Westside resident Karen Sucharski was named the Pikes Peak Arts Council Performance Poet of the Year at its awards ceremony this week.
       The council sponsors arts-oriented projects and individuals, gives awards to artists and community organizations and produces the Pikes Peak Arts Fest, an annual juried arts fair.
       Sucharski expressed delight with the top prize. A popular performance poet in the community, she commented in an e-mail, “I have been nominated for this amazing honor three times in the past four years and I finally won.”
       Below is a Sucharski poem, reflecting her husband Mark's losing his father to Alzheimer's.

Westside Pioneer/press release

       Dad
      
       The muscles on his face
       draw a blank
       on his skin.
       A misfire of neurons
       hits my brow
       and skids
       into my eyes
       causing a slight mist.
       He tries to remember
       my name.
      
       ©1998 Karen Sucharski