Chaco Trilogy

Description

Composed over almost forty years of contemplative exercise and risk taking| this collection of three suites of poems is an exercise in surrender and attention| in being where you are| in this case the severe| spiritually magnetic landscape and ruins of Chaco Canyon| in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico. Site of the most extensive urban ruins of the pre-Pueblo Anasazi people| Chaco is the center of the earth| a cosmological precinct that connects past and present| earth and sky| night and day| life and death. It is a place where ambiguity and shadow rule| where light and distance become the here and now.

A section of the trilogy| “Chaco Body|” produced in collaboration with photographer Kirk Gittings| was published by Artspace Press in 1991. “Chaco Body” also exists as a collaborative portfolio of photographs and poems that is owned and exhibited in museums and private collections across the West. A PBS documentary featuring Price reading the poems in the canyon was produced by KNME-TV and distributed nationally.