Give us a topic,
we’ll give you a poem.
More than just entertainment.
Lots of events give out swag, but our poems go way beyond – each one is a custom, personal memento. Many become lifelong keepsakes.
What makes the Rodeo different? Well, for one thing, we’ve been doing this for over a decade. We also try not to be too hip or high-brow — we strive for accessible poems and authentic connection.
How does the magic happen? First, guests give a topic. Then, we transform it into a unique, hand-typed poem.
We are hired for events, but our poems are always free for guests; we want them to have an interaction, not a transaction. We also rarely have solo poets — we’ve found there’s a huge difference for guests in having multiple poets at our table. As one client put it, “It takes two to Rodeo!”
Each poem is a tangible keepsake of a fleeting moment.
Guests have told us their Rodeo poems have been framed, read as wedding vows, gifted to loved ones, even turned into tattoos…
“Separating”
A poem for Mike, in Austin, TXMike: It had been one month since my wife had moved out, and we had already been trying an in-home separation, which is exactly what it sounds like and also as ineffective as you’re thinking. I was five when my father left; my son is four. I’m so scared I won’t be the father I want to be and that he deserves. I came across the Typewriter Rodeo, walked over to their table and said, “I’m going through a separation. I’d like a poem about that.”
What I got was the best thing anyone has yet to say to me in the wake of all this.
Poet: Some time later, Mike found us on social media and sent us a photo–he’d had the first line of his poem tattooed on his arm.
– by poet Kari Anne Holt
“Empty Pockets”
A poem for Dave, in Portland, MEPoet: At a local Portland coffeehouse, a group of “regulars” came up to the Typewriter Rodeo table, all in their seventies or older. One said to me, “Dave here is a lobsterman. You should write him a poem about lobster.” I asked Dave if that’s what he wanted. He shrugged and gave a less than enthusiastic, “I guess.” I waited a moment, not sure if it was a good idea to type him a poem at all. Then Dave leaned toward me and said, gruffly, “My boat was called Empty Pockets.” He didn’t say it as a poem request, more like he was just sharing a bit of information. I nodded, then started typing.
After Dave read his poem, he grinned. “You didn’t know me at all,” he said, “but this is right on.”
Then he went around the coffeehouse, showing the poem to his friends. Dave later told me he’d been a lobsterman for 75 years: “I had lots of boats. Empty Pockets was my last one. I sold it a couple months ago. The hardest thing was watching that boat pull out of the harbor for the last time.”
A few years later, after Dave passed, the coffeehouse had a small memorial and read his poem aloud as part of the ceremony.
