Welcome to the Taos Almanac Project!
Within the flow of original voices belonging to our community, SOMOS and the Taos Poet Laureate happily launch the two-year Taos Almanac Project. As an almanac reflects the natural world and the way people engage with seasons, traditions, and the changing patterns of home, we add a poetic version to our observations, tales, and memories as the New Year gathers momentum. While the Old Farmers Almanac recently announced the continuation of a 233-year publication history, our focus relies upon the many voices of Taos: sharing perspectives, recipes, memories, and jokes in poetic form of 25 lines or less!
Watch for an upcoming SOMOS newsletter, check somostaos.org for guidelines, and join our community in creating a lasting Taos Almanac for all, from youth to elder, representing every background. The initial planning meeting will be held at SOMOS on Monday, January 26th, 4-6 pm, to be followed by quarterly gatherings to celebrate every season of gathered submissions: March 30th, June 29th, September 28th, and December 21st. We will be compiling a year-long almanac online, to be finalized after the 2026 winter solstice.
The natural world organizes our calendar as we begin the Taos Almanac Project mid-winter,
celebrating themes of Light within Darkness! Festivals and films, predictions, the brilliant night sky, changing weather and many related subjects characterize our first sharing in poetic form, inspired by the brilliance of our encircling mountains, vast plateau lands and mesas, deep canyons, dancing rivers, wild forests and dramatic weather. In honor of the first SUPERMOON of 2026, here is an example by your Taos Poet Laureate:
the supermoon pulls
midwinter’s curtain aside,
gleams upon frosted nightscapes:
every facet sharpens,
clings to meadowland
still craving snow,
until crystal-fingered hairgrass
wakes in morning thaw.
by Sylvia Rains Dennis, 01/06/2026, El Prado del Río Lucero, Taos homelands
permission granted to SOMOS for publication in the Taos Almanac Project
Contributions are welcome anytime! Please send original poetic almanac entries, with your name, date, identifying the place you know as home, and permission to include your voice to: TaosAlmanacProject@gmail.com or give a written or printed one to your teacher, community leader or SOMOS team member. (We are interested in your voice in our community of poetic expression; no AI submissions, please!) Follow our progress on the SOMOS website, https://somostaos.org/ and visit one of our quarterly gatherings to celebrate community so Sylvia can thank you in person for contributing to the Taos Almanac Project—everyone is invited!
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February 2026 message from Sylvia Rains Dennis, Taos Poet Laureate
Poetry, also known as Poesis: a term adapted from the ancient Greek language, where poiein is the action verb that refers to “making,” whose agents of creativity are called poētēs and whose wordsongs are referred to as poёms. How rare this is: a term that hasn’t changed much in thousands of years, one that looks almost the same in English, Español, and many languages! (by the way, etymology—the study of the origin of words—can be fun, a source of surprising insight, and can inspire more ideas…). Before things were written down, or inscribed on stone, they were sung.
So, how is language, especially wordsongs, like music? How does it interact with meaning, with listening, with memory, with ideas? It isn’t so surprising to find that words in any language may come from more than one place. So if you use more than one vocabulary, more than one way to describe something, or even include words from another language; then your voice shows an enduring quality, even a many-stranded, interweaving way of telling.
Poetry can give voice to your walk in this world. It can help you remember what’s important. Nature can inspire your poems; it is something we are all part of and is all over the endless map of poetry traditions worldwide. A forest, fish, or flower can serve as a touchstone to expressing sound, to capturing what you see, taste, feel, hear, and even the scent of home in midwinter: A warm fire and a shared meal! Chile verde con pollo simmering in abuelita’s cocina! Just listen to the horse whinny when you pass his frozen pasture at sunrise. Feel the warmth of the sun against the adobe wall. Did you overhear the two ravens making wild sounds as they performed acrobatics above the garden?
The language you choose, or have the habit of sharing, opens the window. Impressions saved from a dream can fall upon a blank page, guiding your hand. The story behind the poem can be so large—and like music it can grow stronger and more complex—that even simple words carry a tale that each person may understand in a unique way. Your thoughts, like seeds, can survive many harsh frosts, wake in spring, grow flowers, meet buzzing bees & fluttering butterflies, and mature until more seeds appear. Space and time can arrange patterns upon paper, until your poetic vision dances across the page.
Like an unplanned game two children create when they meet unexpectedly in a playground, poetry is strongest when you trust your instincts, speak from your heart.
Don’t worry about expectation, AI tools or any “toolkit,” try this without anything between you and what you want to say: speak a phrase out loud, listen to how it sounds, write some words down—PLAY! Enjoy! Share your poem with your family and friends, your community—if you feel like sharing. As for me, Sylvia, I’m happy that your voice sings among us all. (Of course, you can also share with me, or put your writing in the Taos Almanac Project when you’re ready! Send an email to: TaosAlmanacProject@gmail.com). And please come back to the SOMOStaos.org website, click on this page for updates and news! Taos Almanac Project – SOMOS
Most of all: it’s amazing how many singers there are! All kinds of voices, so many languages. Even just now I heard the shiny black cricket chirping along; then the piñón jay calling as she returned to the woodlands, looking for the cache of piñón nuts she buried last October.
Do you already love poetry? Here are two fun links to try:
Poem-a-Day | Academy of American Poets
and
Poem of the Day for Kids | Academy of American Poets
April 2026 Update:
through the veil
the pink moon rises golden
winks at long-lost rain falling into a sieve
as melting sap flows within wooden arms
until the veiled glow seeds honeyed promises
one by one two by two voice by voice
and the reborn scent community perfumes
wafts among sound sleepers nesting in deep dens
waking each wintry dreamtime to join the hum
already sounding upon pollen-rich catkins
whose wands drift above water’s thawing veins
wherein trout blink open
rise: remember : swimming: here:
among encircling mountains
having moved upstream
into an alpine gasp to outlast darkness
until the pink taste of spring
recovers hidden mouths,
joins the chorus led
by the singing orb—
and so being,
releasing breath in unison,
continues the symphony of respiration
within the shared dome of Sky.
—submitted by Sylvia Rains Dennis, 04/01/2026, El Prado del Río Lucero, Taos homelands
(permission granted for publication in the Taos Almanac Project)
To our growing Taos Almanac engagement circle:
Much gratitude for the ongoing momentum of gathering and sharing voices! We have the seeds of several submissions to celebrate our Almanac project, which will appear together in our first edition.
Here is a suggestion in response to questions about the widely advertised May 2nd reading:
If you are not able to attend the upcoming Taos Poet Laureate event at SOMOS, one possibility for celebrating the Taos Almanac Vision of a circle of belonging follows:
Please join Sylvia and co. for a gathering of WE the inhabitants of shared homelands for readings-in-the round during a Biodiversity Day celebration on May 22, 2026.
Please send any ideas, including who might offer to host our peaceful gathering of voices, preferably in a natural setting—I have one under consideration already—to Sylvia at TaosAlmanacProject@gmail.com
As always, your ideas and voices are key to this community effort!
While trickery may coincide with April fooling under this Pink Moon, so the seeding & release
of dormancy guide waking into a restoring spring!
Sylvia recommends this inspiring event:
Poetry and the Creative Mind, a free online celebration of National Poetry Month hosted by the Academy of American Poets on April 28th beginning at 5:30PM Mountain Time: Poetry & the Creative Mind 2026 | Academy of American Poets https://poets.org/pcm2026
Just a reminder about submissions: the examples provided on the SOMOS Taos website in Sylvia’s quarterly posts for the Taos Almanac Project are intended to show a range of possible contributions, which may also take the form of dichos, recipes, songs, rhymes, free verse, story-poems, etc. I will post four examples this year. So far, the first one presents a short free-verse homage to the January Supermoon, and the second quarterly post—this one!—includes “through the veil”, in honor of the Pink Moon. Amazing to observe the only significant rain so far this year appeared while these moons winked by . .
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a constellation of poems relating to the moon and starscape in our community project? For those of you familiar with the Old Farmers Almanac and/or seasonal activities—such as feasts and festivals, planting, harvesting, etc.—the moon is often featured.
Meanwhile, our Taos Almanac Project so far shows a range of suggested themes offered by community voices, including: wildlife observations, chile conversations, seed and plant care, birds, weather, local land practices, etc. The poetry selected for the Almanac will be very inclusive, highlighting the submissions that best align to our Taos Almanac vision. If you have poems that don’t fall within the broad categories of the Almanac project, there are many online options for sharing your work, as well as printed resources such as Poets & Writers magazine (copies available at SOMOS) and Writers’ Digest.
Everyone is welcome to the quarterly meetings, and we will celebrate the first year’s poems at Winter Solstice, when the compilation of the first edition is underway (involving an experienced panel of poem readers). If you have images or artwork in mind during the submission process, please consider attaching them with the submission OR at a later date, as the full design of the Almanac will include these in seasonal groupings. There will also be a chance to volunteer in the design/layout of the first edition!
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