I'm asked to remind you there is to be
no smoking in this auditorium.
A week from tomorrow, Thursday May
4th we have our last student reading of the year,
and this will be the prize winning
reading for the spring contest.
Tonight's visiting point, CK Williams
is the judge for this year's contest.
84 individuals submitted more than 260 poems,
so we will be sending letters to the winners
the end of the week.
As you know we do not announce the winners in advance,
we send letters requesting those who are winning prizes
to come prepared to read.
The last visiting poet in this year's schedule
would be William Stafford in this auditorium Tuesday, May
9th.
We invite you to come to a reception honoring Mr. Williams
tonight and the Student Union Terrace Lounge.
Charlie Williams, is the author of two books of poetry, Lies
and I Am the Bitter Name.
Mark Strand said of Lies, "a fine moving book,
one of the best by a young poet that I've read in some time."
You know the definition of a young poet, don't you?
That's anyone younger than I. So all of the poets associated
with the University of Arizona can come back in 20 years
and I will introduce them as the young poets at the university.
In addition to his two volumes of poetry,
CK Williams is represented in a book
for Open Learning, Other Tongues, and Major Young
Voices.
His work has appeared in the major poetry periodicals,
his publications include Work in the New Yorker, Poetry,
Ironwood Magazine, the American Poetry Review, Iowa Review,
Little Bolero, the New American Review, and many others.
I'm happy to introduce one of our leading young poets, CK
Williams.
[APPLAUSE]
The poetry contest entries were very fond,
I'll start with that surprisingly so.
And I read every last poem, 256 or something.