Browse Reading by Year

John Ciardi reads widely from his work, including children's verse, two long poems from his then-forthcoming Lives of X (1971), and poems that would later be published in The Little That Is All (1974) and The Birds of Pompeii (1985).

Ruth Stephan reads from Various Poems (1963) and Poems for Nothing (1973). She also reads unpublished works.

Mark Strand reads from Reasons for Moving (1968), as well as poems that would be collected in The Story of Our Lives (1973) and Darker (1979).

Diane Wakoski reads widely from her works, including Discrepancies and Apparitions (1966), Inside the Blood Factory (1968), and The Magellanic Clouds (1970). She also reads poems that would be collected in Smudging (1972) and Greed: Parts 8, 9, 11 (1973).

D.M. Thomas reads from Two Voices (1968) and Logan Stone (1971). This reading was originally given alongside Peter Redgrove and includes two tracks of collaborative reading with Redgrove.

Peter Redgrove reads poems in a dramatic style on the subject of water, which, as he notes, "in Arizona you appreciate," and which is central to his work. He reads from The Nature of Cold Weather (1961), The Force (1966), and Dr Faust's Sea-Spiral Spirit (1972). This reading was originally given alongside D.M. Thomas and includes one track of collaborative reading with Thomas.

James Welch reads poems from his collection Riding the Earthboy 40 (1971). He also reads one poem that would remain uncollected.

Occurring the same year as the publication of Gerber's collection The Revenant (1971), this reading also includes a large number of poems published two years later in his book Departure (1973).

Lawson Fusao Inada performs poems that speak to the Asian American experience, particularly around Japanese American internment during World War II and life in mid-century Fresno, California. He reads a selection of poems from Before the War: Poems as They Happened (1971), along with with other poems from the 1970s, including "I Told You So."

A.K. Ramanujan reads poems from The Striders (1966) and Relations (1971).

Marvin Bell reads primarily from A Probable Volume of Dreams (1969) and The Escape Into You (1971), along with work that would be collected in Residue of Song (1974), a book of poems published two years after this reading.

Philip Levine reads widely from his early body of work, primarily from Not This Pig (1968) and They Feed They Lion (1972). He reads two poems that would be later published in his collection titled 1933 (1974).

In this reading at Pima Community College, Ai reads poems that would later be collected in Cruelty (1973), some of which differ from the published versions. She also reads several poems that would remain uncollected and talks about her experiences in graduate school.

Richard Eberhart reads from Fields of Grace (1972), along with a wide range of selections from his earlier work.

C. K. Williams reads poetry primarily from I Am the Bitter Name (1972). He also reads several ribald pieces (that remain uncollected), showcasing his humor and imagination.

William Stafford reads widely from poems published between 1960 and 1973, as well as one that would not be collected until 1992. Interspersed with his poems are comments about political engagement, the writing process, and the feeling that his work attempts to induce.

Reading in Tucson for the second time in 1972, Ai reads from her manuscript then titled Wheel in a Ditch, which would be published the following year as Cruelty (1973), her first book. She also reads several poems that would appear in her second book, Killing Floor (1979), as well as several that remain uncollected. 

Donald Hall reads from The Alligator Bride: Poems New and Selected (1969) and The Yellow Room (1971). He also reads poems that would be collected in The Town of Hill (1975) along with several that remain uncollected, including a series of surrealistic limericks.

Thom Gunn reads primarily from Moly (1971), along with many then-new poems that would be collected in Jack Straw's Castle (1976). He also reads several poems that would remain uncollected until his Collected Poems (1994).

William Pitt Root reads from his first collection, The Storm and Other Poems (1969), and from the soon-to-be published Striking the Dark Air for Music (1973). Between selections from these two books, he reads lighter, more humorous poems that would remain uncollected or be published much later.

William Matthews reads poems from his collection Sleek for the Long Flight (1972). He also reads newer poems that would appear in Sticks & Stones (1975) and Rising and Falling (1979), together with several poems that would remain uncollected.

Steve Orlen reads poems that would later appear in his first two chapbooks, Sleeping on Doors (1975) and Separate Creatures (1976), and his first full-length collection, Permission to Speak (1978). He also reads a number of poems that remain uncollected.

This reading takes place the year that James Wright's collection Two Citizens (1973) was published, and Wright reads extensively from that volume. Wright ends his reading with a poem that would be published in The Hudson Review that fall, but would otherwise remain uncollected.

Richard Wilbur reads poems that will be collected in The Mind Reader (1976) as well as poems from Walking to Sleep (1969). He also reads several translations from both volumes, of poems from the French by Voltaire and François Villon, and from the Russian by Andrei Voznesensky and Nikolai Moishen. 

Robert Houston reads from his novel A Drive with Ossie (1970) and a novel-in-progress about Irish immigrants set in South Carolina against the backdrop of slavery and the Civil War. Between these excerpts, he ironically reads poems by other writers alongside several satirical poems of his own.

Sandra McPherson reads from her first two collections of poetry, Elegies for the Hot Season (1970) and Radiation (1973). She reads one love poem that remains uncollected.

Robert C.S. Downs gives his first public reading before joining the University of Arizona creative writing faculty for the fall semester. He reads from his first two novels, Going Gently (1973) and Peoples (1974), which was unpublished at the time of the reading.

Michael S. Harper reads from across his first four books, all published in the years shortly before this reading: Dear John, Dear Coltrane (1970), History Is Your Own Heartbeat (1971), Song: I Want a Witness (1972), and Debridement (1973). Harper shares poems that delve into the loss of children, racial inequality, and the Vietnam War, mixing them with poems that express his love for his wife and family.

W.D. Snodgrass primarily reads poems from After Experience (1968), providing extensive introductions to each poem that place them in the context of his life and thinking. He closes with three comic poems by Christian Morgenstern, translated from the German with Lore Groszmann Segal in Gallows Songs (1967).

Richard Howard gives performative readings of long poems appearing in Untitled Subjects (1969) and Findings (1971), as well as one poem that would be published the following year in Two-Part Inventions (1974).

Denise Levertov briefly reads from Relearning the Alphabet (1970) and Footprints (1972) before turning to poems that would be collected in The Freeing of the Dust (1975). Many of the pieces reflect Levertov's antiwar commitments, and three of the more recent poems were written in response to Levertov's visit to Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1972.

George P. Elliott, a poet and prose writer, reads from his short story "Miss Cudahy of Stowes Landing."

John Harmon McElroy reads work from several major American authors. He opens with a brief passage from John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy (1930-1936), and reads from works including Washington Irving's The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon (1819), Henry James's The American (1877), Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855), Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), Walt Whitman's Specimen Days (1892), several poems by Emily Dickinson, and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

May Swenson reads widely from her work. This reading includes earlier drafts of poems prior to their publication.

Adrienne Rich reads poems appearing in The Will to Change (1971) and Diving into the Wreck (1973), as well as more recent poems that would be collected in Poems: Selected and New, 1950-1974 (1975).

In his first appearance at the Poetry Center, Tomas Tranströmer reads widely from his work as translated by May Swenson, Robert Bly, and Samuel Charters. Given primarily in English, the reading opens with a bilingual performance of "Spår" <"Tracks"> in Swedish and English.

Robert Pack reads from Home From the Cemetery (1969), Nothing But Light (1972), Guarded by Women (1963), and Keeping Watch (1976).

George Garrett reads from two of his novels, Death of the Fox and Magic Striptease.

Greg Kuzma reads from Good News (1973).  He also reads poems that would go on to be collected in A Horse of a Different Color (1983) and Wind Rain and Stars and the Grass Growing (1983). 

Edward Field reads from a variety of his books, as well as a translation of Cavafy's poem "The Gods Desert Anthony." He ends the reading with poems from the (then unpublished) manuscripts of A Full Heart (1977) and Stars in My Eyes (1978).

N. Scott Momaday reads poems and prose that would go on to appear in The Gourd Dancer (1976), In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991 (1992), The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages (1997), and The Ancient Child (1989), as well as two unpublished poems.

John Williams reads from three novels: Butcher's Crossing (1978), Stoner (1965), and Augustus (1972).

In this reading, Silko engages in "what I really love to do"--storytelling in the Laguna tradition. Most of the stories and poems told here would be collected in the 1981 volume Storyteller.

Maxine Kumin reads primarily from House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate (1976), along with selections from her earlier work.

Rita Garitano reads poems on subjects such as teaching, feminism, marriage, and motherhood. Some of these poems appear in We Do What We Can (1975), while others are uncollected. 

W.S. Merwin reads from his most recent collections of poetry: The Lice (1967), The Carrier of Ladders (1970), and Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment (1973). He also reads then-new work that would be collected in The Compass Flower (1977). Merwin opens the reading with prose from The Miner's Pale Children (1970) and also reads three prose pieces that would appear in Houses and Travellers (1977). Used with permission of the Wylie Agency LLC.

Simon J. Ortiz reads from the manuscripts of Going for the Rain (1976) and A Good Journey (1977). Many of the poems, as read here, contain more words and phrases in the Acoma language than the published versions.

Lawrence Raab reads from The Collector of Cold Weather (1976) and Mysteries of the Horizon (1972). He also reads a poem from his unpublished M.A. dissertation, The Wolf's Journey (1972).

James Welch reads from his poetry collection Riding the Earthboy 40 (1976) and his novel Winter in the Blood (1974).