Browse Reading by Year

In this performance, Carolyn Forché reads from her first three books, discussing the influences for the poems as she reads them.

Ann Lauterbach reads a range of poems from If in Time: Selected Poems 1975-2000, as well as three new works, accompanying her performance with the elegant hand motions that are her trademark.

In this reading, originally given with Peter Rock, David Foster Wallace reads from his collection Oblivion: Stories (2004).

In this reading, originally given with David Foster Wallace, Peter Rock reads a story that would later appear in the collection The Unsettling: Stories (2006).

Rebecca Seiferle reads poems from The Ripped-Out Seam (1993), The Music We Dance To (1999), and Bitters (2001).

Linda Gregerson reads primarily from Waterborne (2002).

Gerald Stern reads from This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998), Last Blue (2000), and American Sonnets (2002).

Richard Russo reads the title story from his collection The Whore's Child and Other Stories (2002).

Poet-translators Pura López-Colomé and Forrest Gander give bilingual performances of poems from Science and Steepleflower (1998) and No Shelter: The Selected Poems of Pura López-Colomé (2002).

Carole Maso reads from a work in progress called The Bay of Angels and shares excerpts from her 2002 prose poem Beauty Is Convulsive: The Passion of Frida Kahlo.

Brian Blanchfield reads from Not Even Then (2004). This reading was originally given with Richard Siken.

Richard Siken reads poems that would later be published in Crush (2005). This reading was originally given with Brian Blanchfield.

In this performance, Robert Creeley reads from and discusses his chapbook Yesterdays, published shortly before the reading by Chax Press. He also reads poems that would be published in his posthumous collection On Earth. Creeley closes with the poem "Generous Life," from If I Were Writing This.

Ellen Bryant Voigt reads from The Lotus Flowers (1987), Two Trees (1992), Kyrie (1995), and Shadow of Heaven (2002).

Ellen Bryant Voigt lectures on the role of syntax in poetry, examining its uses in Philip Larkin's "Cut Grass," Donald Justice's "To the Hawks," and D.H. Lawrence's "Snake."

Mexican poet Homero Aridjis reads work reflecting his environmental activism and engagement with Mexican history, drawn from his 2001 bilingual publication Ojos de otro mirar / Eyes to See Otherwise: Selected Poems. The English translations of Aridjis's poems (by Eliot Weinberger, George McWhirter, and Betty Ferber) are read aloud by Alison Hawthorne Deming.

Clark Blaise reads his short stories "A Saint" from If I Were Me: A Novel (1997) and "Meditations on Starch," which was first published in the journal Salmagundi in 1988 and later collected in World Body (2006). This reading was originally given with Bharati Mukherjee.

Bharati Mukherjee reads from her novel Desirable Daughters (2002); she also reads an unpublished short story. This reading was originally given with Clark Blaise.

Fanny Howe reads "The Passion" and "Shadows" from her collection Gone (2003). She opens the reading with the poem "America, America" by Saadi Youssef (trans. Khaled Mattawa).

Peter Sacks reads poems from Necessity (2002) as well as new and uncollected work.

Li-Young Lee reads widely from his body of work and discusses forms, craft, and chance in poetry.

James Thomas Stevens reads poems from Combing the Snakes from His Hair (2002), as well as poems that would later be collected in A Bridge Dead in the Water (2007). This reading was originally given with Matthea Harvey and Olena Kalytiak Davis for the Next Word in Poetry Series.

Olena Kalytiak Davis reads from And Her Soul Out Of Nothing (1997) and Shattered Sonnets Love Cards and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities (2003). This reading was originally given with Matthea Harvey and James Thomas Stevens for the Next Word in Poetry Series.

Matthea Harvey reads primarily from Sad Little Breathing Machine (2004). This reading was originally given with Olena Kalytiak Davis and James Thomas Stevens for the Next Word in Poetry Series.

Dean Young reads poems appearing in Elegy on Toy Piano (2005).

Robin Robertson reads poems from A Painted Field (1997), Slow Air (2002), and Swithering (2006), as well as one unpublished piece.

Steve Orlen reads poems that would go on to appear in his collection The Elephant's Child: New & Selected Poems, 1978-2005 (2006), as well as earlier and unpublished poems.

Eavan Boland discusses both her work and her identity as an Irish poet in this reading.

University of Arizona Creative Writing students Andrew Bode-Lang, Sommer Browning, and Mia MacDonald discuss trends in contemporary poetry as part of a panel discussion with visiting poets Loren Goodman, A. Van Jordan, and Suji Kwock Kim. 

Laura Tohe reads from No Parole Today (1999) and poems that would later be published in Tséyi'/Deep in the Rock: Reflections on Canyon de Chelly (2005). Stephen Strom, the photographer for Tséyi'/Deep in the Rock: Reflections on Canyon de Chelly, also briefly speaks about his work.

Tedi López Mills reads poems from While Light Is Built (2004) with translations read by Wendy Burk.

Boyer Rickel reads poems appearing in Taboo (1999) and Arreboles (1991), as well as uncollected work.

Sheila E. Murphy reads widely from her work. 

Heriberto Yépez reads poems from Babellebab (2003) as well as new and uncollected work. This event opens with readings by Tenney Nathanson, Lisa Cooper Anderson, and Matt Rotando.

Ray Gonzalez reads from Consideration of the Guitar (2005). Reading truncated due to a damaged original recording.

Ray Gonzalez reads poems from Consideration of the Guitar (2005).

Rodney Phillips speaks about illustrations and English translations of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. This reading was originally given with Rae Armantrout.

Rae Armantrout reads from Writing the Plot About Sets (1998), Up To Speed (2004), Collected Prose (2007) and Next Life (2007). This reading was originally given with Rodney Phillips.

In this lecture Tony Hoagland discusses tonal complexity in contemporary American poetry, with close readings of "Hospital" by Jason Shinder and "Merchants" by Czeslaw Milosz.

Tony Hoagland reads poems from the collections Donkey Gospel (1998), What Narcissism Means to Me (2003), and Hard Rain (2005), as well as one unpublished poem.

Rita Dove reads from her collection American Smooth: Poems (2004).

Patricia Smith reads widely from her work, including several uncollected poems.

Colloquium on identity and diversity in literature.

David Mura reads from After We Lost Our Way (1989), The Colors of Desire (1995), and Angels for the Burning (2004). Mura also engages the audience with several performance pieces.

Francine Prose reads from her novel A Changed Man (2005).

Gary Copeland Lilley reads from The Subsequent Blues (2004). This reading was originally given with Brenda Shaughnessy and David Dominguez.

David Dominguez reads from Work Done Right (2003). This reading was originally given with with Brenda Shaughnessy and Gary Copeland Lilley.