childhood

Bill Knott reads widely from his work. This reading includes poems from Becos (1983), Outremer (1989), and Poems 1963-1988 (1989), as well as work collected later. 

Stephen Spender reads widely from his earlier works, including Poems (1933), The Still Centre (1939), and The Generous Days (1969); he also reads journal excerpts. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Stephen Spender. 

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.

James Tate returns to read for the Poetry Center for the first time since 1968, performing poems from several books.

Marina Rivera reads from Mestiza (1977) and Sobra (1977); she also reads several uncollected poems. This reading was originally given with Carolyn Kizer. 

Steve Orlen reads poems appearing in The Bridge of Sighs (1992) as well as passages from the draft of a novel entitled Homesick For the Land of Pictures.

Paul Zimmer reads from The Republic of Many Voices (1969), along with poems that would be published in The Zimmer Poems (1976) or remain uncollected. Making use of persona, narrative, and humor, he addresses topics such as childhood, identity, and mortality.

Steve Orlen reads from Permission to Speak (1978) and A Place at the Table (1981). This reading was originally given with Criss E. Cannady and Greg Pape. 

Louise Glück reads from her 2001 collection of poems The Seven Ages. This reading was originally given with Dana Levin. 

Elizabeth Evans reads excerpts from her third novel, Rowing in Eden.

In his first visit to Tucson, Franz Wright reads prose pieces, most of which were unpublished at the time of his reading, as well as several lineated poems. He comments generously on his writing process and friendships with other poets.

In this reading given with Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Kate Bernheimer reads two stories from her collection Horse, Flower, Bird (2010).

Marie Howe reads poems from What the Living Do (1998) and The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2008), as well as a poem published in the American Poetry Review. The majority of poems are accompanied by remarks from the poet.

A celebration of the fairy tale, featuring readings from authors included in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010), an anthology of new fairy tales edited by Kate Bernheimer.

David Rivard reads primarily from Wise Poison (1996). He also reads unpublished work and poems that would go on to appear in his collection Bewitched Playground (2000).

Marilyn Hacker reads from Squares and Courtyards (2000), Taking Notice (1980), and Going Back to the River (1990). She also reads two poems that would later be published in Desesperanto (2003). This reading was originally given with Aleida Rodríguez.

Sandra Cisneros reads short stories from The House on Mango Street (1984) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991) and poetry from My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987).

Nancy Mairs reads from a draft version of a manuscript that would later be published as Remembering the Bone House: An Erotics of Place and Space (1989).

In this reading, originally given with Beth Alvarado, Aurelie Sheehan shares excerpts from the novel History Lessons for Girls (2006), as well as a work in progress called One Hundred Histories.

Poetry Center Summer Resident Polly Rosenwaike reads an excerpt from the short story Grow Your Eyelashes. This reading was originally given with Samuel Ace and Dexter L. Booth.

Dexter L. Booth reads poems from Scratching the Ghost (2013) along with new and uncollected work. This reading was originally given with Samuel Ace and Polly Rosenwaike.

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

Timothy Liu reads new poems that would go on to be published in Don't Go Back to Sleep (2014), as well as poems from Polytheogamy (2009) and Bending the Mind Around the Dream's Blown Fuse (2009).

Jenny Boully reads excerpts from of the mismatched teacups, of the single-serving spoon (2012) and not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them (2011), as well as new and uncollected work. This reading was given as part of the Hybrid Writing Series, co-sponsored by the UA Prose Series.

Spoken word artist Teré Fowler-Chapman performs selections from their work. This reading was originally given with Clark Coolidge.

Gary Soto reads from Black Hair (1985), Who Will Know Us? (1990), and A Natural Man (1999). This reading was originally given with Rigoberto González.

Karen Brennan reads from little dark (2014). This reading was originally given with Brian Blanchfield and Stephen Willey.

Yona Harvey performs poems from Hemming the Water (2013) as well as work unpublished at the time of the reading. This reading was originally given with Craig Santos Perez as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.

Gary Soto reads poetry and prose from Who Will Know Us (1990) and A Summer Life (1990), along with poems that would later be collected in Home Course in Religion (1991).

Benjamin Alire Sáenz reads from his short story "The Rule Maker," collected in his PEN/Faulkner Award-winning book Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club (2012).

Taha Muhammad Ali reads primarily from his book So What (2006) in the original Arabic, with Peter Cole reading each poem's translation in English.

In this matinee performance at Tucson High School, Natalie Diaz reads poems, provides commentary, and participates in a question and answer session with Eduardo C. Corral.

Australian poets Vincent Buckley, Les Murray, and David Malouf visit Tucson to read their work, also providing background and commentary. Les Murray reads a selection of poems in chronological order, including his oldest poem "The Burning Crook." Vincent Buckley reads from Golden Builders (1976), Late Winter Child (1979), and The Pattern (1979), as well as some unpublished poems. David Malouf reads both poetry and passages from his novel An Imaginary Life (1978).

Just after joining the University of Arizona faculty, Elizabeth Evans reads the first chapter of an unpublished manuscript titled Ancient History, parts of which went on to be included in her novel Rowing in Eden (2000).

In her first reading as a member of the University of Arizona faculty, Tess Gallagher reads from her first three collections, Stepping Outside (1974), Instructions to the Double (1976), and Under Stars (1978). She also treats the audience by singing a traditional Irish folk song that has been an inspiration to her writing.

Jean Rukkila, a graduate student in Creative Writing at the time, reads her story "Andi and Ann." Ron Hansen reads four sections from his novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (1983).

Boyer Rickel reads poetry from his first book, Arreboles (1991), touching on family and childhood memories, experiences living in Tucson, and musicians and writers of previous centuries. He also reads an essay that would go on to be published in Taboo (1999), which he introduces by discussing his approach to writing essays that follow the form of poems, not returning to a main idea but moving through it.

Richard Marius reads an excerpt from an early draft of his novel After the War (1992).

Leslie Ullman discusses process and reads poems from her collection Natural Histories (1979), including "Bravado," "Fur," "Last Night They Heard the Woman Upstairs," and "Midwife"; she also reads poems that would go on to be collected in Dreams by No One's Daughter (1987).

Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig read for the Writers At Work Series. Wittig and Zeig team to play the parts of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in a play written by Wittig and translated by Zeig, Le Voyage sans fin (The Constant Journey, 1985), based on Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel. Before performing the play, Wittig gives a brief talk explaining the role of transposition and gender roles in her adaption of Cervantes's work.

Steve Orlen reads from his collections Permission to Speak (1978) and A Place at the Table (1982), as well as from newer material.

Steve Orlen reads extensively from his collection The Bridge of Sighs (1992). His selections follow the book's four major themes, which he describes as poems of childhood, poems of love and marriage, poems of relationship, and poems of grace.

Jim Simmerman reads from a manuscript that would become his collection Kingdom Come (1999), a series of persona poems written in the voices of various Biblical characters. Jewell Parker Rhodes reads from her first novel, Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau (1993), inspired by the life of the famed 19th century Voodoo Queen. She reads two scenes from the novel, the first set just before Marie Laveau's tenth birthday, and the second during the performance of one of Laveau's greatest miracles.

Judith Barrington reads from History and Geography (1989) along with poems that would go on to be collected in Horses and the Human Soul (2004) and several that remain uncollected. The poems she selects for this reading center on place, landscape, memory, and Lesbian identity; horses recur throughout.

Rosemary Catacalos reads from her first collection, Again for the First Time (1984), before sharing more recent poems. Several of the more recent poems would appear in anthologies throughout the 1990s or would be collected in her chapbook Begin Here (2013). San Antonio, Texas, figures prominently, and key themes include multicultural identity and life in border communities.

Vivian Gornick reads from Fierce Attachments (1987), a memoir of the author's past and present relationship with her mother. This University of Arizona Creative Writing faculty reading was originally given with Mary Elsie Robertson.

Tarfia Faizullah reads poems from her collection Seam (2014) and from an early version of Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf Press, 2018). This reading was originally given with francine j. harris as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.

Brenda Hillman reads from her books Bright Existence (1993), Practical Water (2009), and Seasonal Works With Letters On Fire (2013), along with uncollected and new poems. 

Venita Blackburn reads from Black Jesus and Other Superheroes (2017) as well as one story, "Fam," that would later appear in her collection How to Wrestle a Girl (2021).

Charles Simic reads from New and Selected Poems, 1962-2012 (2013) and The Lunatic (2015).

Naomi Shihab Nye reads from her poetry collections Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (2018) and The Tiny Journalist (2019). She also reads from new work, including one poem that would appear in Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (2020). 

Matthew Zapruder reads poems from his collection Father's Day (2019) and excerpts from his book of criticism Why Poetry (2017). This reading was given at the Center for Creative Photography. 

Jericho Brown reads from across his published body of work: Please (2008), The New Testament (2014), and The Tradition (2019), his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection. He reads poems that touch on childhood and family, southern Black culture, racial injustice, and violence— from the home to the nation. He answers audience questions on musicality, his approach to writing and teaching poetry, and his invented form, the duplex.

Brenda Hillman reads from In a Few Minutes Before Later (2022), her eleventh collection of poetry, including poems set during the COVID-19 pandemic. She briefly discusses her translation—done in collaboration with her mother—of Brazilian poet Ana Cristina Cesar, and closes with two new poems focused on her mother's garden and her childhood home.

John Murillo, the Poetry Center's spring poet in residence, reads from Up Jump the Boogie (2010) and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (2020). His poems—many of them long poems—consider masculinity, the divide between boyhood and manhood, violence, and the ways we construct our sense of self.