ghosts

Stephanie Balzer performs prose poems from her chapbooks Revenant and faster, faster. She ends the reading with a discussion about her relationship with prose poem form.

At his Next Word reading with Akilah Oliver and Philip Jenks, Brandon Shimoda reads three longer poems. Two of these were unpublished at the time of the reading, including the very recent "Poems for the People."

Cole Swensen reads from Ours (2008) and a work in progress about ghosts that would go on to be published as Gravesend (2012). This reading was originally presented alongside Caroline Bergvall and Christian Bök.

Aurelie Sheehan reads a story from the collection Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant (1994), as well as two unpublished works.

Arizona's inaugural Poet Laureate Alberto Ríos reads public and personal poems from his collected and uncollected works; he also speaks about goals for his laureateship.

Thalia Field reads from Bird Lovers, Backyard (2010) with University of Arizona MFA students Mike Coakley, Kendra Mullison, and Erin Zwiener. Each selection is read poly-vocally, i.e., one reader per paragraph.

Martín Espada reads from Trumpets from the Islands of their Eviction (1987), Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands (1990), and City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993).

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."

Robert Hemenway reads an excerpt from At the Border (1984) and prefaces his reading with a description of common themes in his writing.

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

Dorothea Lasky gives a lecture on material imagination, poetry, and ghosts. She also reads two poems from Milk (2018). This lecture was originally given with Joshua Beckman and Terrance Hayes as part of the 2018 Bagley Wright Lecture Series conference "You Are Who I Am Talking To: Poetry, Attention, & Audience."

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

Carolyn Forché reads excerpts from her memoir What You Have Heard Is True (2019) and poems from her collection In the Lateness of the World (2020).