Track

Sabatini Sloan, Aisha. Borealis. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2021, pp. 1-12.

Track

Hirshfield, Jane. Ledger. New York: Knopf, 2020. 

Reading

In this, Tess Gallagher's first reading for the Poetry Center, she performs poetry from three of her books and reads the work of Thomas Lux, Andre Breton, and Ciaran Carson.

Reading

Richard Shelton reads from The Tattooed Desert (1970), as well as several poems from Journal of Return (1969) and Of All the Dirty Words (1972).

Reading

Charles Wright reads from several of his books, along with three poems that would later be published, in slightly different versions, in his 1988 collection Zone Journals.

Reading

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.

Reading

George Hitchcock reads from his first four books: Poems & Prints (1962), Tactics of Survival (1964), The Dolphin with the Revolver in Its Teeth (1967), and A Ship of Bells (1968). He also reads work that will later be collected in The Rococo Eye (1970) and Lessons in Alchemy (1976). He opens the reading with a selection of found poems from the volume Pioneers of Modern Poetry (1967), which he crafted with Robert L. Peters.

Reading

This reading opens with Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading from his journal about stopping in Salome, Arizona on his way to perform for the Poetry Center. He reads primarily from A Coney Island of the Mind but also includes a performance of Walter Lowenfels's anti-war poem "Where is Vietnam."

Reading

Neil Claremon reads from East by Southwest (1970), along with uncollected poems and poems that would later appear in West of the American Dream: Visions of an Alien Landscape (1973).

Reading

In this performance, Alison Hawthorne Deming reads both poetry and prose, including excerpts from a book published the year of this reading, The Edges of the Civilized World, and poems from a collection that would be published seven years later, Genius Loci.

Reading

In this reading, originally given with Eloise Klein Healy, Peggy Shumaker reads from the collection Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica (2013) and presents photographs from a series of residencies in Costa Rica.

Reading

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

Reading

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

Reading

Semezdin Mehmedinović reads poems from Sarajevo Blues (1998) and Nine Alexandrias (2003).

Reading

Jack Gilbert reads primarily from The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 (1995) and Refusing Heaven (2005).

Reading

Stephen Dunn opens with poems from Full of Lust and Good Usage (1976), which would be published the year following this reading. He then reads from Looking for Holes in the Ceiling (1974) before closing with poems that would later appear in A Circus of Needs (1978).

Reading

In this lecture titled "The Lives of the Poems," Joshua Beckman discusses his writing process and the physical experience of his poems. Included throughout are excerpts from unpublished poems written between 2008 and 2012.

Reading

Terry Tempest Williams reads excerpts from a manuscript later published as Leap: A Traveler in the Garden of Delights (2000).

Reading

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).

Reading

Stephen Dunn and Dave Smith read from their poems.

Reading

Patricia Hampl opens with two poems, "The Moment" and "Last Letter." Then she reads the essay "Pilgrimage" from her book Spillville (1986), as well as two excerpts from her memoir A Romantic Education (1981). At this event, Hampl also read from Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life (1992), but this portion of her reading was not recorded.

Reading

John A. Williams reads poems from an early manuscript that would eventually come to form his collection Safari West (1998). He then reads from his novel !Click Song (1982), investigating issues of race, colonialism, and diaspora. Both books are winners of the American Book Award.

Reading

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

Reading

Luci Tapahonso reads from her collections Seasonal Woman (1982) and A Breeze Swept Through (1987), beginning with a piece that combines spoken poetry with song.

Reading

Ofelia Zepeda reads from her poetry collections When It Rains, Papago and Pima Poetry = Mat hekid o ju, 'O'odham Na-cegitodag (1982), Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995), and Jewed 'I-hoi, Earth Movements (1997). She reads the poems first in O'odham, and then in English.

Reading

Diane Glancy reads a range of works on the theme of story, including a number of poems that would subsequently appear in The West Pole (1997) and (Ado)ration (1999). She also reads excerpts from Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears (1996) and closes the reading with a brief extract from Firesticks (1993). 

Reading

Jane Miller opens her reading with "Miami Heart" and "The Poet," both from Memory at These Speeds: New and Selected Poems (1996). She continues with work from Wherever You Lay Your Head, published in 1999. This reading was originally given with Eleni Sikelianos.

Reading

Maurya Simon reads poems from The Wilderness: New & Selected Poems 1980-2016 (2018). This reading was originally given with Peggy Shumaker as the inaugural reading in the Tom Sanders Memorial Reading Series. 

Reading

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). 

Reading

Aisha Sabatini Sloan, an alumna of the UA MFA Creative Writing program, reads from her book-length essay Borealis (2021). In this excerpt from the book, Sabatini Sloan details her travel to Homer, Alaska, and how the stark landscape interacts with her identity as a Black, queer woman. Sabatini Sloan's writing also incorporates references to pop culture and Black artists. This reading was originally given alongside Cara Blue Adams and Alberto Ríos to celebrate the MFA program's 50th anniversary.

Poetry Center

1508 East Helen Street (at Vine Avenue)
Tucson, AZ 85721-0150 • MAP IT
PHONE 520-626-3765 | poetry@email.arizona.edu