Incarceration

In this performance, Jimmy Santiago Baca reads from Black Mesa Poems, a collection published the year after this reading took place. He also performs poems from Martín & Meditations on the South Valley, a book that was awarded the Before Columbus American Book Award and earned Jimmy Santiago Baca an NEA grant for the year of this reading.

As part of the Tucson Festival of Books, Jimmy Santiago Baca performs excerpts from his collection of poems Healing Earthquakes.

Natalie Diaz reads new work commissioned as part of the Art for Justice series. Representatives of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project give an opening presentation. 

Evie Shockley reads new work commissioned as part of the Art for Justice series. This reading was originally given with Patrick Rosal for the Art for Justice series. Representatives of Tucson's Sex Workers Outreach Project give an opening presentation. 

Patrick Rosal reads new work commissioned as part of the Art for Justice series, focused on race riots which occurred in Watsonville, California in 1930. This reading was given alongside Evie Shockley for the Art for Justice series. Representatives of Tucson's Sex Workers Outreach Project give an opening presentation. 

Angel Nafis reads new work commissioned as part of the Art for Justice Series. This reading was originally given alongside Patricia Smith. Leilani Clark represents BIPOC United Tucson in an opening presentation.

Patricia Smith reads new work commissioned as part of the Art for Justice Series as well as poems from her collection Teahouse of the Almighty (2006). This reading was originally given alongside Angel Nafis. Leilani Clark represents BIPOC United Tucson in an opening presentation.

Ada Limón reads from her poetry manuscript What Is Caged Is Also Kept From Us, commissioned by the Poetry Center as part of the Art for Justice series. Lola Rainey gives an opening presentation focused on pretrial detention.

As part of the Institute for Inquiry and Poetics and the Art for Justice series, Reginald Dwayne Betts performs a portion of Felon: An American Washi Tale, a one-man play centered on the importance of books and paper in and after prison. Diana Marie Delgado leads a conversation with Betts and guest Joe Watson to conclude the reading, focused on the play, the Art for Justice series itself, and the Million Book Project.

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo shares new work commissioned by the Poetry Center as part of the Art for Justice series. Informed by Hernandez Castillo's work with youth in detention, these poems and video-text explore the relationship between facts and story as they communicate the pain of the carceral justice system. This reading was also given as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series, alongside Marwa Helal.

As part of the Institute for Inquiry and Poetics and the Art for Justice series, Nicole Sealey, John Murillo, and Hanif Abdurraqib read from and discuss their writing centered on police violence, the carceral justice system, and racial injustice towards Black Americans. Sealey specifically reads excerpts from her then-unpublished manuscript The Ferguson Report: An Erasure (2023). Diana Marie Delgado leads a conversation throughout the event.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera begins with English and Spanish readings from Akrílica (2022), trading languages with translator Farid Matuk. Together, they also read Herrera’s poem "i am not a paid protestor," which Herrera terms a "duo poem" for two voices in dialogue with one another. Herrera closes out the reading with poems and remarks about mass shootings, classical music, space exploration, and human suffering and connection.