feminism

Lucille Clifton reads poems published from 1969 to 1980. Her reading also includes exciting performances of drafts and unpublished poems.

Lucille Clifton reads poems on many subjects, including family and illness, as well as a series of Rastafarian-inspired poems about the life of the Biblical figure Mary. In addition to poems, Clifton reads excerpts from Generations: A Memoir and her children's book Sonora Beautiful.

Jane Miller reads from American Odalisque (1987), Black Holes, Black Stockings (1985), and The Greater Leisures (1983).

Adrienne Rich reads poems appearing in The Will to Change (1971) and Diving into the Wreck (1973), as well as more recent poems that would be collected in Poems: Selected and New, 1950-1974 (1975).

Adrienne Rich reads poems from the collections Your Native Land, Your Life (1986) and Time's Power (1989).

In this performance, Lucille Clifton reads primarily from Next: New Poems and begins the performance with an excerpt from her children's book Sonora Beautiful. Clifton remarks that this is her first public reading of the poem series "Ten Oxherding Pictures."

Lorna Dee Cervantes reads primarily from Emplumada (1981) and From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (1991). She also reads several poems that would go on to be collected in Drive: The First Quartet (2006). 

Anne Waldman discusses and reads from two recent projects, Manatee/Humanity and the Chax Press chapbook Matriot Acts. This reading was given alongside Laynie Browne for the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books.

Pat Mora reads from her first two books of poems, Chants (1984) and Borders (1986), as well as poems that would later be published, sometimes in different versions, in Communion (1991) and Agua Santa (1997). Mora, who hails from El Paso, includes several poems about the desert in honor of what she describes as "probably the first time I have done a reading in another desert area."

TC Tolbert reads from his recent Kore Press publication Territories of Folding, accompanied by members of the movement improvisation group Movement Salon.

Lucille Clifton reads widely from her extensive body of work. This performance includes poems from her final collection, Voices (2008), as well as several uncollected and unpublished poems.

Natalie Diaz reads at a symposium hosted by Feminist Formations, an interdisciplinary journal of women's, gender, and sexuality studies. This performance includes poems from When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012); Diaz also reads several poems that are forthcoming in Feminist Formations. This reading was originally given with Niki Herd.

Gloria E. Anzaldúa reads widely from her extensive body of work; this reading includes uncollected and unpublished poems.

Pat Mora reads from Agua Santa / Holy Water (1995), Borders (1986), and Chants (1984). She also reads an excerpt from a manuscript that would later be published as House of Houses (1997).

In this reading, originally given with Peggy Shumaker, Eloise Klein Healy reads from the collection A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings (2013).

Carmen Giménez Smith reads poems from Milk and Filth (2013), along with several unpublished poems. This reading was originally given with J. Michael Martinez and Roberto Tejada at an event titled Latino/a Poetry Now.

Melissa Buckheit reads from Noctilucent (2012), as well as new and uncollected work. This reading was originally given with Karen Rigby and Anne Shaw.

Toi Derricotte reads from her first three collections: The Empress of the Death House (1978), Natural Birth (1983), and Captivity (1989). She also reads poems and prose that would later be collected in Tender (1997) and The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey (1997), along with two unpublished poems, including one written in Tucson the night before this reading. She closes by singing an original song.

Margarita Engle delivers a lecture on poetry as a vehicle for historical exploration; she also reads poems from The Lightning Dreamer (2013) and Silver People (2014).

Tillie Olsen reads excerpts from Tell Me a Riddle (1961), her collection of short stories; Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974), an unfinished novel; and the classic work of nonfiction, Silences (1978). Olsen's reading is interspersed with anecdotes and narrative summaries.

Nancy Mairs reads poetry and nonfiction from her first three books, In All the Rooms of the Yellow House (1984), Plaintext (1986), and Remembering the Bone House (1989).

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.

Rosemary Catacalos reads poems on themes such as identity, quirks of memory, borders and border towns, the effects of speaking three languages (Greek, Spanish, and English) as a child, and the Day of the Dead.

Rachel Zucker reads from an unpublished manuscript tentatively titled "Sound Machine."

Renee Angle reads from her book-length poetry project WoO (2016). This reading was originally given with Wendy Burk.

Poetry Center Summer Resident Vickie Vértiz reads new and uncollected poems. She also introduces Tucson Youth Poetry Slam champion Erik Loya-Tolano and local poet and performer Enrique García Naranjo, who each read one poem. This reading was originally given with Erin Stalcup.

Brian Teare reads new and uncollected work and discusses ecopoetics, ecofeminism, and climate change. This reading was given as part of the Climate Change & Poetry Series.

Sawako Nakayasu mixes her poetry and her translations, crafting a reading that she describes as a translation of the innovative form of her book Mouth: Eats Color (2011). She reads her own poems from The Ants (2014) and Some Girls Walk Into the Country They Are From (2020), a manuscript in progress that would be published two years after this reading. She also reads translations of poems by Japanese modernist Chika Sagawa from Mouth: Eats Color and Korean modernist Yi Sang, later published in Yi Sang: Selected Works (2020). 

Ada Limón reads poems from Bright Dead Things (2015) and The Carrying (2018).

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. 

Erika L. Sánchez reads poems from her collection Lessons on Expulsion (2017) as well as uncollected work. This reading was originally given alongside sam sax as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.