parenthood

Li-Young Lee reads widely from his body of work and discusses forms, craft, and chance in poetry.

Maggie Nelson reads excerpts from Bluets (2009) and The Art of Cruelty (2011), as well as new work. This reading was given as part of the Hybrid Writing Series, co-sponsored by the UA Prose Series.

Lucille Clifton reads poems spanning two decades of work.

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.

Barbara Anderson reads from her second collection of poems, Junk City (1987), as well as poems that would go on to appear in 1-800-911 (1997).

Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn opens with "Under the Black Oaks," the poem he had most recently written at the time of this reading. Dunn reads poems from throughout his career, often on the theme of family, including a poem about losing his mother, an atheist's parenting dilemmas as his daughter moves toward Christianity, and an ode to the sister he never had.

Richard Jackson reads long poems from his collection Worlds Apart (1987) and others that would be collected in Alive All Day (1992). He begins with a poem by Thomas Hardy, "I Looked Up from My Writing."

Rubén Martínez discusses being at an impasse in writing, what he describes as surgimiento in Spanish, or emergence. His talk touches on his personal experience and writing, as well as work by other writers and artists.

Peggy Shumaker reads poems from Cairn: New and Selected Poems and Prose (2018) as well as one uncollected poem. This reading was originally given with Maurya Simon as the inaugural reading in the Tom Sanders Memorial Reading Series.

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.