song

Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris perform as part of the Poetry Center's Conceptual Poetry and Its Others Symposium.

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). 

Sherwin Bitsui reads from his work in English and Navajo as part of a multilingual poetry reading also featuring Alberto Rios (reading in English and Spanish) and Ofelia Zepeda (reading in English and O'odham). The reading includes selections from Water, an artist book created by Karla Elling to commemorate the Poetry Center's 50th anniversary. "Water" features a chainlink of poetry composed and translated by Bitsui, Rios, Zepeda, and Zapotec poet Natalia Toledo.

Poet and sculptor Nora Naranjo Morse, of Santa Clara Pueblo, reads from Mud Woman: Poems from the Clay (1992), including an expanded sung and spoken version of "Gia's Song."

Joni Wallace reads primarily from her collection Blinking Ephemeral Valentine and also an unpublished piece accompanied by the guitarist Greg Lewis. This is the first half of a reading which also featured Mary Jo Bang.

Luci Tapahonso reads for the 2011 Poetics and Politics Series. She reads work from several of her books, as well as unpublished poems.

Joyelle McSweeney reads primarily from Percussion Grenade (2012) as well as several unpublished pieces. This reading was originally given with Zachary Schomburg.

Cathy Park Hong reads from Engine Empire (2012) and Dance Dance Revolution (2007); she also reads an unpublished poem.

X.J. Kennedy reads from Nude Descending a Staircase (1961) and Cross Ties: Selected Poems (1985), commenting humorously on many of the poems and performing several as songs.

This event, part poetry reading and part jazz concert, pairs the work of poet Nathaniel Mackey with the music of jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell, featuring solo performances by each artist as well as two collaborative performances.

Drum Hadley reads poems from Voice of the Borderlands (2005). This book release celebration features remarks from panelists Alan Weisman, Voice of the Borderlands illustrator Andrew Rush, and publisher Susan Lowell of Rio Nuevo Publishers.

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

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.

William Kloefkorn reads from Uncertain the Final Run to Winter (1974), Alvin Turner As Farmer (1974), loony (1975), ludi jr (1976), Stocker (1978), Leaving Town (1979), and Not Such a Bad Place to Be (1980).

Camille T. Dungy reads primarily from What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (2006). This reading was originally given with Richard Siken and Heriberto Yépez as part of the Next Word Series.

Craig Santos Perez engages the audience with several performance pieces incorporating poems from his book from unincorporated territory [guma']  (2014). This reading was originally given with Yona Harvey as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.

Luis J. Rodriguez reads from The Concrete River (1991) and Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. (1993), along with poems that would later be collected in Trochemoche (1998). He also discusses his experiences with Los Angeles gang violence and the Chicano movement as well as his work with at-risk youth.

This event, part poetry reading and part jazz concert, pairs the work of poet Ron Silliman with the music of jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell, featuring solo performances by each artist as well as a collaborative performance.

Hilito is a short film that captures a performance by Cecilia Vicuña in the Sonoran Desert. It was filmed over the span of a week across various locations in Tucson. Vicuña created this film for the Poetry Off the Page Symposium.

In her first reading as a member of the University of Arizona faculty, Tess Gallagher reads from her first three collections, Stepping Outside (1974), Instructions to the Double (1976), and Under Stars (1978). She also treats the audience by singing a traditional Irish folk song that has been an inspiration to her writing.

Ariana Reines reads new and uncollected poems, including one written for this reading.

Simon J. Ortiz reads prose and poetry, including an excerpt from an in-progress manuscript of an epic poem and selections from Woven Stone (1992), from Sand Creek (2000), and Out There Somewhere (2002).

Ofelia Zepeda reads from Ocean Power (1995) and Where Clouds Are Formed (2008); she also reads several new poems. Some poems are performed in Tohono O'odham and English.

Richard and Nora Marks Dauenhauer read from their English translations of Tlingit poems and stories, providing fascinating explanations of the traditions behind the literature. They read first the original Tlingit and then the English translations. They conclude by reading from their own original poems.

Roberta J. Hill opens with two poems from her first collection, Star Quilt (1984), before reading more recent work that would later be collected in Philadelphia Flowers (1996). Both collections were published under the name Roberta Hill Whiteman.

Luci Tapahonso reads poems from throughout her career, including poems from her collection Sáanii Dahataal (the women are singing) (1993).

Leslie Marmon Silko reads from her poems and fiction, including excerpts from Almanac of the Dead (1991) and Storyteller (1981). She also performs traditional oral stories.

Luci Tapahonso reads from poems published throughout her career, many of them fueled by personal anecdotes.

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera warmly engages the audience with work that would be collected in books such as Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America (1997), Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler (2002), and Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008), as well as uncollected pieces. Standout performances include "Notes on Other Chicana and Chicano Inventions" and "Suicide in Hollywood / Lupe Velez (Circ. 1923) Serigrafía de una actriz Mexicana," read in Spanish and English. Opening his reading with an invocation to sky, earth, wind, and fire, Herrera encourages audience laughter and participation throughout the evening.

Nanao Sakaki performs poems and songs in the courtyard of the Poetry Center on Cherry Avenue. Asking the audience, "Any questions? I'll answer by my poems," Sakaki addresses themes raised by audience members such as anger, feeling at home, time, walking, and love for the desert and all forms of life.

Jerome Rothenberg performs a retrospective survey of his prolific body of work, beginning with poems written in the 1960s and continuing in chronological order. Most of the poems read here are collected in Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader (2013). 

Poet David Baker gives a collaborative performance alongside Lauren Baba, Andrew Rowan, Alina Roitstein, Harrison Kirk, and Gregory Uhlmann of the River Song Quintet, who perform musical settings of his poems. Included in this performance are uncollected and new poems, as well as poems from Baker's collections The Truth about Small Towns (1998) and Scavenger Loop (2015).

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.