surreal

Donald Hall reads from The Alligator Bride: Poems New and Selected (1969) and The Yellow Room (1971). He also reads poems that would be collected in The Town of Hill (1975) along with several that remain uncollected, including a series of surrealistic limericks.

James Tate reads from his first collection, The Lost Pilot (1967), along with poems that would be collected in The Oblivion Ha-Ha (1970).

James Tate returns to read for the Poetry Center for the first time since 1968, performing poems from several books.

In this performance, Michael Burkard reads from his first three books, particularly from the 1981 collection Ruby for Grief. He also reads some uncollected work.

In this reading, originally given with Jim Simmerman, Karen Brennan reads poetry and prose from The Real Enough World (2005) and The Garden in Which I Walk (2004), as well as several unpublished poems.

Roberto Tejada reads poems from Why the Assembly Disbanded (2022), which he describes as inhabiting the "actual and surreal" US-Mexico Borderlands. He also reads from a manuscript in progress begun during the Coronavirus pandemic titled Carbonate of Copper, informed by a widening and blurring sense of the self, the human, and the non-human.

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.

Summer resident Angel Dominguez reads poems rooted in ancestors and community as they protest colonialism, fascism, and gentrification. Dominguez first reads from across their published works: Black Lavender Milk (2015), RoseSunWater (2021), and Desgraciado (the collected letters) (2022). They close the reading with recent poems, including one written the night before the reading and others from a manuscript in progress titled Don't Tell My Mother If They Kill Me.

Manuel Paul López reads primarily from his fourth collection, Nerve Curriculum (2023), as well as from his third collection, These Days of Candy (2017), and uncollected work. Surreal but grounded in recognizable places and situations, his selection of poems also includes dialogue from a verse play. This reading was originally given with Adam O. Davis.

Sawako Nakayasu reads work stemming from her 2017 return to the United States from Japan and the challenges of being immersed again in the violence of American culture. She opens with several new ant poems before reading from Say Translation Is Art (2020), Some Girls Walk Into the Country They Are From (2020), Pink Waves (2023), and her forthcoming book Settle Her. This reading was presented in collaboration with the American Literary Translators Association and as part of the ALTA46 conference.

Gabriel Palacios reads from his first book, A Ten Peso Burial for Which Truth I Sign (2024). The poems touch on themes of family history and identity, and Tucson appears throughout. This reading was originally given alongside Gabriel Dozal, Maddie Norris, and Margo Steines, all fellow alumni of the University of Arizona creative writing MFA program.

Peruvian poet Tilsa Otta and translator Farid Matuk read from The Hormone of Darkness: A Playlist (2024) in both the original Spanish and the English translations. Otta shares poems that reflect on the self in relationship to lovers, the universe, and contemporary music including reggaeton and pop.