surrealist

Richard Shelton reads from The Tattooed Desert (1970), as well as several poems from Journal of Return (1969) and Of All the Dirty Words (1972).

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

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.