WEBVTT

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Welcome to the Poetry
Center reading series.

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I'm Frances Sjoberg, the
literary director of the Poetry

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Center, and it is a
great privilege tonight

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to present Taha Muhammad
Ali and Peter Cole.

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Thank you for coming, I know
it was a very long journey.

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I would also like to thank
our co-sponsors, the Center

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for Middle Eastern
Studies, and also

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the Inner Connection, which
is co-sponsoring a high school

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Matinee tomorrow morning
here at the Poetry

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Center with the poets.

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I'd like to thank our standing
series supporters, the College

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of Humanities, the National
Endowment for the Arts,

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and the friends of
the Poetry Center.

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I have a couple of
announcements as usual.

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I just want to let
people know that there

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are a couple of spots still
available in our Saturday

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class, Robert Frost
and his legacy,

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which is this Saturday
with poet John Wright.

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On Monday, another
class begins: binding

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for writers with Drew Burk.

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This is a six week class with
the co-founder and bookmaker

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for Spork Press
and if you'd like

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to learn how to hand
bind your own work,

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this is the class for you.

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More information about both
of those are available.

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Where are the Flyers Annie?

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Are they over here,
outside of this door.

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And our program
assistant Megan tells me

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that some of our
regular audience members

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are irritated with our
surveys, I can't believe it.

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Actually, I too dislike them.

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But in filling them
out, you're helping

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us to meet the requirements
of our grantors.

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And to sweeten the
deal, Megan this reading

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has started a Haiku sweepstakes
on the back of the surveys,

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you'll notice that there
is a Haiku challenge.

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If you return them you will
be eligible to win the Haiku

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sweepstakes, which involves
a Poetry Center gift

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bag with a t-shirt, a tube
of Poetry Center Lit balm,

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and other goodies.

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[LAUGHS]

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Also many of you
know that we are

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trying to wrap up Stanza
Bonanza, our one year long book

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drive to seed K
through 12 libraries

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with great books of poetry.

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Tonight, we need to receive
10 copies of the Country

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Between us by Carolyn
Forche on sale

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from the U of A
bookstore for $10.

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And also 10 copies
of The Dream Keeper

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by Langston Hughes on sale from
the U of A bookstores for $8.

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And for each Forche
that is purchased

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tonight poet Brenda Hillman's
folks, Jimmy and Helen Hillman

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have agreed to contribute
a copy of "So What?"

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by Taha Muhammad Ali to
our K through 12 libraries,

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the high school
libraries actually

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is the appropriate age
group for that one.

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And Gail Browne has agreed
to contribute a copy of Here,

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Bullet by Brian Turner.

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All books that teach us
about the ravages of war

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and conflict--

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conflict and the
benefits of coexistence.

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For every Langston Hughes
that is purchased tonight,

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the undergraduate English
and creative writing club

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has agreed to buy
and contribute one

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copy of "I Feel a
Little Jumpy Around You"

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by Naomi Shihab Nye.

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And Renee Angle family--

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Renee Angle's family has agreed
to buy a copy of "What Have You

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Lost" also by Nye
for each of those

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that you purchase tonight.

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To top it off, if
you and the audience

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contribute all 20 of the
challenge books, 10 of Forche,

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10 of Langston Hughes,
Tony Luebbermann

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will contribute in an entire
kit of 25 middle school books

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to a middle school library.

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So I won't take you
carefully through the numbers

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but I will let you
know that if you choose

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to donate a $10 book
by Carolyn Forche,

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you are responsible for
putting $39 worth of books

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into local libraries.

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If you purchase an $8
book by Langston Hughes,

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you're responsible for
putting $27 worth of books

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in local libraries.

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And if 20 of you donate
books tonight, that's

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85 books that will go
into libraries worth $1000

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to all four local schools.

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And you also get a nifty
little sticker for your lapel

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that says "Bookworm
conservationist."

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Now, onto our poets, Taha
Muhammad Ali and Peter Cole.

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Tonight, together, they will
present Muhammad Ali's work

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in both the original Arabic
and an English translation.

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Although, we will
focus on Taha's poetry,

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I want to tell you a little
bit about each of them.

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Peter Cole has crafted a
life in service to poetry,

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his own poems are
lyric explorations

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of history, ontology,
of language itself.

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They grapple with God, with
soul, and the toll of ourselves

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in the social world.

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He writes poetry that
yields a complex music

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and unfolds substantively
to scholarly readings.

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Peter Cole is also a translator
lending his precision and ear

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to medieval poets of al-Andalus
and contemporary poets,

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including Taha
Muhammad Ali, alike.

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And he is a publisher
with his partner Adina

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Hoffman of IBIS Press.

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While tribalism
and fence building

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are the order of the day,
their mission states,

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IBIS seeks to present
readers of serious literature

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with books that embody
the cultural cross

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fertilization that
characterizes the best

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writing from the Levant.

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Each of our books derives
from prolonged engagement

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with the actual people,
boulders, groves,

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and city streets that make
up the local landscape.

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Peter Cole is a recipient
of the Pen American

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award for translation, a
Guggenheim, and National

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Endowment for the
Arts fellowships

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and most recently, the
prestigious MacArthur

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Fellowship.

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Taha Muhammad Ali
was born in 1931

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in the Galilee
village of Saffuriyya.

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I hope I'm pronouncing
that correctly,

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which was destroyed by Al
Nakba, "The Catastrophe,"

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or the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

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He fled to Lebanon and
later returned to Nazareth

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where he is the proprietor
of a souvenir shop.

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Muhammad Ali is self-educated,
he studied and mastered

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both classical Arabic and
contemporary Western poetry

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and his poems are rich in
influence from both traditions.

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He is I believe, a natural
storyteller: that rare person

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who is able to hold, sustain,
and develop entire histories

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and humanities.

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Taha Muhammad Ali is the author
of a collection of stories

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and four volumes of
poetry in Arabic,

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he is also the author of
"Never Mind" published

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by IBIS Editions in
Jerusalem and "So

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What" published by
Copper Canyon Press

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here in the United States.

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We are very, very lucky to
have both of these poets

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here with us tonight.

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Please help me to welcome, Taha
Muhammad Ali and Peter Cole.

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[APPLAUSE]