Welcome.
It's such an honor to have you all here with us.
It's such a thrill.
It's a dream.
It's a dream come true.
I just want to welcome you to this symposium.
And I should just read this.
Gail's done all my thanking for me.
I just can't say enough about the support
we've gotten from our staff.
And I love you and thank you.
So in the past, we've hosted other symposia
on the topics of Native voices and conceptual poetry.
And many of those events, I just wanted to let you know,
as well as these, can be viewed on our online audiovisual
collection called Voca.
This weekend, we've invited 18 writers here from all
over the country to present hybrid works of poetry that
engage theatrical, visual, and sonic elements offered
by other art forms.
You may call this symposium, conference, colloquium,
carnival, festival, a spectacle.
The form of the weekend itself will
be a hybrid dynamic happening.
We will perhaps do more questioning than framing.
Our experience as audience members
no longer passive, but integral in many cases
to the making of the performance.
Many of the performances you will see
are sculpted improvisatory pieces,
the artists creating work for you,
with you, and because of you.
In other cases, poets have generously
created work specifically for this symposium.
It's a rare opportunity for writers to be commissioned.
And we were really excited to be able to bring
new, never-yet-seen works to Tucson, work
that poets will be presenting here for the first time.
So questions we've been thinking about around
here at the Poetry Center are, of course, what is a poem if it
isn't written down?
When the social space of the performance
is considered as publication, what becomes of the archive?
Or what does it really become?
Does hybrid work become a kind of documentary poetry
when the source text is live improvisation?
When available technology changes the writing act,
what happens to the role of the poem?
And what are the implications for literary publishing
in the digital age?
How do performance devices of voice and recitation
play into the making or changing of sound or slam poetry?
And how is that different or informative
for practitioners of poets' theater?
For an event like, this it's possible
also to wonder what will happen between performances
and across them.
And we also look forward to hearing about the conversations
and questions you will have after this symposium,
and how those inquiries will transform into your own work.
So poets have always turned to other art
forms for inspiration.
Branching out into other realms like film theater,
digital arts, and music.
In recent years, especially though
it seems that the value of performance as a poet and craft
element has gained new authority and importance.
The poets you'll see this weekend
are inventors and innovators in this multivalent literary
landscape.
I'll just talk briefly tonight about the performances
you're going to see.
Our artists will all be introduced
by some of our favorite local poets,
and writers, and artists.
And afterwards, we'll hold a Q&A.
So you can have a chance to ask the questions.
Tonight, we present sonic lens featuring the three artists
who engage with audio visual elements
as conceptual constraints in diverse ways
and who each address different manifestations
of the unknowable.
For instance, sonic or filmic violences
can have political, visceral, and/or spiritual, even
mystical implication.
Aural layering as poetic craft element
takes a primary role, whether a soundtrack sampling,
or inflection, whether melodic, harmonic, or dissonant.
The relationship sound has to project
or imagined image is amplified and purposefully complicated.
Their text image problem rendered here in hybrid form
becomes the poet's new syntax.
Tonight, Christine Hume will perform
her sculpted soundscapes in a 3D DJ play of labyrinth
of political sampling.
And Claudia Rankine continues in her walk.
The walk of political and social engagement as they
best meet her poetry expansive personally transformative
facts.
In this case, manifesting form as an essay.
Cecilia Vicuna purposefully works with her environment
to engage in touch the energy of the audience and the place
she's in in order to shape her poem song
into a chanting tramps made of chants.
And tomorrow is packed again with classes, panels, parties,
talks, and workshops culminating with an evening of performances
at the Rogue, where poets will perform.
Miraculously diverse iterations of poets theater.
That's a term we're borrowing.
To include all those writers who engage
in the vocabulary of the stage, including voice projection,
sound props, and acting.
Sunday will promise to continue to dazzle with the panel
on righting the body.
A performance with poet librettist and performative
type biographer Douglas Kearney, and a screening
of original never yet seen home films and video essays by poets
from around the country, who were specifically
commissioned by the center for this symposium.
And finally, you will have a chance
for community discussion in an open forum led
by our own Joshua Marie Wilkinson.
So thank you so much for being here.
It's just a delight to have you here
to help us celebrate poetry off the page.
Welcome.