My name is Tyler Meier, I'm the executive director here
at the Poetry Center.
And this night's event is the first reading
we've done since the Poetry Center was recognized as a 2014
recipient and the governor's Arts award in the community
category for this year.
[APPLAUSE]
We're really thrilled with this recognition
and truly it's an award that honors everybody that's here.
The community that participates, that
attends readings and classes and workshops,
that comes to the shop talks and the book clubs,
that shows up on family days to read the New April poetry
titles that are just out and purchase in the library.
From Graywolf, from Copper Canyon, or from Ugly Duckling,
or from Tavern Books, or from Cleveland State University
Press.
All of these presses, they're the people
who come and read these books.
They come and read the new issue of Fence Magazine,
or Poetry Magazine, or the Sonora Review.
The community that responds to our appeals for support
that volunteers, that pays attention
to this art that is such a peculiar way of seeing
and knowing, this art that is a community that
is a call to action.
It's a way of making some type of belief
out of the materials of our lives.
This art that is a house, so to all of you
and in recognition of this world and of this award,
welcome to this house.
This house, your house.
The Poetry Center in the end is the thing that we get to share
and I'm just really grateful to have a chance
to share it with all of you.
So thank you so much.
We're excited about that award, but really it's
a testament to all the things that we do together.
Tonight is also another very special
first that I'm excited to announce.
Tonight, we launched the inaugural reading
and The Hannelore Quander-Rattee Works-in-Translation series.
This is a new annual event that was
created in memory of Hannelore, by her husband Michael Rattee.
Each year, this event will feature translators of poetry,
international poets, and writers and scholars
working within the boundless possibilities of translation.
We are so thrilled to celebrate Hannelore's life
and remember her in this way and Michael
has helped make it possible.
Hannelore and Michael are fixtures of the poetry scene
in Tucson and Southern Arizona.
They moved here from New England in 1978
when Arizona was just becoming a state.
And for the next 30 plus years, they
took part in all aspects of what was happening here
with the written word.
Hannelore translated, she loved translating.
Gunter Eich and Heinrich Boll were favorites.
She worked with Michael as editor
of the Prickly Pear Tucson of Poetry Quarterly publication.
She helped direct the mosaic reading series.
She served on the Tucson Poetry Festival committee
for many years, a festival that just
came roaring back this last weekend at Hotel Congress.
I hope many of you were there to see that
and it's sort of come back in all its glory.
Her poems and translations were published
in numerous publications.
Most of all, however, when you go
through the archives at the Poetry Center
and you look at all the old photos--
and we've been really good at taking photos here in Tucson
of the poets who visit--
you'll recognize two faces that show up over and over again
in all of these photos and years and years and years.
And it's Michael's face and Hannelore's face.
And it's exciting for that reason alone, for all
of their participation in this place,
to inaugurate this reading tonight in her memory
and in her spirit and so I'm glad to do that tonight.
We're glad to do that tonight with Geoffrey Brock visiting.
Thank you so much, Michael, for helping us do this.
[APPLAUSE]
Two other quick thank yous.
The Department of French and Italian
has added some additional support for tonight's reading
and the UA Foundation has given the Poetry Center
a community connections grant that's help support the reading
series through the entire year.
So we're grateful for both of those sources of support
as well.
Books are available this evening.
There's no reason not to splurge on books,
go crazy after the reading.
They're all up here and I'm sure that Geoffrey will
be glad to sign them for you.
So please, avail yourself of those.
It's my pleasure now to welcome my friend, Tony Luebbermann,
who will introduce Geoffrey Brock.
Tony is a heartbeat of the Poetry Center.
He's a long time friend and supporter.
He is a docent, he's a front desk volunteer,
the current chair of the Poetry Center Development Committee,
and one of the best tour guides at the Poetry Center
and you should do this experience on a Monday morning.
Come visit and take a tour with Tony,
it's almost life changing!
I promise.
He's had almost every title here,
except executive director, which worries
me slightly for my own job.
He's previously served on the boards of Chax Press, POG,
and the Tucson Poetry Festival and he's
retired from a distinguished career in service and city
management here in Tucson.
He holds an MFA in Poetry from the Vermont College
of Fine Arts.
This is Tony Luebbermann.