Hello, everyone.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
We're glad you're here.
Thanks for coming out.
Tucson has flipped its weather patterns.
It's now cold.
Many of you grabbed surveys on the way in.
There's a request for mittens next week.
So we'll have them for you if we can.
Happy post-Election Day.
Also, we get our commercials back
and our street corners back, which is perhaps exciting.
Thank God.
It is also a chance, if you didn't
get to vote in the election you can still vote for the Poetry
Center, if you're interested.
It is our fall appeal season.
And so if you are able-- if part of what you think about when
you think about what you want to support the poetry center's
on that list.
These envelopes over on the table over here on my right.
And so we appreciate your support.
We're grateful for it.
It helps us do all the things that we do.
Your vote-- you can still vote for the Poetry Center.
We don't have any signs.
I will be your sign this evening.
So you can imagine my request.
That's as close as I'm going to come to being a politician
ever.
So we've got that over with.
Speaking of politicians, you've come tonight
to hear this reading.
This is called the lecture--
The lecture that you're hearing.
I'm sorry, not the reading of the lecture.
The conspiracy simile, the assassination
of JFK, the assassination of poetry,
or how I discovered I was writing cover story poetics.
Be excited.
This is coming very soon.
And this lecture is coming to us from my friend Thomas Sayers
Ellis who's been living with us here in Tucson for the past two
weeks--
writing poems, hanging out with us, talking about poetry,
thinking about poetry, and taking a lot of pictures.
Thomas is also a really incredible photographer.
There are two events next week that I want to make sure
that you guys know about.
Visiting with us next week is the poet Robin Robertson, .
A Scottish poet who's coming here to Tucson.
He'll be reading on Thursday at 7:00 o'clock
here at the Poetry Center.
And if you want a primer on Robin's work
before he gets here, on Monday night my colleague,
Julie Lauterbach-Colby will be leading the shop talk here
in this room.
Those are usually on Tuesdays, but they'll
be on Monday of next week because of the holiday
for Veterans Day.
And that's at 6 o'clock here.
No experience necessary you can just come and get
a sort of a primer or understanding of Robin's work
before he comes on Thursday to read.
So mark your calendars for that.
That's next week.
After the lecture tonight there will be a Q&A. Come in.
Don't be afraid.
There's lots of seats.
There'll be a Q&A afterwards.
You guys are responsible for the questions.
And books will be for sale up in front.
And those are 20% off at the front
if you buy them tonight and.
Thomas will be happy to sign them,
so be excited about that, as well.
There were surveys this evening as you guys came in.
Please take the time to fill them out.
The surveys help us quite a bit.
They help us when we both report on
and apply for foundation funding.
And so if you-- as compensation for that,
if you turn it in I understand--
I don't know where I put it.
Here's where it is.
There are little buttons that have been made, but.
Each of the buttons has been created from a photo
that Thomas took while he was here in Tucson.
So--
Woo-hoo.
Wow.
--be excited.
You can be your own sign.
Vote Poetry Center.
So these are available.
If you want to see the photos in bigger sizes
they're on the Poetry Center's Facebook page right now.
Thomas's Facebook page has many, many of his photos,
beautiful photos.
So please fill out the survey this evening,
turn those in, perhaps get a button.
So we're grateful.
It's my pleasure to introduce Sam Ace who
will introduce Thomas.
Sam is also a tremendous poet and a tremendous photographer.
So this is only fitting.
Please welcome Sam Ace.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]