What a beautiful introduction.
I ask for a copy of that one.
I'd like to know what I'm doing.
[LAUGHTER]
I want to thank the Poetry Center so much
for inviting me to read here.
In some ways, coming back-- coming to Tucson
brings me back full circle to family roots.
Both my grandfathers were part Native American and part
Mexican and were from Arizona.
And one grandfather, when his own father
died, my maternal grandfather-- father's father died,
ended up at age 10 living as a mission Indian
at the San Xavier mission for two years
until his mother remarried and he
was able to go-- to return to his family.
And he also worked in the mines as a sweeper at age
12 down in Bisbee.
So for me, when I was given my choice of where
I'd like to read when I came to Arizona
and I saw Bisbee on there, I thought, well,
if I'm coming to Tucson, then I must go to Bisbee.
So, at many different levels, I want
to thank you for inviting me and for all of you who were
instrumental in my coming here.
Thank you very much.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this opportunity.
I have a cold.
I've been told that my voice just sounds nice and husky,
so we'll go with that huskiness right now, won't we?
I'm going to read the first poem called "Cotton Rows, Cotton
Blankets," and for those of you who are students of the sonnet,
I'll have you know that it's the very first sonnet I ever
wrote that I felt was a successful sonnet.
And one of the reasons I'm so proud of it
was because when I was first ordered to write sonnets
as a graduate student, my first sonnet was basically an ode
to the tortilla, and I was told that that
wasn't a proper topic--
[INAUDIBLE]---- that that wasn't an appropriate topic--
a classical topic for the sonnet.
And I remember thinking but you said love poem,
and I don't know anything I love more than corn tortillas.
But he wouldn't accept that as a sonnet.
So when I started writing this poem,
it began with 13 lines and a lot of internal rhyme.
And I thought I tweak this sucker a little bit,
I could turn this one into a sonnet.
And when I got it, I immediately sent a copy
off to the professor who didn't approve of my sonnet
to the tortilla.
He says this one is one of his favorites.
"Cotton Rows, Cotton Blankets" Sprawled
on the back of a flatbed truck, we
cradled hoes, our minds parceling rows of cotton
to be chopped by noon.
Dawn stuck in the air.
Blackbirds rang the willows.
Ahead, a horse trailer stretched across the road.
Braced by youth and lengths of summer breeze,
we didn't give a damn.
We'd be late, we joked, stalled by a pregnant mare draped
in sheets.
Later, backs to the sun, bandanas
tied to shade our brows, hands laced with tiny cuts, later,
when the labor contractor worked us through lunch without water,
our dried tongues cursed that mare in cotton blankets,
brought to full in the outlines of summer.