Hello, everyone.
Welcome.
We're glad you're here on a breezy Tucson day, a very
beautiful Tucson day.
Thanks for choosing to be here at the Poetry Center.
We're so excited about what we're doing here today.
We're celebrating the opening reception for an exhibit
that we're cohosting here at the Poetry Center with the Poetry
Foundation, a group out of Chicago, one
of our peers on a national level for what we're doing here
at the Poetry Center.
And we're just so thrilled about collaborating
with them for this particular installation and exhibit
that we're doing here at the Poetry Center.
This exhibit is called "Shame Every
Rose, Images from Afghanistan."
It includes images that are taken by the photographer
Seamus Murphy, as well as the landay couplet form.
And you'll hear more about that tonight.
This is a form that I know through reading
and that I'm excited to hear from people who are more expert
than me about.
But this is a form that has been translated, transcribed,
by Eliza Griswold.
There's good news and bad news about Eliza,
and I'll get to that in a second.
But I just want to quickly say is that we have visitors who
are here from the Poetry Foundation
that I just want to acknowledge.
Again, this wouldn't be possible without their support,
major supporters of this exhibit in particular.
And so Robert Polito is here from the Poetry Foundation.
He's the president here in the front row.
We're so happy to have him here.
[APPLAUSE]
Katherine Litwin is here.
Katherine is the librarian at the Poetry Foundation.
She's right here as well.
[APPLAUSE]
She brought her beautiful, four-month-old daughter
Jolene with her, who is wonderful, who is not here,
who is sleeping.
And it's not because this will be boring.
It's just because she's a baby.
And then also we have with us Fred Sasaki.
Fred is the art director for Poetry Magazine
and an agitator for many good things at the Poetry Foundation
as I've learned, as he's been here,
so Fred Sasaki is here as well.
So thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you to the Poetry Foundation for that support.
They originally commissioned and helped
publish the first part of this.
This is from Poetry Magazine that--
the part that led to what this exhibit is.
And this is a collection that includes the translated landays
as well as images from Seamus Murphy's
work as a photographer.
And the exhibit has grown out of this.
This magazine-- this issue of the magazine has sold out,
and it has grown into this, which
is a book that's just out from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
The hardcover has been out for a while.
This is the paperback copy that we were
lucky to arrange to have here.
The paperback doesn't come out for a few more weeks,
so-- but they sent them to Tucson.
This is called I Am the Beggar of the World.
Copies of this book will be for sale afterwards across the way.
So we're, again, very, very excited about this,
excited about the history for how
this has happened, and excited to have this
here at the Poetry Center.
I would be remiss also if I did not
think Wendy Burk, the Poetry Center's librarian, who
made initial connections to get this exhibit to travel here.
Wendy, where are you?
You are right there.
[APPLAUSE]
So, yeah.
Eternally grateful for Wendy's creativity, her wisdom,
and her interest in all things poetry
and how to make good things happen here in Tucson.
And so she makes me very good at my job,
and I'm thankful to Wendy on most days, almost every day.
Thank you.
[LAUGHTER]
Every day.
Don't ask me how to catalogue books.
This is why Wendy is amazing.
I also want to thank the Center for Middle Eastern studies
and the Office for Continuing and Professional Education
housed in the Office of Global Initiatives
for their additional support of the event this evening.
We have two upcoming events at the center
that I'll just brief you on quickly
before getting out of the way.
One is March 11 in the Hillman Audium,
is our space just out front here, where the window
cantilevers out over.
There will be a reading and talk entitled "Women Writing War".
And this will feature poets Somaya Ramesh and Farzana
Marie.
This will be at 5:00 PM.
This is, again, March 11, 5:00 PM, Hillman Odeum.
You can learn more from the flyers
that we have that are over in the reception?
The flyers will be in the reception?
Over here.
On the table over here.
You can find more on the flyers on the table over here.
The next night, on March 12, we have the next reading
in our Poetics and Politics series.
Ofelia Zepeda will be reading.
And that will be 7:00 PM here in this room at the Poetry Center.
The bad news about Eliza is that she could not
get out of New York City to be here today,
and the weather was impossible.
Flights were canceled, and it just could not happen.
The good news is she's recorded some remarks
and sent them to us.
And so we're excited to show those to you this evening.
And so we'll have Eliza's comments about this
and what she's excited about in being here.
Seamus Murphy's here, which we're really pleased.
He beat the storm, which is a good thing to beat.
It's my pleasure to introduce Fred Sasaki--
again, the art director at Poetry Magazine.
And he's going to come introduce what
you will hear about afterwards.
And then we'll have some comments
and then we'll have a screening, a talk, some questions.
Then we'll move over to reception
and go through the exhibit for ourselves
with some wine and some cookies.
We're glad you're here.
Without further ado, Fred Sasaki.
Thank you.