Hi, everyone.
Hey.
We're back.
Welcome, everyone.
I'm Diana Delgado.
I'm the literary director of the Poetry Center.
And I'm honored tonight to host and present
Ada Limon as part of our Art for Justice
Initiative in our reading and lecture series.
So let's give a warm welcome for Ada.
[APPLAUSE]
As you can see, I came up with two pages.
So I'm just going to try and get through this
just as quickly as possible.
But we do want to remind you about an upcoming reading
and talk a little bit about the Art for Justice Initiative.
So a little bit more about Art for Justice.
This night's presentation is part of a three-year grant
funded project that commissions new work from leading writers
to explore the relationship between poetry
and the crisis of mass incarceration in our country.
And this is all in the hopes of creating a new kind of thinking
with different possibilities.
Ada Limon tonight will be introduced
by Sarah Jemski, who is a poet, embroiderer and book designer.
She's the managing editor of Noemi Press and the publicity
and publication specialist at the University
of Arizona Poetry Center.
More.
Ada, will be reading her manuscripts,
poems written specifically and never heard before
and never read prior.
Poems written specifically for this evening
and we are grateful to the Ford Foundation for their support.
As part of our initiative, we're also continuing our spotlight
on local and regional nonprofit organizations
and artists working to advance issues
related to carceral justice.
Tonight, we'll be hearing from Lola Rainey, who
is a retired lawyer, poet and community
activist in Tucson, Arizona.
Lola is a regional organizer with the National Bail Fund
Network and the Community Justice Exchange
where she works on issues related
to public accountability and participation.
And she also works with organizations
across the country on building abolitionist principles
in their organizing practice.
Lola Rainey is the founder and director of the Tucson Second
Chance Community Bail Fund and it's a revolving bail fund
that is working to end pretrial detention and mass supervision
in Pima County and beyond.
A little more about Lola Rainey.
She's also the author of numerous articles
on the issue of racial and social justice,
the author of a children's picture book,
and a book of literary fiction.
Which, she has a table set up outside,
so you can stop by there a little bit after the reading
to take a look.
And she also has T-shirts which I saw, which look amazing.
Her poems have appeared in several literary journals
and poetry anthologies.
Darkness in the Margins, her newest poetry collection,
which I believe is out front, was
published in July of this year.
And she is a founding member of the Arizona Cotton Pickers
Poetry Tour.
Before I invite Sarah Jemski up, I just
want to remind everyone that we have a little bit of a break
because we're going to be doing some traveling here
at the Poetry Center.
So our next reading that we're hosting
will be Hanif Abdurraqib and that
will be on Thursday, March 25 at 7:00 PM at the Poetry Center.
OK.
We will have books for sale after, a signing
and potentially a Q&A time permitting.
So I want to welcome Sarah Jemski up.
Oh, I'm sorry, Lola Rainey.
Thank you, I'm so sorry.
See, I knew I was going to get confused.
[LAUGHTER]
Welcome, Lola.
[APPLAUSE]