Now, please welcome Poetry Center program coordinator
and curator of this month's multilingual programs,
Renee Angle.
[APPLAUSE]
If you just bear with me one minute,
I have an image that should come up here.
It's coming.
OK.
Months ago, the Poetry Center contacted four poets--
[INAUDIBLE]
--with a complicated schematic for--
Renee.
[INAUDIBLE]
It'll go away.
[LAUGHTER]
[INAUDIBLE]
I'm just going to-- you know, you
don't want to be up here with me forever.
[LAUGHTER]
Months ago, the Poetry Center contacted four poets
with a complicated schematic for a series of translated poems
that would attempt to sew several languages, some
of which are endangered, into the same space.
Each poet would provide a single poem--
15 lines or less--
and then translate to other poems not of their own.
The end result is a chain link of translation,
each poet's poem appearing in three separate languages.
The project features poems in a total of five languages--
English, Spanish, Diné, Tohono O'odham, and Zapotec.
And this is a little sketch of one of our brainstorm meetings.
[LAUGHTER]
To their credit, none of the poets
said the proposal was too hard, even though it kind of was.
[LAUGHTER]
Our request presented serious difficulties, some of which
can be explained away in the inherent problems
of translation--
a process that is, at its best, inexact,
full of gap, dissonance, discord.
During the months leading up to the reading,
I received many emergency room phone calls, if you will,
from more than one of the poets.
The sense of urgency that accompanied their queries
about the words on the page, for me, created a tone or a mood
for the project which was underscored
when the poems started showing up in my inbox.
Each one evoked images of water and that wasn't planned.
[LAUGHTER]
The results of this attempt and the poets' experience
of the experience I'll let speak for itself,
but the original intention of this project
is best described by translator and poet
Jen Hofer when she suggests translation
is a window into another culture--
A two-way mirror providing simultaneously a view out
and a view in, doubling our attention back onto our own
language and literature and ways of thinking poetry,
even as it illuminates-- however partially and shadowed
or stuttered or scattered light--
poetic practice elsewhere.
As Gail mentioned in her welcome, the poets with us
tonight are not only good friends of the Poetry Center
but their linguistic roots are lexically tied to Tucson.
At the same time, they work beyond the city limits.
Natalia Toledo's inclusion in this project
certainly represents that.
And while she could not be with us tonight,
her words and shadow thoughts abound.
The finished project is a handmade folio
made by Karla Elling of Mummy Mountain Press.
She's a book artist and a paper maker from Paradise Valley,
and she's here with us tonight.
There's a table right over here.
You have to go visit because this book is amazing.
It's mouthwatering, it's-- will make you cry.
And she's going to maybe speak a little bit after the reading
about the project.
The materials she uses to make the book, and the paper alone,
have a story that is just amazing.
So now, I'd like to introduce our fabulous poets the order
will be Sherwin Bitsui, Ofelia Zepeda, Alberto Ríos.
There will be no introductions or additional comments
between readers.
And after the reading, the poets will
be happy to sign your books.
And there are some for sale, courtesy of the UA bookstore,
in the back.
Sherwin Bitsui is an Arizona poet,
originally from White Cone, Arizona
on the Navajo reservation.
He now lives in Tucson, Arizona.
His works include Shapeshift and the critically acclaimed Flood
Song.
Ofelia Zepeda is a Tohono O'odham poet and professor
of linguistics at the University of Arizona.
Her works include Where Clouds Are Formed , Ocean Power,
Home Places--
Contemporary Native American Writing
from Sun Tracks, A Papago Grammar, and When it Rains--
A Papago and Pima Poetry.
Alberto Álvaro Ríos, originally from Nogales, Arizona,
is a regents Professor of English at the Arizona State
University.
He has published many volumes of poetry,
including The Dangerous Shirt, The Theater of the Night,
and The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, which
was a finalist for the National Book Award.
He is also a writer of fiction and nonfiction.
Please help me welcome our guests.
[APPLAUSE]