[MUSIC PLAYING]
When you walk in the door, something strikes you.
When I walked in, I thought, I must
have to have some kind of card, or maybe
I would have to pay something.
And when I realized that it was free
and that I could come any time, it's
one of the things I tell people about when I talk about Tucson.
The Poetry Center could be anywhere in the world.
And we are so lucky to have it here
on the University of Arizona campus and in Tucson.
Well, Ruth was a very elegant woman.
And she was very well read.
And she wrote poetry.
She and her husband had put out a magazine
called The Tiger's Eye.
But she felt that she wanted to create a place
and this would be a kind of poetry refuge.
That little house was so wonderful.
Everybody loved staying there.
It was such a joy.
Robert Frost came out with a graduate student
to dedicate the center in 1960.
I met him at the train station.
I had the great fortune of introducing
Robert Frost at his presentation at what
was then our auditorium, someday to become Centennial Hall.
I came to the Poetry Center in 1990.
It was clear to me that the history of the center
was so remarkable, that there was nothing like this anywhere
in the country, and it deserved the kind of home
that Ruth Stephan had originally imagined for it.
The collection was growing faster than the space
we had to accommodate it.
We had a lot of books in storage.
It was very clear that we needed to have a large and permanent
space so that we could have these works
available to the general public, as well as to students
and faculty at the University.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It was quite a challenge.
We have the collections.
We have readings.
There's the humanity seminars program,
so there's a lot of different aspects and functions
to this building.
That's one thing that's just marvelous about this place
is the diversity, the prose series.
It's a joy to walk in and see little kids playing
and writing.
We really feel at home here.
This feels like a place where I've come home.
You meet fellow writers.
And there's a place for you here.
I'm excited about the program you have with your book club.
One of the things that sets it apart
is its inclusiveness of more than just
having books on the shelves.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Along the slim body of the light, the narrow body
that would otherwise--
It is hard going to the door, cut so small in the wall
where the vision, which echoes loneliness,
brings a scent of wild flowers--
Whatever it was, that night in my dream--
First love lies deep in the graves--
Won't you celebrate with me--
If the heart had a brain, there we
would find it eating its plain--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
--is the only tangible hope.
The blistering blitzkrieg ignites--
--Sunday edition, while they lie around
on their couches like poets and study the human condition.
What I'm excited about this audio video library
project is that not only have we been able to preserve all
of these recordings, we've also been
able to make them available to anyone in the world.
You can search by author, by date, by title poem.
So you can either hear a reading that took place
in the 1960s or '70s or watch a video that we
recorded in 2000 or beyond.
So this really transforms the idea
of what a poetry library is.
This was, from the beginning, a collaboration
between the university and a private donor who had a vision
and wanted to do something for poetry.
And that relationship between private resources,
people who have passionate concern for the arts
and for poetry, and the public resources of education that
want to bring these great artists to the community
will continue to keep us vital and strong.
Students share, the parents share,
the people coming in to learn, it
gives you a lift for living more vibrantly in the world.
[MUSIC PLAYING]