Hello, everyone.
We'll go ahead and get started.
Welcome to the Poetry Center.
My name is Cybele Knowles, and I'm
the coordinator of the Poetry Center's reading and lecture
series.
And we are delighted to be kicking off our spring semester
with a week-long visit from poet David Rivard.
I feel like this is blocking me.
OK.
In addition to presenting tonight's talk
about the legacy of the New York School,
David will read from his poetry this Thursday, 7:00 PM,
in this room.
And I hope you can all make it back for that.
It's going to be wonderful.
Before we dive in, I just have a few announcements.
First of all, we're grateful to the NEA
and to the Poetry Center's private donors
for making all our reading and lecture series events possible.
As you know if you've looked at our spring calendar,
we have many wonderful events.
It's action-packed.
And too many events to mention here, except just one--
I would say, if you are a poetry fan,
you should definitely buy tickets for Love Notes.
This is a performance that is created
in collaboration between the School of Dance and the Poetry
Center.
It's going to be taking place over at the Stevie Eller
theater the week of Valentine's Day, February 14 through 17th.
It will feature dance, music, and poetry
in all sorts of combinations--
including poet Richard Siken reading poems from Crush,
set to music composed especially for this occasion.
So it is a never to be repeated because we
don't have time-- meeting of the minds,
and I highly recommend it.
Speaking of buying, I also want to draw your attention
to the fact that we have David's books available for sale
over there, 20% off the cover price.
And David will be happy to sign those for you
after the talk tonight.
Also, we're surveying tonight.
And you should have gotten a handout that
goes along with the lecture--
in addition to that handout, a survey.
We'd love to get your feedback not just on tonight's event,
but how you feel about the lectures and the reading
series.
We've made an effort this year to schedule
more than we have been.
Do you like that?
What topics would you like to have lectures on?
Let us know.
Along those lines, I thought I'd tell you how
tonight's lecture came about.
So we had invited David to come and read at the Poetry Center.
We were really excited about that.
Then, we were reading the Writer's Chronicle,
and there was an article by Tony Hoagland about the New York
School.
And in this article was one very pithy quote from David.
And we really liked that quote.
And we love the New York School.
So we asked if he would like to speak
about the legacy of the New York School.
And he said, yes.
And we were happy.
David, as you probably know, is the author
of five books of poetry, titled Otherwise Elsewhere,
Sugar Town, Bewitched Playground, Wise Poison,
and Torque.
He teaches in the University of New Hampshire MFA Program.
And he's an alum of the University of Arizona Creative
Writing MFA Program.
So please help me welcome David back to Tucson.
[APPLAUSE]