Welcome.
It's such an honor to have you all here with us.
It's such a thrill.
It's a dream.
It's a dream come true.
I just want to welcome you to this symposium.
And I should just read this, right?
[LAUGHTER]
Gail's done all my thinking for me.
I just can't say enough about the support
we've gotten from our staff.
And I love you, and thank you.
So in the past, we've hosted other symposia
on the topics of Native voices and conceptual poetry.
And many of those events, I just wanted to let you know,
as well as these, can be viewed on our online audiovisual
collection called Voca.
This weekend, we've invited 18 writers here from all
over the country to present hybrid works of poetry that
engage theatrical, visual, and sonic elements offered
by other art forms.
You may call this symposium, conference, colloquium,
carnival, festival--
a spectacle.
The form of the weekend itself will
be a hybrid dynamic happening.
We will, perhaps, do more questioning than framing.
Our experience as audience members, no longer passive,
but integral in many cases to the making of the performance.
Many of the performances you will see
are sculpted, improvisatory pieces.
The artists creating work for you,
with you, and because of you.
In other cases, poets have generously
created work specifically for the symposium.
It's a rare opportunity for writers to be commissioned,
and we were really excited to be able to bring new, never
yet seen works to Tucson.
Work that poets will be presenting here
for the first time.
So questions we've been thinking about around
here at the Poetry Center are, of course--
what is the poem if it isn't written down?
When social space of the performance
is considered as publication, what becomes of the archive?
Or what does it newly become?
Does hybrid work become a kind of documentary poetry
when the source text is live improvisation?
When available technology changes the writing act,
what happens to the role of the poet?
And what are the implications for literary publishing
in the digital age?
How do performance devices of voice and recitation
play into the making or changing of sound or slam poetry?
And how is that different or informative
for practitioners of poet's theater?
For an event like this, it's possible
also to wonder what will happen between performances
and across them.
And we also look forward to hearing about the conversations
and questions you will have after this symposium
and how those inquiries will transform into your own work.
So poets have always turned to other art forms
for inspiration, branching out into other realms
like film, theater, digital art, and music.
In recent years especially though,
it seems that the value of performance as a poet and craft
element has gained new authority and importance.
The poets you'll see this weekend
are inventors and innovators in the small type vaillant
literary landscape.
I'll just talk briefly tonight about the performances
you're going to see.
Our artists will all be introduced
by some of our favorite local poets and writers and artists.
And afterwards, we'll hold a Q&A so you can have a chance
to ask some questions.
Tonight, we present Sonic Lens, featuring three artists who
engage with audio-visual elements
as conceptual constraints in diverse ways,
and who each address different manifestations
of the unknowable.
For instance, sonic or filmic [? valences ?]
can have political, visceral, and / or spiritual--
even mystical implications.
Aural layering as poetic craft element takes a primary role,
whether a soundtrack sampling or inflection;
whether melodic, harmonic, or dissonant, the relationship
sound has to projected or imagined image
is amplified and purposefully complicated.
Their text / image problem, rendered here in hybrid form,
becomes the poet's new syntax.
Tonight, Christine Hume will perform
her sculpted soundscapes in a 3D DJ
play of labyrinthal political sampling.
And Claudia Rankine continues in her walk-the-walk of political
and social engagement as they best meet her poetry--
expansive, personally transformative facts--
in this case manifesting as its own essay.
Cecilia Vicuña purposefully works with her environment
to engage and touch the energy of the audience and the place
she's in, in order to shape her poem song into a chanting
trance made of chants.
And tomorrow is packed again with classes, panels,
artist talks, and workshops--
culminating with an evening of performances
at the Rogue, where poets will perform miraculously diverse
iterations of poet's theater.
That's a term we're borrowing to include all those writers who
engage in the vocabulary of the stage,
including voice projection, sound, props, and acting.
Sunday will promise to continue to dazzle with the panel
on Writing the Body, a performance with poet
librettist and performative tech biographer Douglas Kearney,
and a screening of original never yet seen home films
and video essays by poets from around the country who
were specifically commissioned by the center
for this symposium.
And finally, you will have a chance
for community discussion in an open forum led
by our own Joshua Marie Wilkinson.
So, thank you so much for being here.
It's just a delight to have you here
to help us celebrate poetry off the page.
Welcome.
[APPLAUSE]