My name is Cybele Knowles. I'm the coordinator of The Poetry
Center's reading and lecture series.
And tonight we're very excited to present our annual Next
Word in Poetry reading featuring poets Katherine Larson
and Jeffrey Yang.
In curating this event, we permit
ourselves to be guided by any and all definitions of the word
next.
Some Next Word poets are emerging poets,
the next big thing.
Some Next Word poets are the innovative poets
who lead us to new spaces in poetry and poems.
Most Next Word poets embody the word
next in a number of different ways.
And that is true for tonight's readers, Katherine and Jeffrey.
Jeffrey has come all the way from New York.
And Katherine is a hometown girl.
But both are very exciting poets.
Both have a very strong interest in what you
can call either the natural world
or the many manifestations of life.
And by the way, it's really totally a coincidence
that both Katherine and Jeffrey have a book with cover art
by 19th century polymath Ernst Haeckel.
That wasn't part of our plan.
Or at least, that wasn't part of any plan
that we were aware we were a part of.
How it will work is Katherine will read for 20 minutes,
and then Jeffrey will read for 20 minutes.
And they'll be introduced by students in the UA Creative
Writing MFA program who are poets themselves.
So I'll introduce both introducers now
so I can just leave the podium.