It's good to be back in Tucson.
I wanted to sort of-- you can probably
see claw marks all the way back to Albuquerque.
I'm going to grab onto as many saguaros and ocotillos
as I can on the way back, so there going
to be a little trail of cacti.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful sing is with us, songs.
Phenomenal editor Allison Hedge Coke, thank you.
University of Arizona Press, thank you so much.
You've been really wonderful to me.
And I told Patty earlier, I said, I'm still on that--
I'm still writing a lot of Shapeshift.
I'm still doing what I did, and I thank Patty
for helping me with that, with beginning that process.
It's pretty been pretty phenomenal, 6 years later or 10
or 7 years later or something.
I don't know.
But anyways, thank you also the Poetry Center.
Gail and Cybele, thank you.
I'm going to read "Calyx" from-- it's the opening poem in Sing.
And I'll read a few poems that are in here.
But I also want to read--
I really feel like I'm really compelled to share a poem
by the third person, I feel like,
who was with us at the beginning of that moment in Colombia
at the International Poetry Festival,
and his name is Hugo Jamioy, and he is Kamëntsa.
And I'll just read a couple of poems from him.
Really, really a phenomenal poet and just a generous soul.
And I really feel like, when I think back to that time,
his sincerity was so rich.
And I tried to reach that kind of place in my own self,
but I failed many times.