WEBVTT

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Thank you all for
being here tonight.

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Much of the work that
Letras Latinas does

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wouldn't be possible without
our institutional partnerships.

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In the case of Latino Poetry
Now, I'd like to single out,

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first off, the Poetry
Society of America

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with whom this multi-year
initiative was conceived back

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in 2010.

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But no less crucial have
been our local partners.

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We launched Latino Poetry
Now in November of 2011

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in collaboration with
the Woodberry Poetry Room

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at Harvard University.

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In March of 2012, the Lannan
Center for Poetics and Social

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Practice hosted us at Georgetown
University in Washington, DC.

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Last October, we were
at Macalester College

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in St Paul, Minnesota, welcomed
by their English department.

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I mentioned these
specific collaborators

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because I'm a big
believer in documentation,

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which leads me to
briefly mention

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another facet of
this initiative.

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In addition to these
public multi-author events,

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we have also been facilitating
online roundtable discussions

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where we invite each group
of poets to write about their

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and each other's
work in dialogue.

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These textual conversations are
being published on the Poetry

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Society of America website.

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The one featuring tonight's
artists is still in the works,

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but we expect to
post it very soon.

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Tonight in a sense, we
inaugurate the homestretch

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in that this is the penultimate
installment of Latino Poetry

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Now, which concludes
in late October--

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next October at Notre Dame.

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We are thrilled to be here
in such a stunning space,

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and I'd like to take a
moment to thank the Poetry

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Center at the
University of Arizona,

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in particular Cybele
Knowles and Anne Doten.

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I contacted Cybele
well over a year ago,

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and I remember
thinking to myself

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that it felt like we
were planning a wedding.

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[LAUGHTER]

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A wedding with a twist in
that tonight's nuptials

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are a threesome.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And what a trio.

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You'll hear more about them
from Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

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But I'll close by saying that
when I curated tonight's slate,

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I was thinking of how
Latino poetry is becoming

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less and less predictable.

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And with that, I'll
turn things over

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to Josh, who graciously agreed
to introduce our three poets--

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J. Michael Martinez,
Carmen Gimenez Smith,

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and Roberto Tejada.

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[APPLAUSE]