I'd like to give my thanks for tonight's reading
to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese,
who've co-sponsored the visit by Ben Sáenz.
We're always happy to have the help and support
of other departments, especially when money is so tight here,
the U of A.
Ben Sáenz is the author of a book of poems,
Calendar of Dust, which won the 1992 Before Columbus Foundation
American Book Award.
A book of short fiction, Flowers for the Broken,
both published by Broken Moon Press.
A new book of poems will be out in the fall, Dark
and Perfect Angels.
Sáenz grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico,
earned a master's degree in theology from the University
of Leuven in Belgium, and a Master's in Creative Writing
from the University of Texas at El Paso.
After that, he was awarded a Stegner Fellowship in poetry
from Stanford and went on to work on a PhD there.
His writing, we've said, draws on his Chicano heritage
and on the desert landscape of the Southwest.
Perhaps it's more accurate to say
he draws into that landscape aspects of American history
which have gone largely unwritten.
His sources range from Navajo night chants
to graffiti on a Palo Alto restroom
to the history of Mexican farm workers.
He's a writer of witness, but he reaches
beyond simple documentation to seek out
within our brutal history the sources of healing.
Currently, he's teaching at the University of Texas at Paso
where he's starting the country's
first bilingual creative writing program.
We're delighted and honored that he's here.
Please welcome Ben Sáenz.
[APPLAUSE]