WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.750 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.750 --> 00:00:04.170 align:middle line:90% And now Terese Svoboda. 00:00:04.170 --> 00:00:08.189 align:middle line:84% Some poets can carry into their prose 00:00:08.189 --> 00:00:11.100 align:middle line:84% that primary sense of the language that 00:00:11.100 --> 00:00:14.190 align:middle line:84% makes poetry poetry, and in this process, 00:00:14.190 --> 00:00:17.700 align:middle line:84% make work that liberates us from the constraints of genre 00:00:17.700 --> 00:00:20.670 align:middle line:84% altogether, and reminds us that prose 00:00:20.670 --> 00:00:24.720 align:middle line:84% need not attempt to be transparent to its information. 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:27.270 align:middle line:84% It's the case with Terese Svoboda's work. 00:00:27.270 --> 00:00:30.330 align:middle line:84% Her prose arrives in the full consciousness 00:00:30.330 --> 00:00:33.030 align:middle line:84% of its own physical and musical being. 00:00:33.030 --> 00:00:36.160 align:middle line:84% And with a poet's respect for concise effect, 00:00:36.160 --> 00:00:39.840 align:middle line:84% and with a fine hand at litany, that repetition 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:42.450 align:middle line:84% that intensifies, rather than diminishes 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:44.220 align:middle line:90% the effect of language. 00:00:44.220 --> 00:00:47.040 align:middle line:84% Listen to this, an evocation of rain 00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:52.710 align:middle line:84% in the tropics from her novel called A Drink Called Paradise. 00:00:52.710 --> 00:00:55.530 align:middle line:84% "The day before-- the day before the next time 00:00:55.530 --> 00:01:01.020 align:middle line:84% the boat should come it rains in a release like a latch broken. 00:01:01.020 --> 00:01:04.440 align:middle line:84% And then it rains the week away, and then the next. 00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:08.310 align:middle line:84% Here lashes the tale of a typhoon and the typhoon's 00:01:08.310 --> 00:01:10.680 align:middle line:90% brother, and what else, I worry. 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:15.600 align:middle line:84% Rain and its typhoon approach or Barclays can make you worry. 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:19.560 align:middle line:84% Today it's rain you can't lift your hand in. 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:21.360 align:middle line:84% All you're allowed in this kind of rain 00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:23.670 align:middle line:84% is one foot in front of the other, 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:28.320 align:middle line:84% and only just before the other foot disappears." 00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:32.940 align:middle line:84% Terese's work also has the exotic patina and alert 00:01:32.940 --> 00:01:37.020 align:middle line:84% eye of the traveler, in part a result of global assignments 00:01:37.020 --> 00:01:39.540 align:middle line:84% undertaken when she worked with the Smithsonian's National 00:01:39.540 --> 00:01:42.120 align:middle line:90% Anthropological Film Archives. 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:45.253 align:middle line:84% She is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The Nation. 00:01:45.253 --> 00:01:47.670 align:middle line:84% I think she just said there's a poem out soon in The Paris 00:01:47.670 --> 00:01:50.670 align:middle line:90% Review, other periodicals. 00:01:50.670 --> 00:01:52.325 align:middle line:84% Her documentaries and poetry videos 00:01:52.325 --> 00:01:53.700 align:middle line:84% have been exhibited at the Museum 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:58.950 align:middle line:84% of Modern Art, the American Film Institute, and on PBS. 00:01:58.950 --> 00:02:01.950 align:middle line:84% Her poetry includes a set of translations of songs 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:06.660 align:middle line:84% from the Nuer called Cleaned the Crocodile's Teeth, 00:02:06.660 --> 00:02:10.169 align:middle line:84% and three of her own books of poems, All Aberration, Mere 00:02:10.169 --> 00:02:12.510 align:middle line:84% Mortals, and Laughing Africa, which 00:02:12.510 --> 00:02:15.330 align:middle line:90% won the Iowa Prize in 1990. 00:02:15.330 --> 00:02:19.290 align:middle line:84% Her first novel Cannibal, called "a woman's Heart of Darkness" 00:02:19.290 --> 00:02:23.490 align:middle line:84% by Vogue magazine, no less, was listed by Spin magazine 00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:26.440 align:middle line:84% as one of the best novels in 1994. 00:02:26.440 --> 00:02:30.570 align:middle line:84% In 1999, Counterpoint published "A Drink Called Paradise" 00:02:30.570 --> 00:02:33.720 align:middle line:84% about a woman ad executive who finds more than she bargained 00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:35.430 align:middle line:90% for-- or actually less, maybe-- 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:39.390 align:middle line:84% on a remote island in the South Pacific as she seeks to enrich 00:02:39.390 --> 00:02:44.040 align:middle line:84% her copy for a soft drink called Paradise. 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:46.650 align:middle line:84% And in March of 2001, just coming up, 00:02:46.650 --> 00:02:49.380 align:middle line:84% Counterpoint will publish a new collection of stories 00:02:49.380 --> 00:02:52.290 align:middle line:90% by Terese called "Trailer Girl." 00:02:52.290 --> 00:02:54.780 align:middle line:84% Terese was among a circle of writers who worked in San 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:58.500 align:middle line:84% Francisco in what I might call its heyday in the early 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:02.070 align:middle line:84% '90s, and who have now scattered around the country-- 00:03:02.070 --> 00:03:05.400 align:middle line:84% Terese to New York, Ethan Canin to Iowa, 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:08.250 align:middle line:84% Fenton Johnson, myself, here to Tucson. 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:10.110 align:middle line:84% And so it's a distinct pleasure for me 00:03:10.110 --> 00:03:12.390 align:middle line:84% to see her again, to hear her work, 00:03:12.390 --> 00:03:15.180 align:middle line:84% and to bring her to this stage and to you. 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:18.150 align:middle line:84% So will you please give a warm southern Arizona 00:03:18.150 --> 00:03:21.140 align:middle line:90% welcome to Terese Svoboda? 00:03:21.140 --> 00:03:27.000 align:middle line:90%