WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Hey, everyone.

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It's great to see you all here.

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So I'll get started.

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"In a recent interview
with The Collagist,

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Josh Marie Wilkinson said
something in response

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to a complicated
question about the ocean

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with a capital O that
really spoke to me.

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I'm paraphrasing here,
but you'll get the gist.

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I don't really worry about
the big images and concepts

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that are overused.

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If the work seems to need
them, I want them in there.

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I love metaphors that stretch.

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I trust that
incongruity will yield

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its own pleasure, its own
weird set of attractions.

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Swamp Isthmus, his new book
and second in the No Volta

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pentology, is just that,
a weird and dazzling set

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of attractions.

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I don't know how
else to show you.

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So I'll just tell you.

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In the attention deficit
fashion of my generation,

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I've made a list titled,
six things from Josh Marie

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Wilkinson's new book that
are so incongruous that you

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won't understand just why
you find them beautiful.

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The alternative
title for this list

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is, six things
from JMW's new book

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that would make great tattoos.

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[LAUGHTER]

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One, a glass of lake.

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Two, fat dinosaur plants
surrounding wolves

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on a raft of lilacs.

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Three, mute lords with brandy.

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Four, a slow wall of bees.

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Five, the moon getting
horrible in the yard.

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And six, four dead cats
under blackbirds in a row.

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Catch up with me
later if you think

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BuzzFeed should have a literary
review site because I'm on it.

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We should make it happen.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's rare that you get the
chance to meet, to work with,

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to introduce a poet who has, in
both a remote and very present

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way, influenced your own work.

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In the introduction to 12 by 12:
Conversations in 21st Century

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Poetics, Wilkinson and
co-editor Christina Mengert

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discuss the formalized
nature of learning

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to write from other writers
in an academic setting.

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I've experienced this when
I'm captured by Josh's lines.

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And when I try to
replicate their successes,

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I learn from my
travails in doing so.

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With each attempt, I'm
reminded how fantastic

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it is to be in conversation
with poets like Wilkinson

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and how my attempts are
really something more

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of a collaboration with
something much bigger

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than myself.

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When I think of Josh,
I think of his lists.

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When I began at the
U of A, he was there

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with a compendium of very,
very helpful lists, lists

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of journals in the
Poetry Center, handbooks,

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must-read books, book
lists, frequently

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asked questions, a tome of
inventive writing exercises.

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These lists gave
me a scaffolding

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to parse my new world with so
I could return to the keyboard

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ready, so I can navigate
the stacks here with ease,

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so I could teach
with confidence.

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The fact that he was compelled
to create these lists

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demonstrates that Josh, like
his poetry, is exacting.

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He accumulates and
values each detail.

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And when everything
is in its right place,

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he then has the room to show
us, as Dawn Lundy Martin puts

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it, everything you've
ever imagined wanting

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but didn't know how to see.

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It is this art of organization
and compartmentalization

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that helps us really
understand our world,

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so that we may be more
fully present, so that we're

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able to trace the incongruities
to see the satisfying

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contradictions and appreciate
the leap and the just

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falling short of it all.

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For those hankering
for the details,

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yes, I've compiled them.

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Josh Marie Wilkinson
is prolific.

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So here are my few words
on his accomplishments.

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He's the author of six
collections of poetry,

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most recently Swamp Isthmus,
out from Black Ocean

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Press this year.

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He's the editor of
five print anthologies

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available forthcoming
or otherwise underway.

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And he lives here in Tucson,
where he teaches too.

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He's the founding editor of
The Volta and Letter Machine

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Editions."

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Please join me in welcoming
Josh Marie Wilkinson.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]