[APPLAUSE]
Hey, everyone.
It's great to see you all here.
So I'll get started.
"In a recent interview with The Collagist,
Josh Marie Wilkinson said something in response
to a complicated question about the ocean
with a capital O that really spoke to me.
I'm paraphrasing here, but you'll get the gist.
I don't really worry about the big images and concepts
that are overused.
If the work seems to need them, I want them in there.
I love metaphors that stretch.
I trust that incongruity will yield
its own pleasure, its own weird set of attractions.
Swamp Isthmus, his new book and second in the No Volta
pentology, is just that, a weird and dazzling set
of attractions.
I don't know how else to show you.
So I'll just tell you.
In the attention deficit fashion of my generation,
I've made a list titled, six things from Josh Marie
Wilkinson's new book that are so incongruous that you
won't understand just why you find them beautiful.
The alternative title for this list
is, six things from JMW's new book
that would make great tattoos.
[LAUGHTER]
One, a glass of lake.
Two, fat dinosaur plants surrounding wolves
on a raft of lilacs.
Three, mute lords with brandy.
Four, a slow wall of bees.
Five, the moon getting horrible in the yard.
And six, four dead cats under blackbirds in a row.
Catch up with me later if you think
BuzzFeed should have a literary review site because I'm on it.
We should make it happen.
[LAUGHTER]
It's rare that you get the chance to meet, to work with,
to introduce a poet who has, in both a remote and very present
way, influenced your own work.
In the introduction to 12 by 12: Conversations in 21st Century
Poetics, Wilkinson and co-editor Christina Mengert
discuss the formalized nature of learning
to write from other writers in an academic setting.
I've experienced this when I'm captured by Josh's lines.
And when I try to replicate their successes,
I learn from my travails in doing so.
With each attempt, I'm reminded how fantastic
it is to be in conversation with poets like Wilkinson
and how my attempts are really something more
of a collaboration with something much bigger
than myself.
When I think of Josh, I think of his lists.
When I began at the U of A, he was there
with a compendium of very, very helpful lists, lists
of journals in the Poetry Center, handbooks,
must-read books, book lists, frequently
asked questions, a tome of inventive writing exercises.
These lists gave me a scaffolding
to parse my new world with so I could return to the keyboard
ready, so I can navigate the stacks here with ease,
so I could teach with confidence.
The fact that he was compelled to create these lists
demonstrates that Josh, like his poetry, is exacting.
He accumulates and values each detail.
And when everything is in its right place,
he then has the room to show us, as Dawn Lundy Martin puts
it, everything you've ever imagined wanting
but didn't know how to see.
It is this art of organization and compartmentalization
that helps us really understand our world,
so that we may be more fully present, so that we're
able to trace the incongruities to see the satisfying
contradictions and appreciate the leap and the just
falling short of it all.
For those hankering for the details,
yes, I've compiled them.
Josh Marie Wilkinson is prolific.
So here are my few words on his accomplishments.
He's the author of six collections of poetry,
most recently Swamp Isthmus, out from Black Ocean
Press this year.
He's the editor of five print anthologies
available forthcoming or otherwise underway.
And he lives here in Tucson, where he teaches too.
He's the founding editor of The Volta and Letter Machine
Editions."
Please join me in welcoming Josh Marie Wilkinson.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]