WEBVTT

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Good evening.

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I'm Alison Deming, director
of the Poetry Center,

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and I'd like to welcome you to
the continuation of our Fall

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Reading Series.

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I have a few
announcements of events

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that you may be interested
in, in the community.

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This, just handed to me, on
November 1st, an Ed Abbey

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celebration and reading
and book signing--

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Ed's coming back.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Whoo.

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November 1st, 7:30 here, this
is an evening in honor of Abbey

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with Jim Cahalan, who's just
published a new Abbey biography

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with the U of A Press.

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Joining the biographer will
be Katie Lee, Richard Shelton,

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Susan Zakin, Robert
Houston, and Charles Bowden.

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Story, song, discussion of
Abbey's legacy and all in all,

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a festive night.

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[CHUCKLES] So that's
November 1st here.

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Our next reading will be
Wednesday, November 14th.

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The Navajo poet, Rex Lee
Jim will be here at 8:00.

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And in the POG community
series, the next reading

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will be this Sunday by our
own beloved Jon Anderson,

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and that will be Sunday,
2:00 PM at the U of A Museum.

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Final announcement for
undergraduates, the Hattie

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Lockett Awards for poets
in their senior year

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is now accepting submissions.

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This is an opportunity
for students

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to win recognition and actual
cash for their poems, $500.

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There will be four $500 awards.

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So please stop by the Poetry
Center, or the English

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Department to find
out what to do

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to send your poems in for
consideration for those awards.

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Well, as is our custom, I want
to thank the people who make

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this reading series possible.

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Some of them are those we
call the friends of the Poetry

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Center, people like you who come
to readings and donate funds

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to keep the series going.

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Also the Arizona
Commission on the Arts,

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and the University of Arizona
Foundation, our thanks to them.

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Our thanks as well to the
U of A Bookstore, which

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will be selling WS Di Piero's
books after the reading,

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and he'll be very happy
to sign them for you.

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For those of you who are
interested, in particular,

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in hearing Di Piero, in
an informal setting, talk

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about his work,
writing on art, there's

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going to be a
colloquium tomorrow

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morning open to students
and general public.

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That's at 10:30 at
the Alumni Building

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on the corner of
Cherry and Speedway.

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So please come to that as well.

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I'm extremely
pleased and honored

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to be able to
introduce our visitor

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to you tonight because
he's not only one

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of my most respected colleagues,
but one of my dearest friends.

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WS Di Piero grew up in
an Italian working class

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neighborhood in
South Philadelphia.

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He's the author of
seven books of poetry,

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including The Restorers in
1992, Shadows Burning in 1995,

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and this year, Skirts and
Slacks published by Knopf.

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He's published three highly
regarded books of essays

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on art and experience,
titled Shooting

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the Works, Out of Eden,
and Memory and Enthusiasm.

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He's published
translations of works

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by Euripides, Leopardi,
Sinisgalli, among others.

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And his work has won many
honors, including a Guggenheim

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Fellowship and the Lila
Wallace-Reader's Digest Award.

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He contributes regularly
to the Threepenny Review,

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and is an art reviewer for the
San Diego Reader, as well as

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writing art catalog
essays, coming

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to his art writing as
an experiencer of art

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rather than as a
scholar or critic.

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In Show It Again, a column
written for the San Francisco

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Chronicle in response to the
events of September 11th, Di

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Piero says, "Our words
are meant to master

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what would otherwise master
us, even while what we say--

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what we continue to say is
that words can't describe,

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can't master the
enormity of reality.

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Hannah Arendt once wrote
that we humanize the world

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not by living in it but
by talking about it.

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I'd add that it's how we
restore the world to ourselves,

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and ourselves to the world.

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I've turned to Di
Piero's writing

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into his friendship
for many years

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as a kind of artistic ballast.

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His work mediates
between two impulses--

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the street smart work
of stripping language

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of pretense, dishonesty,
and disguise,

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and the metaphysical work of
articulating the intensities

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of consciousness so that the
tarnished world can again

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shine.

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What I love about his work,
what calls me back to it,

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is the muscularity
of the language,

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the passionate [AUDIO OUT]
mind, and the enactment

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again and again of what seems
an impossible relationship

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between reality and mystery.

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When I worry that my own writing
has too promiscuously fallen

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in love with beauty, or too
cynically failed to do so,

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I think of Di
Piero's work, and his

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is the voice of artistic
integrity that guides me.

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Rosanna Warren says,
quoting one of his poems,

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this art teaches us how
to "tell true mystery

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from merely
ornamental harmonies."

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Please join me in
welcoming WS Di Piero.

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[APPLAUSE]

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