WEBVTT

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On behalf of the
Poetry Center, I'd

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like to welcome you to the
continuation of our reading

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series.

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I have a few
announcements to make

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of upcoming events
in the community

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and in our series that
may be of interest to you.

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Our next reading
will be two weeks

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from tonight on October 17th.

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It's an invitational
undergraduate reading,

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and it will feature readings
by Sherwin Bitsui, Paul Tsu,

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Melinda Caroline, Eric
Higgins, Jocelyn Goodman,

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and April Greengard.

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So that will be here,
8 o'clock, October 17.

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In two events in
the community, one,

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for the benefit of the wonderful
feminist press, Kore Press,

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in town, who, just incidentally,
is issuing an audio CD

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of my poem, "The Monarchs."

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The poem sequence, is
going to have a release

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party for that audio with a
reading, cake, and champagne,

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this Saturday at
7:00 at the Hazmat

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MOCA Gallery, downtown
on Toole Avenue.

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And the other event
is the POG Series.

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The POG Poetry Collective
will host a reading

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on Saturday, October
13, at 7 o'clock,

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in the Living Community Center,
330 East Seventh Street.

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This is a reading that will
feature a dozen local writers

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of note, including our own
esteemed and beloved Frances

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Sjoberg, others, Tim Peterson,
Tenney Nathanson, Jonathan

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VanBallenberghe, Maggie
Golston, Heather Nagami, Charles

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Alexander, and others.

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So those are other things
that are happening in town.

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And, in conjunction
with this event tonight,

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tomorrow morning at
10:30, Mary Leader

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will give a craft lecture.

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That's another opportunity
to learn more about her work

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and her thinking about poetry.

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So I urge you to
join us for that.

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That will be tomorrow morning
at 10:30 in the Alumni Building

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at the corner of
Cherry and Speedway.

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I'd like to thank those who've
made this reading possible,

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our funding sources.

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We're always very
grateful to them.

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And they include,
for this series,

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the University of
Arizona Foundation,

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the Arizona Commission
on the Arts,

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and Friends of
the Poetry Center.

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Mary Leader spent
years practicing

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law, first as Assistant
Attorney General of Oklahoma,

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and then as referee for
the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

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Her first book, Red Signature,
won the National Poetry Series.

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Her second, The
Penultimate Suitor,

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won the Iowa Poetry Prize.

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She holds a PhD in literature
from Brandeis University,

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an MFA from Warren
Wilson College,

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and a JD from the
University of Oklahoma.

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She's currently teaching at
the University of Memphis.

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We were talking at
dinner about how strange

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it seems to most of
us to meet somebody

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who has the capacity of
mind both to practice law

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and to be a poet.

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And I floated a hypothesis,
which, I am grateful to say,

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the poet didn't think
was too far-fetched,

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that I'll share with you,
which is that, we think

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of law as an extremely linear
and bounded pursuit with rules

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that are quite fixed.

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And one of the very interesting
things about Leader's poetry,

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for me, is how each
poem declares very clear

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and strict rules and boundaries.

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Every poem declares new
rules and boundaries,

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but each one has a kind of code.

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And, for me, I see
both that linear mind

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and that wild exploratory mind
working in tandem in her work.

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Leader is a poet of
formal exuberance.

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By this, I do not mean that
she writes cheerful sonnets.

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But that, for her,
the impulse to explore

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the possibilities of
form is free-ranging

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and wildly energetic.

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Whether she is scoring, in
the musical sense of the word,

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a poem across the
white space of the page

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or creating a fairy
tale, a letter, a litany,

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a table of contents-- she has
several poems that are tables

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of contents-- a grid of goofy
iconographic symbols, a collage

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made of found memorabilia
of a life gone by,

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or a transcription of the
inner dialogue induced

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by erotic desire, she makes
the music of the language sing.

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She is a polyvocal
and polyformal poet,

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and while one feels her
delight in words and invention,

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there is a tough-minded honesty
that keeps her playfulness

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from being trivial.

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Poet Frank Bidart writes of her,
"The poems are like looking"--

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and he was talking
about Red Signature.

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"The poems are like looking at a
great John Ford film, something

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elemental within American
experience, something born

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of deprivation but capable
of possessing grandeur,

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has found classic expression."

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Please welcome Mary Leader.

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[APPLAUSE]

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