Hello, everyone.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
How are you all?
Good.
Woo!
Good.
Happy not-summer evening, which seems
like a new thing in Tucson.
And we can celebrate the fact that it
feels like fall may be coming, maybe
one more hot day on Saturday.
We hope just one more, and then we move on fully
into the beauty season.
So welcome here.
Welcome to the Poetry Center.
We're glad you're here.
It's nice to see such a huge crowd for these two readers
that we care about so much.
I do want to thank, before we start,
the National Endowment for the Arts, which has partially
underwritten the reading series this year.
So thank you, National Endowment for the Arts.
We clap for you.
We hope you can hear us in Washington, DC.
But also round of applause for all
of the supporters of the Poetry Center--
the friends and the Whitman Circle members
who help support and make possible the programming
that we do year to year.
And we're so grateful for your support.
And thank you so much for it.
So cheers.
[APPLAUSE]