WEBVTT

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Hi, everyone.

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As promised, I don't know if you
were here at the last reading,

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I promised that it
would be warmer.

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And look at it.

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It's really amazing, and I'm
just thankful that the weather

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came through for that because
I was so positive that it

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was going to be warmer.

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And I don't know.

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It was kind of like
a toss up recently

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with how cold it's been.

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But thank you for
being here with us.

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Thank you for being here with
us in this amazing weather

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in Tucson, Arizona.

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I'm Diana Marie Delgado, and
I'm the literary director here

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at the Poetry Center.

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And I'm so, so excited
for this reading tonight.

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I wanted to just share
that Jay Hopler, who

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was scheduled to read
with Kimberly Johnson

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won't be with us tonight.

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However, they will
be Zooming in.

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So yeah, yay, Jay.

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So they will be here
with us, but it's just

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going to be a little bit
different, the way that we're

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organizing it and setting it up.

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So just to give you a heads up.

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I will say a few things
about some upcoming events,

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remind you all,
which I'm doing now,

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that we have books for sale,
say a little bit more about--

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sorry, say a little
bit more about some

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of the upcoming
events that we have.

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And then I'll introduce Jay, and
then Jay is going to Zoom in.

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After that, we will then
have Julie Johnson, who

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will be here, and she
will be introducing

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Kimberly Johnson, who is here.

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So yay, Kimberly made it.

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So we're so thankful
to the both of them

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just for making time to come
and celebrate their new books.

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We don't have their new
books because they're so new,

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but we just want to
encourage everyone

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to take a look at the work
that they've already created,

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and then also to
just keep an eye out

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for their upcoming books.

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So thank you.

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Just really quickly, our next
reading at the Poetry Center

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is going to be with Marcelo
Hernandez Castillo and Marwa

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Helal, which will
be on March 17th.

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Then we'll have Donika
Kelly on April 7th.

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And then Sesshu
Foster will close out

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that season on April 14th.

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So we still have a lot of
amazing things lined up for us

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here at the Poetry Center.

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OK, so now to
introduce Jay Hopler.

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"Hondo" translated
from the Spanish

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can mean "deep" or "profound."

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"Gnosis," in both
English and Spanish,

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can mean "spiritual truth,"
"knowledge of the divine,"

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and more simply put, "to know."

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Jay Hopler is a poet who knows.

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His poetry possesses a deep
and profound spirituality

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that reveals both the unseen
and seen realms of our lives

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and how these
realms run parallel

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to the beauty and bitter
truths of the natural world.

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Hopler distinguishes himself
from other poets in every poem,

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in each of his books by
traveling to the ruins,

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meeting God in his dungeon
and bringing us art.

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Lorca called this
kind of writing

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"canto hondo," or "deep song."

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And Jay Hopler's work
is both of these,

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spun from the threads of
black sounds of duende,

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songs that risk it
all, an effort to know.

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Hopler's first
book, Green Squall,

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won the 2005 Yale Series of
Younger Poets competition.

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Chosen by Louise
Gluck, she observed

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this about Hopler's work.

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"Insouciance and
bravura notwithstanding,

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there was a solitude
in this book

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as deep as any in American
poetry since Stevens.

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I share this observation
because, in order

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to know solitude, one
must also know joy,

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even if it's sarcastic,
which often can

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be applied to Hopler's work."

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For instance, he begins
Green Squall with the poem

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In the Garden, and the first
line is simply, "And the sky!"

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exclamation mark.

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He then proceeds to unwind
a verdant loneliness

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that both celebrates and faces
a direction we must all face.

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But as I've said before,
Hopler is a poet who knows,

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and because he knows
that we must all die,

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he knows that we must live too.

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From his poem A Book of Common
Days, "I keep a blue bottle.

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It convinces me I
have seen my soul."

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Jay's second book,
the gorgeously

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titled The Abridged
History of Rainfall,

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is an elegy for his father, a
book where he delicately passes

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through walking the
desolations of loss

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and faces absence with the
tenderness that can destroy

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but in his hands and powers.

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Hopler's work has always
reminded me a bit--

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whoa!

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I hope it's not the mice again.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Just kidding.

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We don't have mice.

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Hopler's work has
always reminded

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me a bit of the story
of Adam and Eve,

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of the mess that can
be made in Paradise.

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Only in Hopler's
work, we get to linger

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in the garden for
a little bit longer

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in our nakedness, our shame,
our long-term loneliness.

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From a window, his
poem, he writes,

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"And so it was the autumn
light sawed by drops of water,

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refracted into flights of
flashes, spectral flames."

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Jay Hopler is the author
of three books of poetry,

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most recently, Still Life,
which will be coming out

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in McSweeney's very soon.

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Their last book, The
Abridged History of Rainfall,

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was a finalist for the 2016
National Book Award in Poetry.

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He directs the creative
writing program

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at University of
South Florida, and it

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is my honor as a poet, literary
director, and a human being

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to introduce Jay Hopler.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]