WEBVTT

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Hey, everybody.

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So it falls on me to introduce
tonight's activities.

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And I wrote something down just
because that's always better.

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So, I'm Matthew
Zapruder, as Tyler said.

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And I'm an editor-at-large
at Wave Books,

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and also the director of the
Bagley Wright Lecture Series.

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What is the Bagley Wright
Lecture Series, you might ask?

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It was founded a
little over five years

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ago with the support of Charlie
and Barb Wright, who are here

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today from Seattle.

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[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

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Yeah, we're so glad
they made it down.

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Thank you all.

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Charlie's the publisher
of Wave Books.

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And the series is named after
his late father, Bagley Wright,

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a noted philanthropist
and supporter of the arts.

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Charlie and I conceived
of the series as a way

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to make it possible for leading
mid-career poets to explore

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issues of current concern
to them in their poetry

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and to present those
investigations publicly

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as lectures.

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You might reasonably ask,
why is this a good idea?

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Why should we ask poets
to do anything other

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than write poetry?

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Isn't their best
thinking in their poems,

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or at least shouldn't it be?

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And why should we ask
them to do it publicly?

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By nature, poets are
often eager to talk

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about poems by others or about
pretty much anything at all.

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Yet when they're asked
about their own work,

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a strange reticence can descend.

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Maybe it's a way of
protecting the singularity

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of poetic speech and resisting
the idea that it is merely

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a way of communicating
ideas that

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could just as easily,
or perhaps even better,

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be expressed in prose.

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Or maybe it's superstition.

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One consistent exception
I found to this resistance

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is when poets are asked by
translators of their work

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to illuminate what the purpose
of something in a poem is.

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They can, in that
circumstance, become

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almost shockingly lucid and
rational in their explanations.

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Also, it seems there's
something about putting poets

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in front of an eager,
receptive, general audience, one

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not necessarily full
exclusively of other poets

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or students of
poetry or academics,

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that brings out something
generous in the poet,

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an additive to
the poetry itself.

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When one looks closely into the
history of poetry criticism,

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it turns out that a
great many, I would even

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say a preponderance, of the
lasting statements we have

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about poetry have
come from poets

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who were communicating
their thoughts

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in the form of public lectures.

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We think of these works
now as written documents,

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but examples of what are now
called essays about poetry,

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but which began as
public lectures,

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would include Lorca's
lecture on the duende,

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most of Wallace Stevens'
poetic statements,

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including "The Noble Rider
and the Sound of Words,"

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TS Eliot's immensely
influential literary concepts,

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the important writings of Audre
Lorde, collected in Sister

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Outsider, almost anything you
know that Robert Frost has said

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was said in a lecture, and
so on, and so on, and so on.

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It is also true that, despite
what it seems like to us now,

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many of these famous
poetic statements

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were given when
the poets were not

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yet eminences but relatively
early in their poetic careers,

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not at the beginning,
but somewhere

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in the middle or maybe
the early middle.

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So Charlie and I thought
it would be a good idea

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to give some of our
leading mid-career

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poets, people whose
poetry and ideas

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we immensely respect, the
opportunity to give lectures

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all over the country
to different audiences,

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to see what emerged.

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It was a kind of experiment,
one that I am glad to say

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had excellent results.

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So far, there have been six
Bagley Wright lecturers.

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And we are incredibly fortunate
to have them all here with us

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for readings and
panel discussions

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over the next several days.

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Tonight we will be hearing
from three of our lecturers,

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in this order, Dorothea Lasky,
Terrance Hayes, and Joshua

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Beckman.

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Their careers are distinguished.

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I do not wish to take
up time with recitations

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of their publications, awards,
and other accomplishments.

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I will just say that they
are three of the finest

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poets I have been lucky
enough to work with and know,

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which I can also say about
tomorrow evening's three

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lecturers, Timothy Donnelly,
Srikanth Reddy, and Rachel

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Zucker.

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Before I turn it over to our
first three distinguished poets

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and lecturers, I want to
extend particular thanks

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to the Poetry Center,
especially Tyler Meier, who's

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been such a big supporter
of this endeavor

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from the beginning, as
well as Becka Ranta, who's

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the events coordinator
here at the Poetry Center.

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And they are just
awesome people.

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And showing up here, immediately
we felt completely at home.

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So, thank you.

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We're thrilled to
be able to celebrate

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the work of this
lecture series here

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over the next several days.

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I can't think of a better venue.

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I want to thank
Charlie and Barb,

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the lecturers, and
also Wave Books,

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represented in particular by
senior editor Heidi Broadhead,

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who's here tonight.

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Special thanks to
the coordinator

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of the series,
Ellen Welcker, who

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did some serious coordinating
to get us all here.

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And finally, I want to thank
all of you for being here.

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I know I'm speaking on
behalf of all our poets

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when I say we're grateful
beyond measure for your kind

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attention.