WEBVTT

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Such a pleasure.

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So I'll begin with
this little story.

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The poet Ted Berrigan
once warned an audience

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to fear creative writing
teachers, particularly

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the poets, because they want
you to write just like them

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but never to write
as well as them.

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I don't think any
of my colleagues

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at the University of
Arizona's MFA program approach

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their teaching like that,
and I know I strive not to.

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But if we don't, it's probably
because somewhere along the way

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we were students of a poet and
teacher like Khaled Mattawa.

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Khaled is the translator of some
nine volumes of Arabic language

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poetry and the author of
four poetry collections, work

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that has received the
Arab-American Book

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Award, and the NEA, Hodder,
Guggenheim, and MacArthur

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Fellowships, among
other distinctions.

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But Khaled was also my primary
teacher and my MFA thesis

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advisor.

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Now from the vantage point
of my own work teaching

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at the U of A, I can only
say to Khaled, I am sorry--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--and thank you.

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Or thank you, thank you,
thank you, and I'm sorry.

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Mostly I'm sorry I didn't
thank you at every turn.

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I'm deeply grateful,
for example,

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that after a particularly
difficult workshop critique,

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you met with me and said
something along the lines of,

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it seems you won't find your
readers here in this program.

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And maybe, maybe I can't
be the reader you need.

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To help me, you took book after
book off of your own shelves

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and said something
like, here, take these

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and find the community
of writers that you need.

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In that humble and
generous act, you

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set me up for the lifelong work
of developing relationships

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with my betters in this
art that we both love.

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Thank you as well for something
somewhat offhand you once said.

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I remember you saying
something like,

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poets should write
less about poetry

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and more about the world.

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Maybe it's an
American preoccupation

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or contemporary American
poetry's preoccupation

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to write about itself.

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A poet should be in the world.

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It was the first time someone
framed American poetry

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as a limited construct that
it is, a simple gesture that

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has oriented me to ways this
art finds its varied forms

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and urgencies all
across the globe.

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I could go on this
way for some time,

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but I want to clear
the way for Khaled

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tonight with his own words.

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About writing he says,
"I don't write a poem

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in one sitting anymore.

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If it's more than two pages
or more than one page,

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I write half of it in one
year and the other half

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two years later.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And that's how you
get out of the way,

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you get out of the
moment you're in.

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You don't get yourself out,
you don't get what know out.

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But you get the
immediate crisis,

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you get your pettiness
out of the poem.

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You put the self in that is the
self of your whole lifetime,

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not the self of your
contemporary or contemporaneous

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crisis.

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You write with your whole self.

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You don't cut yourself
short in the poem."

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On translation Khaled said
quite simply, "As far as I know,

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there's never been a
poetic revolution that

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was purely indigenous,
that was not

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touched by translation
or multilingualism."

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On censorship and power
relations across cultures,

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Khaled says, "The
problem with censorship

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may be more of a question
of who rather than when.

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By now we should all
know, for example,

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that all the stuff about
the prophet Muhammad--

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depictions of--

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only riles up the poorest,
most underprivileged Muslims.

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It's almost Pavlovian now
with this disenfranchised

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population.

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And to provoke people who have
so little power helps no one.

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You are not speaking truth
to power when you do that.

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And you are not provoking an
interesting or deeper dialogue

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anywhere.

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To censor oneself when it
comes to an issue like that

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is to be thoughtful
and effective.

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Being uninhibited is not
the only imaginative state

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that artists should seek
to be in all the time."

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And finally, I can
think of no better words

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to open the space of tonight's
reading than Khaled's words

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on the ethical
potential in poetry.

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"To be responsible,"
Khaled says,

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"is to enter a dialectic where
nurture, beauty, and repair are

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operating simultaneously
from us and through us."

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Please welcome Khaled Mattawa.

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[APPLAUSE]