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Hello.

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So nice to see you all.

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So to introduce the poet,
translator, scholar, and editor

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Khaled Mattawa, I want
to begin by quoting

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from several reviews
of his fourth

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and most recent
collection of poetry,

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Tocqueville, published to much
a critical acclaim in 2010.

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This wildly experimental book
is anchored by a 26 page title

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poem.

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One reviewer in Ploughshares
praised it as, quote,

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"a visionary
reorientation in verse

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of Alexis de Tocqueville's
Democracy in America.

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Not a mere revision of
that historical document,

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but a poetry based on
motion, a screenplay that

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metamorphoses into a democratic
account, a lyric slideshow."

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The same reviewer suggested
that Mattawa's work, quote,

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"mapped new brain circuits for
art in the age of technology."

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Another reviewer
called that same poem

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"the great poem
of globalization,

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combining poetry, essay,
documentary, and dirge."

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And finally, the
critic Philip Metres

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called the title poem,
quote, "a tour de force,

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globalist, polyphonic collage.

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A lyric that
repudiates lyricism,

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an unrepeatable experiment.

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A witness to a blindness,
a shooting script

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without camera or bullet."

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Pretty great words, right?

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In the time since
that publication,

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Mattawa has been awarded
a MacArthur Genius Grant,

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has continued the
work of publishing

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English translations of
contemporary Arab poets,

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as well as written essays on the
work of Arab and Arab American

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poets.

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He's become a chancellor of
the Academy of American Poets,

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and he founded a foundation
to support and promote

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the creative arts in Libya.

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However, I wanted to
start with Tocqueville,

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and end with my reference
to it, because it

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is a stunning example of the
long poem about which Mattawa

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will talk to us tonight,
and a form in which Mattawa

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is clearly an American master.

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And it's just one of the
many reasons for which we

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are so lucky to have him.

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Please join me in
welcoming Khaled Mattawa.