My name is Tyler Meier.
I work here as the director at the Poetry Center.
So happy to see a big crowd on a Thursday night in Tuscon.
This is what Thursday nights are for.
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks for coming.
This is the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial reading,
which is a reading we do annually every year
at the Poetry Center in memory of the poet and publisher,
Morgan Lucas Schuldt.
Many of you knew Morgan.
If you didn't know Morgan, there's a way to know him,
and that's through his work, which we have
all of at the Poetry Center.
And so I hope you will come over and find his books,
find his poems, and read about him,
learn about him, through his language and through his words.
He's the author of two books of poetry, the book
Verge and the book Erros are both from Parlor Press.
And three poetry chapbooks.
"Otherhow," "(as vanish, unespecially),"
and "Two Pamphlets," "Becoming Regardless,"
and "Little Just Ones."
And the one other chapbook I didn't read was
L=u=N=G=U=A=G=E, L-U-N-G-U-A-G-E.
Morgan, tremendous poet.
Loved language, loved how language worked,
loved trying to figure out how language worked.
I think in his poems you see a sensibility
that the poem is both sort of a crucible and a proving ground,
a place to make a kind of belief,
and a place to test that belief.
So we're excited to have tonight's reading in Morgan's
memory, and honored to be able to do so here at the Poetry
Center.
Lastly, I want to introduce my friend Diana Delgado.
She's the new literary director here at the Poetry Center.
She's amazing.
She's been a great asset and colleague already.
We stole her from New York City.
We're so lucky to have her here in Tucson.
She's going to introduce the poets.
Please help me welcome my colleague
and my friend, Diana Delgado.
[APPLAUSE]