Hi, everyone.
Thank you so much for being patient.
We're like five minutes late.
But I know for Tucson, everyone is like, it's seven.
Let's get this started.
[LAUGHTER]
So just apologies for that.
Let me get this just kind of over in a better way.
I'm just going to talk like this.
[LAUGHTER]
So before I start on introducing everybody, talking a little bit
about what we have upcoming, and going through just giving you
a little bit more information about what
to expect for tonight, I just want
to mention that we are all honored to have bell hooks here
today in the audience with us.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
bell.
So thank you so much for coming.
Your presence really means a lot to us, the readers,
and we're just thankful that you're here.
So gracias.
So everyone, I'm Diana Delgado.
I'm the Literary Director here at the Poetry Center.
I want to just remind everybody about some events
that we have upcoming in April.
For National Poetry Month, we have Natalie Diaz,
who will be reading from her work from "The Art for Justice
Project" on April 4.
Then our Prose Series will host the inimitable Cherríe Moraga.
And then we will then have Naomi Shihab Nye on April 18.
And closing out our program here at the Poetry Center for spring
will be Rigoberto González on April 25.
So please come.
Be ready.
Those are amazing poets and scholars.
So please, please come.
[LAUGHTER]
I want to just talk a little bit more about Art
for Justice, about the programming.
It's a very important initiative that we are all working on here
at the Poetry Center.
And Art for Justice is a three year grant-funded project
that commissions new work from leading writers
to explore the relationship between poetry
and the crisis of mass incarceration in the country.
Evie and Patrick Rosal--
Evie Shockley and Patrick Rosal will be reading their new work.
And this is work that has been written specifically
for this evening.
And we're so excited and really grateful
to them and also to the Ford Foundation for their support.
I'm going to try and be as brief as possible.
So before Evie is introduced by UA English faculty colleague
Alison Deming, one of the things I want to remind everybody
is that we're going to continue our spotlight
on local and regional not for profit organizations
and artists working to advance issues
related to carceral justice before each Art for Justice
visit.
So we have the Sex Workers Outreach Project Tucson,
who will be profiling Juliana Piccillo,
Erin Whitfield and Yolanda Gómez.
And they're going to be reading poems.
And they're going to share about the work
that they do in the area.
But first, I just want to say a few words very briefly
about Patrick Rosal.
So Patrick Rosal was here in 2015.
So we are welcoming him back.
He was last here in Tucson where he was
part of the poetry festival.
He's a Guggenheim poet and the author--
I just have to mention that.
I think we should all--
anybody that wins a Guggenheim, I'm like, number one,
they won a Guggenheim.
[APPLAUSE]
[LAUGHS] So he's the author of four full-length poetry
collections.
His latest book, Brooklyn Antediluvian
won the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Prize
for Best Book of Poetry and it was a finalist for the Kingsley
Tufts Award for Poetry.
And Patrick Rosal, if you have never heard him read,
is known for his striking performances and just
his ability to captivate as a performer, as a poet,
and also as a social activist.
So we are really, really happy to be graced with this present
here tonight.
What I want to now do is invite the Sex
Workers Outreach Project, who will talk about their work
and talk about their activities.
And right after that then, Alison Deming
will come up and say a few words about Evie Shockley.
And then we will go ahead and introduce Evie.
And then Patrick, you'll be our last reader.
So thank you, everyone.
OK.
[APPLAUSE]