Do we have-- we do.
Welcome, folks.
If you're new to this series, I'm
Alison Deming, director of the Poetry Center.
This is the first in the series of readings
we'll be sponsoring throughout the year, mostly readings
by poets, a few stray fiction writers and nonfiction
writers that will be bringing through the year.
One little point of history that I want everyone to know
is that this is the 30th year that the Poetry Center has
sponsored a series like this.
The first year was '61, '62.
Stanley Kunitz and Kenneth Rexroth were our first readers.
So it's quite astonishing to think
that this place has been around as long
as it has and has the history it does
of bringing so many stunning writers out here
to enrich the desert.
So we will try to keep it going for you.
A couple of announcements.
One, we have ordered, through the bookstore,
Frank Bidart's In the Western Night:
Collected Poems 1965 to '90.
Unfortunately, it didn't get in for tonight.
It should be here imminently, let's say, early in the week.
So if you go over to the campus bookstore,
the book should be available shortly.
And we're very sorry they're not here tonight.
Frank Bidart's works include Golden State published in 1973,
The Book of the Body in 1977, The Sacrifice in 1983,
and most recently, In the Western Night collected
poems 1965 to '90.
He grew up in Bakersfield, California, where
he will be heading after his visit here
and another visit in Berkeley.
He currently lives in Cambridge mass
and teaches at both Wellesley College and Brandeis
University.
His work, particularly in recent years
has been intense dramatic monologues,
which make expansive and inventive use of the page.
They've helped many of us to enlarge
our notion of what's possible and important for poetry to do.
No mere histrionic recounting of events, these poems,
to use the language of our afternoon discussion
at the Poetry Center, are essential dramas of the soul.
It's a pleasure and an honor to introduce to you Frank Bidart
Thank you.
Thank you very much.