Good timing.
Hello, how are you all?
Well, OK, very good.
Nice to see folks.
Welcome to the Poetry Center.
We're so happy to see folks coming back to this space.
It's been a long time.
So we can start by giving yourselves around of applause.
[CLAPPING]
Thank you.
And we're so thrilled to have poets visiting again in Tucson,
and to do that in a way that is exciting, and safe,
and celebrating their work and their books,
and their presence.
And that's a hallmark of what happens here at the Poetry
Center, and it's a real thrill to have Mahogany Browne here
visiting in Tucson again, but for the first time
in a long time.
And so welcome back, Mahogany.
We're really pleased.
My name is Tyler.
I work here as the director at the Poetry Center.
I see some familiar faces, and also some new ones.
So please come introduce yourself,
we're excited to be friends with you.
I wanted to point out a couple of things
that have changed here in the Rubel Room
where we do our readings.
So we're really excited to have our indoor outdoor effort
and a lot of air flowing around.
It means a lot that you're wearing your masks,
so thank you for doing that.
And that helps us bring poets in a safe way, which we're really
excited about.
But we also have a new teaching station, an all new technology,
new speakers that we worked on during the time
that we had off.
So if you can hear me well in the breezeway,
and you couldn't in the past.
Thanks for those speakers.
New lights, a whole new technology system, so Nate
is livestreaming us right now.
So if you're listening online, we're
really pleased that you're joining us.
As well as some new technology that supports people
that use hearing devices, and so if you
use a device in our inside the carpeted area there's
a loop system now so that will go directly into those devices,
and there's also an app called the Listen Everywhere app that
will use a Bluetooth directly from the soundboard,
and connect also directly to hearing devices.
So we're really excited about all of that.
Mahogany is a kindred spirit.
And so we've worked with Mahogany in different ways
at the Poetry Center through her work as a poet
and as an administrator.
If you've been a part of our Art for Justice work
that's happened over the past three years
or attended any of those readings,
Mahogany is very much a kindred spirit in this work
and has also been supported by the Art for Justice
Fund for her interest in these topics and her work
and activism around these topics.
And so in a way, this extends some
of that work and poets that have we've
hosted here in Tucson who've been thinking
about incarceration and the connection
between imaginative language and how
we think about the future and the legacy
of what incarceration means for the people who
have been directly impacted and really for all of us.
So we're so pleased that she's here in all of these ways.
If you walked in and you saw there was a table out front
that had these very delightful brochures that
tell you everything that's happening at the Poetry Center,
you'll want one of these because you
want to know what's happening here,
including the next reading, which I would tell you about.
It's going to be on November 4, and it
features visiting poets Laurie Ann Guerrero and Carl Marcum,
and they'll be reading together in the Tom Sanders Memorial
Reading and that's at 7 o'clock on November 4
back here at the Poetry Center in this space.
Tonight we're celebrating Mahogany's latest,
newest poetry book, and Paola is going to tell you
about that very soon.
It looks like this.
And it is for sale over there.
And, so please pick this book up.
This is hot off the presses.
We'll be hearing from it tonight.
Mahogany is going be excited to sign those after the reading
and talk to you about this work.
We're going to skip a formal Q & A,
and just go straight to the book selling, and signing, so come
up and speak with us afterwards.
And it's my pleasure, I mentioned Paola,
to introduce to you Paola, if you don't know her.
Paola Valenzuela is our newest colleague
here at the Poetry Center.
She's the event coordinator here now, and she's amazing.
And so if you're enjoying where you're
sitting, if you can hear really well,
if you like how things have been organized,
it's largely because Paola is doing a really great job.
She's been here for a month.
So give hera round of applause.
For what she's up to.
[CLAPPING]
She's no stranger to poetry in Tucson.
And you can read her poetry book inside the poetry library
across the way, it's called Cricket's Lament,
and her last name again Valenzuela,
so you'll find it underneath the Vs.
And we're just so thrilled that she's here.
And she's going to come up and welcome Mahogany.
And so please again help me welcome
Paola Valenzuela, our new colleague at the Poetry Center.
[CLAPPING]