So hi, everyone.
I'm Diana Delgado.
I'm the literary director of the University of Arizona Poetry
Center, and I want to welcome everyone
to our second episode of the Institute for Inquiry
and Poetics.
The Institute of-- was founded at the University of Arizona--
is a thought center designed to create space and time for poets
to respond to pressing questions that
reside at the intersection of social concern and poetry.
Encouraging interdisciplinary modalities
and investigative research, the institute
will ask poets a series of questions,
and digitally archive their responses
on poetry.arizona.edu.
Today, I'm super excited to host Peter Harris, Michael
Warr, Luivette Resto, and Luis J.
Rodriguez as part of this year's theme, "Beyond the Obvious."
And we're especially excited to explore again
how imaginative language and poetry can help
create a sense of belonging.
In our program tonight, each poet
will be reading for about 15 minutes, sharing
work in response to our theme, and then after the reading,
will be in conversation.
Before we begin tonight's reading program,
the University of Arizona Poetry Center
must acknowledge that we exist on the traditional homelands
of the Tohono O'odham, who have cared
for these lands for centuries.
As a guest in these lands, I want
to acknowledge that we are in occupied Tohono O'odham
territory.
Our first reader is Peter J. Harris,
and I'm going to read a little bit about Peter
before they read.
Peter J. Harris is a 2018 Los Angeles COLA
Fellow in Literary Arts, Fellow of the Los Angeles
Institute for the Humanities at USC, and award-winning poet.
He is the author of Bless the Ashes:
Poetry by Tía Chucha Press, winner of the 2015 PEN Oakland
Josephine Miles Award, and The Black Man of Happiness:
In Pursuit of My Unalienable Right,
a book of personal essays, winner of a 2015 American Book
Award as well.
In 2021, FlowerSong Press will publish
Harris's Safe Arms: 20 Love & Erotic Poems
(with an Ooh, Baby, Baby Moan) with Spanish translations
by Francisco Letelier.
Harris is also the founding editor
of the Black Man Of Happiness Project,
a creative, intellectual, and artistic expression
of Black men and joy.
Harris writes the blog, Wreaking Happiness:
A Joyful Living Journal, and can be found
at www.inspirationcrib.com.
I love that landing site, by the way, Peter.
His 2018 TEDxPasadena talk with Adenike A. Harris at Huntington
Library, Healing versus Retaliation:
Surviving Trauma and Sexual Abuse,
described and celebrated 15 years
of working with his daughter after convicting and jailing
her predator ex-stepfather.
Harris and his daughter are also contributors to Love
WITH Accountability: Digging Up The Roots of Child Sexual
Abuse, edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons.
Since the 1970s, Harris has published
his work in a wide variety of publications, including
Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond,
edited by Suzanne Lummis, Altadena Poetry Anthologies
for 2018 and 2019, and Coiled Serpent: Poets Aspiring--
poets, excuse me, Coiled Serpent:
Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes & Shifts in Los Angeles,
edited by Neelanjana Banerjee, Daniel A. Olivas, and Ruben J.
Rodriguez.
Since 1992, Harris has been a member of the Anansi Writers
Workshop at the World Stage, in LA's Leimert Park.
Thank you, Peter, for being here with us today.