Diana, I didn't know you had the power to control the weather.
[LAUGHTER]
I knew you were very extraordinary, but that's--
I'm very impressed.
We must talk.
I'm actually not introducing Joy Williams,
I'm introducing the introducer because this is the Poetry
Center, and what would it be without the introducer
to the introducer, but welcome to the University
of Arizona MFA Programs 2022 Distinguished Visitor
Series in Creative Writing previously
known as the Prose Series.
I'm Kate Bernheimer, a professor of English,
and I coordinate the series.
This event will last around 45 minutes
for those of you whose first reading this is,
and I know it is for some of you,
because I see students here.
You've told me.
So welcome to everyone.
I hope you brought some hot toddies, or hot chocolate,
or blankets, this is great.
I also want to thank tonight the Poetry Center's staff,
especially Diana and Paola for their generous support
of this event and the poetry--
I mean, the MFA students, I'm sorry.
Dure, Lucia, Jeremy, and Aria, and anyone else who showed up
for helping set up and then staying later and breaking down
chairs for us.
That's just really incredible, thank you.
And thanks to all the other people.
[CLAPPING]
Oh, thank you.
We really have just an amazing community
of graduate students here.
You're so lucky.
Thank you to the Department of English
for supporting this little series that could
and to the UA bookstore staff whom I think
are here with books for sale.
Through the rituals of storytelling,
we connect to ancient times and to each other.
Staged readings like this imitate the hearth side,
imitate caves, whether in person or over the ether tonight,
because we're joined from around the world
by a number of audience members you
have made the bold old move of cherishing wonder,
so thank you.
I am not only a professor in the MFA program.
I am a graduate of it.
Around 30 years ago, I moved to Tucson,
because I loved the desert, and I
loved the work of Joy Williams, and I wanted to study with her,
and I've been studying ever since.
I've learned so much from Joy Williams.
I know for one thing, there is no such thing as a vodka
martini, because I made the mistake of ordering one
in her presence, to her horror, and I
know how to speak tortoise.
I also know I would be too nervous to introduce her
to you tonight.
And so it is my pleasure that this honor goes
to one of my current students.
How strange it is that things go full circle like this.
Brian Randall is an MFA candidate in fiction
here at the University of Arizona, and some of you
may be enrolled in his courses, because our graduate students
have a really important job as teachers,
as well as coursework as students.
I'm proud to share that Brian Randall's work has
been published in the Penn Review, among other places.
I'm going to share with you two brief passages from a haunting
story of Brian's called The Black Thread that I recently
read, which reminds me so much of Joy Williams.
His work, like hers, is quietly spirited, spiritual,
cautious, and wise.
She showed them to me in the morning.
The dry husks of their skin picked from the brittle weeds
below the kitchen window.
I could hold them for a moment.
Feel the sharp edges of the diamond shaped scales
and the smooth rungs of the underbelly
before they started to disintegrate in my hands,
leaving behind a flaky dust that seemed to cling to my palms
for the rest of the day.
Gram kept them in the jar.
One with a heavy glass lid.
For what?
I don't know.
I think she just liked to collect things,
to keep whatever objects she found that seemed
just shy of ordinary.
A vacant bird's nest dry and brittle,
a jewelry box painted with parrots.
Gram is in the sitting room.
The black thread lays in a tangled mess
over her lap dangling from her outstretched fingers
in a frantic mockery of a cat's cradle,
trailing all the way down to the floor.
She looks down at it puzzled, then up at me.
Can you thread the needle for me, dear?
It's here somewhere.
Oh, sometimes it feels like my head
has a hole in it for everything to just slip
in and out as it pleases.
Grandma, maybe we should put it away for tonight.
How about some tea?
It will help me sleep.
When I go back, Gram has a shoebox
of photographs open on her lap.
She's shuffling through a stack of them.
Look, she says.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Granny Edna with her little dog, Chief.
Please join me in welcoming Brian Randall or Chief.