WEBVTT

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Welcome, everyone.

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As you can see, we've been
busy over at the Poetry Center,

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and we are thrilled to
collaborate with the Tucson

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Humanities Festival for
tonight's event to celebrate

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the force that is Rita Dove.

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Sorry, I'm a little bit nervous.

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I've read and followed
Rita for so long,

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and now she's here in person,
and it's bananas for me.

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So thank you for just
bearing with my nervousness.

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I'm going to try and
be as brief as I can

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so that we can focus on
Rita's reading tonight.

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But before I do that, I want
to just bring up and invite up

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to the mic two
individuals that I

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will be sharing a little
bit about them first,

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and then I'll invite them up.

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So I would first like to briefly
introduce Michael Spurgeon

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and Stephanie Robbins.

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After I hear a bit about them,
I'd like to invite Michael up,

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and then I would like Stephanie
to come up to introduce Rita.

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Michael is the director of the
Borchard Center on Literary

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Arts, and it is
a foundation that

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works to create a community
of literary artists

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from across the Americas to
foster meaningful connections

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between people, cultures,
and the natural world

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by offering prizes, fellowship,
and an annual 2-week retreat

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for recipients in San Cristóbal
de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

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The Borchard Foundation
Center on Literary Arts

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encourages fellowships among
leading practitioners and seeds

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the creation of new work.

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And after this reading
if you have time,

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please go to their website to
check out some of the artists

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that they are curating
and supporting.

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It's just a spectacular list.

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The next person I want
to share a bit about

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is Dr. Stephanie Troutman
Robbins, she/her,

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who is a Black feminist
scholar, mother of three,

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and first-generation
college student.

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She is a department head of
Gender and Women's Studies

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at the University of
Arizona and is also

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an associate professor
at the Gender

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and Women's Studies in English.

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I will be returning
back to the stage

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at the very end of
the reading just

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to share a bit about
book sales and how we're

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going to do that in a little
bit about our upcoming event

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with Sandra Cisneros,
which will be coming up

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in about three weeks.

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So for right now, I'd
like to invite Michael up.

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Thank you.

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[CLAPPING]