Series of visiting poets but we have four more
readings for the semester.
One week from tonight we will honor
the students who are winning prizes in the annual contest.
That's the 13th and that reading will be in the terrace
lounge of the Student Union.
And three weeks from tonight, we have four graduate students
reading.
Students who are candidates for Master of Fine Arts in poetry.
The readers will be Luellen Fletcher, Michael Hogan,
Rick Campa and John Pollock.
Then there's one more student reading April 10th which
will honor the students whose work has been accepted
for publication in Persona, the undergraduate literary
magazine.
And we'll close the series with our special centennial reading
on Sunday, April 14.
The editors of Mazagine, the literary publication
from Pima College, have brought out this time
a chapbook, A Mazagine chapbook which
is a big beautiful postcards by 2 former students, Michael
Knoll and Bill Aberg.
And they have very kindly made this available for free.
So I have a few copies tonight if you'd like to pick one up.
And we'll have some more copies at the Poetry Center later.
We've got these posters for sale and some of you
are losing patience with--
We also have copies tonight of The Killing Floor for sale.
They're $5.
This is out of print now so this is
one of your last opportunities to get copies of Ai's Killing
Floor.
Many of you know Ai was an undergraduate student here.
She's one of our most famous alumni.
She's published two books, The Killing Floor,
which I just mentioned was the winner of the 1978 Lamont
poetry selection.
And her first book was Cruelty.
She's published in all of the leading poetry magazines.
She's received several awards, one from PEN,
a Guggenheim Foundation grant, an Ingram Merrill foundation
grant, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship,
and a Bunting fellowship.
Ai.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, back in the old homestead after nine years away.
It's sort of exciting now.
It's like, Oh my God, there's my elementary school, you know.
When I was six years old and in the park and all this stuff.
It's really funny.
When I left I was just this unsophisticated kid.
But now, Darling, I've been to New York.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah basically I'm a hick.
That's what I tell everybody in New York, see,
but when I'm here I tell you that I'm
this sophisticated woman.
Let's see, I guess I don't need that for anything.
Tonight, I'm only going to read new poems.
Because I'm pretty tired of the older poems right now.
My new book is called "Sin" and it'll be out in January '86.
The date to which I'm looking forward eagerly.
My grandmother, I forgot to call I'm sorry.
I'm apologizing publicly.
I guess I'll just read.
Last night I thought I was reading alone.
And then I found out at that dinner
that I was reading with Marvin Bell.
It was really funny because I was
totally prepared for a one hour reading so I had to tailor it.
And now I can just read anything I want.