Tonight's reading is made possible from a grant
from the University of Arizona Foundation.
If it hadn't been for the Foundation,
we might not be reading tonight.
All our money disappeared the other day.
I have a few thousand announcements to make.
The Clarion is inviting submissions of poetry
from women writers, and I brought a few flyers
to put down the refreshment table about that.
We just mailed the latest issue of our newsletter.
I only brought a few copies.
So if you're on our mailing list,
why don't you wait till you get yours in the mail?
One of the main things in the newsletter
is the schedule for the Tucson Poetry Festival
which will take place next weekend,
and that will feature readings by Linda Gregg, Michael Palmer,
Hilda Morley, Czesław Miłosz, Michael Cudding--
Michael Cuddihy, Alberto Ríos and Steve Orlen.
And not only the readings, but panel discussions and some
workshops are available.
So the schedule is in our newsletter.
And there are posters up and there
will be probably a supplement in the weekly next week.
It's a very exciting event, and this
is the fifth annual festival.
Senator McCarthy as well.
Oh, yes.
Senator McCarthy, former Senator McCarthy.
Well, let's see, he's not going to read.
He's going to be the moderator for their panel
discussion, which will be "The Public and Private Voice."
This year the festival honors Ironwood Magazine.
In conjunction with the festival,
KXCI, the community radio station,
is opening its airwaves to live poetry Friday, March 6.
All poets who wish to read live on KXCI
should phone the station 623-1000 and schedule a time.
You should not plan to read more than five minutes.
I guess, I have to read this disclaimer.
KXCI reserves the right not to broadcast any work
that it believes may violate regulations established
by the Federal Communications Commission.
In other words, keep it clean.
The next Lamplight reading will be this Sunday night, March 1.
The Lamplight readings are at Bentley's Coffee House
at 7 o'clock.
And the readers this week will be
Barbara Cully and Ann Dernier.
There's a special reading next week by Paula Gunn Allen.
Her reading is being sponsored by Women's Studies
and the American-Indian Studies Program and the Southwest
Center.
She'll read at 7:30 on Tuesday night
in the CESL building, room 102.
That's also in the newsletter and there are a lot of posters
up about that too, so you should be able to see it.
She's also going to do a lecture on Tuesday
afternoon at noon on integrating American-Indian women's
literature in women's studies courses.
And that's in Student Union 285.
So as you see, there's not much going on in town
this coming week.
I'm happy to say that we do not have a reading next week
to compete with all these other wonderful things.
Our next reading will be on the 11th,
and that will honor the winners of the annual Student Poetry
Competition.
That reading will be at the Museum of Art.
Did I forget anything?
So it's Sunday night, Tuesday night, Friday night, all day
Saturday, and all day Sunday.
So mark it, Kevin.
Heather McHugh is teaching this term at Berkeley.
Her usual spring teaching stint is at the University
of Washington, in Seattle.
And we thought she should come and have some sunshine.
She's published two collections of poetry, Dangers and A
World of Difference, and has two books forthcoming.
She's published a translation of Jean Follain called
D'Après Tout.
Her work appears in all the usual magazines and many fine
anthologies.
Her honors include two grants from the National Endowment
for the Arts, the Houghton Mifflin New Poetry Series
award, Creative Artists Public Service
Grant, an Academy of American prize,
three fellowships in the MacDowell Colony.
We're very happy to have Heather McHugh with us tonight.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Let me go up here.
It is a pleasure to be here.
It's a great community for poets and a rare thing.
I know you know, but I didn't.
I mean.
I knew the reputation, but I didn't know about that library.
It's a great place to burrow if you ever get it.
You got a rainy day, you can go over there.
Sunny days too.
I've got three books cooking and I'm reading tonight just
from them since the other ones are around.
You can get them.
These aren't available yet.
The first short batch I want to read
are some translations from a Bulgarian poet,
Blaga Dimitrova.
Not much available in English yet.
A friend of mine and I are collaborating on a translation.
Luckily, one of us knows Bulgarian.
His name is Nikolai B. Popov.
And he does the literals and I do--
I make the English sing and then we get together and hash out
the third stage.
She's a quite extraordinary poet.
She's the subject of Updike's chapter, the Bulgarian Poetess
in Bech: A Book.
And although she's appeared in some anthologies in English,
she's pretty widely translated in Europe,
has 16 books of poetry, but just isn't much known here yet,
and has some wonderful stuff.
I want to read a few of those first.
Blaga Dimitrova.