We decided we could either ignore it,
because everyone's sick of the "M" word,
or we could do something about it.
And we decided to use it as an occasion
to pay a little more attention to talking
about the state of the art of poetry
and ask some visitors to help us think about that.
So we came up with the idea of a series called Poetry
Now and Next, in which we invited
six distinguished poets, who've not only
made an important mark in American writing
through their published works, but have also
contributed in very dramatic ways
to helping other writers along.
We know that in addition to the individual inspiration
and discipline that it takes to become a writer,
it also takes influence, connection, friendship,
and relationship.
So we asked the six writers to select younger writers.
And we've had the great pleasure of making
some wonderful discoveries in the process of organizing
this series.
And that's how we happen to be able to offer you
tonight, Gary Soto, who many of you know,
and Rigoberto Gonzalez, who many of you do not know.
But you will be very happy that you do after tonight.
Rigoberto Gonzalez was born in Bakersfield, California
and raised in Michoacán, Mexico, the son and grandson
of migrant farm workers.
He received a BA in Humanities from UC Riverside,
an MA in English from UC Davis, and an MFA in Creative
Writing from ASU in Tempe.
He currently works as a literacy teacher for children
in Brooklyn, New York, as well as
teaching beginning Spanish to adults in New York City.
His poetry and fiction have appeared
in many distinguished journals, The Americas Review, Analecta,
James White Review, Hayden's Ferry Review,
among others, and in the anthologies, Besame Mucho:
New Gay Latino Fiction, The Geography of Home:
California's Poetry of Place, and The Floating Borderlands:
25 Years of US Hispanic Literature.
He's published two limited edition chapbooks,
Skins Preserve Us from Agitator Dogs Press, and The Night--
it's a great-- don't you love the names of these presses.
--and The Night Don Pedro Buried His Best
Friend the Rooster published by Gary Soto in his Chicano
Chapbook Series.
His book, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks,
was selected by the poet Ai as winner
of the prestigious National Poetry Series
and published by the University of Illinois Press.
He has a new book of poems that will also
come out from that press.
So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water
Until It Breaks invites the reader
into a strange constellation of characters living
on both sides of the border, who practice what Sandra
McPherson calls "almost mystically
odd professions," the professional mourner,
the exhibitionist umbrella salesman, the sidewalk
preacher, the worker in a Mexican border doll factory,
the refrigerator salesman, I mean repairman, the mortician,
and I think the one that I found utterly compelling, the man
who gives you nightmares.
As this cast of characters suggests,
there is no protection in these poems from hardship,
inner struggle, and death.
And yet, the spirit of the poems is
so bright with sensual detail and so
loving in its emotional insights that the characters
lose their strangeness in the depth of portrayal.
And the reader feels consoled by facing
life's spiritual challenges.
And that, of course, is the age-old power of poetry
to transcend and transform.
Please welcome Rigoberto Gonzalez.
[APPLAUSE]