WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.620 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.620 --> 00:00:03.890 align:middle line:84% --Attended Syracuse University and the State University 00:00:03.890 --> 00:00:05.840 align:middle line:90% of New York at Buffalo. 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:08.480 align:middle line:84% He's lived for many years in northern California, 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:10.910 align:middle line:84% where he's been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford 00:00:10.910 --> 00:00:14.960 align:middle line:84% University and has been a California poet in the schools, 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:19.430 align:middle line:84% taught at the College of Marin and UC Berkeley Extension, 00:00:19.430 --> 00:00:22.040 align:middle line:84% as well as working as staff artist 00:00:22.040 --> 00:00:25.640 align:middle line:84% at the Goldman Institute on Aging. 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:30.440 align:middle line:84% His first book Terra Firma was chosen by Denise Levertov 00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:33.080 align:middle line:90% for the National Poetry Series. 00:00:33.080 --> 00:00:37.430 align:middle line:84% It also won the American Book Award and the Bay Area Book 00:00:37.430 --> 00:00:39.740 align:middle line:90% Reviewers Award. 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:43.610 align:middle line:84% His work was also bestowed with that wonderful gift, a Lannan 00:00:43.610 --> 00:00:46.970 align:middle line:84% Foundation Fellowship, that allowed him time 00:00:46.970 --> 00:00:49.580 align:middle line:90% to further his writing. 00:00:49.580 --> 00:00:54.350 align:middle line:84% On the publication in 1995 of Centolella's second book, Lights 00:00:54.350 --> 00:00:57.470 align:middle line:84% & Mysteries, poet Carl Dennis wrote 00:00:57.470 --> 00:01:01.340 align:middle line:84% that "he is a true walker in the city, richly 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:04.640 align:middle line:84% responsive to the wide range of survivors, 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:11.210 align:middle line:84% misfits, and wounded heroes that make up our common landscape." 00:01:11.210 --> 00:01:16.640 align:middle line:84% Donald Hall reminds us that the intent of the lyric voice 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:21.260 align:middle line:84% is to induce a state of inwardness. 00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:26.930 align:middle line:84% What is particularly arresting about Centolella's lyricism 00:01:26.930 --> 00:01:32.180 align:middle line:84% is the way that inwardness extends outward, 00:01:32.180 --> 00:01:38.480 align:middle line:84% as he casts a compassionate eye on lover, neighbor, 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:41.720 align:middle line:90% street person, and friend. 00:01:41.720 --> 00:01:45.290 align:middle line:84% The reach of his meditative gestures 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:48.410 align:middle line:84% reaches its fullest measure, for me, 00:01:48.410 --> 00:01:53.960 align:middle line:84% with the poem "The Orders," in which he conceives of the street 00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:58.520 align:middle line:84% desperado, who holds a gun to his friend's neck, 00:01:58.520 --> 00:02:01.880 align:middle line:90% as an expression of God. 00:02:01.880 --> 00:02:07.100 align:middle line:84% This is a poetic moment that feels as if Ralph Waldo Emerson 00:02:07.100 --> 00:02:12.680 align:middle line:84% and Bruce Springsteen had become one mind. 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:16.490 align:middle line:84% We were not surprised to learn yesterday at the Honors 00:02:16.490 --> 00:02:19.940 align:middle line:84% Colloquium that some of his richest undergraduate studies 00:02:19.940 --> 00:02:25.040 align:middle line:84% were in religion, for everywhere in his poems is the secular 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:30.560 align:middle line:84% quest for the sacred, the presence of a thinking man, 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:35.150 align:middle line:84% bringing kindness to bear on suffering. 00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:37.355 align:middle line:84% Please welcome Thomas Centolella. 00:02:37.355 --> 00:02:39.688 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:39.688 --> 00:02:46.930 align:middle line:90% 00:02:46.930 --> 00:02:48.270 align:middle line:90% I have to live up to that right? 00:02:48.270 --> 00:02:51.450 align:middle line:90% 00:02:51.450 --> 00:02:52.410 align:middle line:90% Springsteen? 00:02:52.410 --> 00:02:54.600 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:55.465 align:middle line:90% Yo. 00:02:55.465 --> 00:02:55.965 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:02:55.965 --> 00:02:59.730 align:middle line:90% 00:02:59.730 --> 00:03:02.430 align:middle line:84% A friend of mine was trying to paraphrase, back to, 00:03:02.430 --> 00:03:06.210 align:middle line:84% me that blurb on the back of Lights & Mysteries that says, 00:03:06.210 --> 00:03:10.110 align:middle line:84% I'm a true walker of the city, and all she could remember 00:03:10.110 --> 00:03:13.095 align:middle line:84% was, you're a guy who likes to get around. 00:03:13.095 --> 00:03:18.770 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.770 --> 00:03:23.000 align:middle line:84% Well, I'm so glad to be here in Tucson, 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.040 align:middle line:90% one of my favorite places. 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:28.370 align:middle line:90% I've been here many times. 00:03:28.370 --> 00:03:30.950 align:middle line:84% Although, it seems to me that I've 00:03:30.950 --> 00:03:33.770 align:middle line:84% been getting a little too much business about that I 00:03:33.770 --> 00:03:39.740 align:middle line:84% am responsible for the weather, having come from the Bay Area, 00:03:39.740 --> 00:03:42.568 align:middle line:90% El Niño, et cetera, et cetera. 00:03:42.568 --> 00:03:44.360 align:middle line:84% But if you guys really are desperate enough 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:48.080 align:middle line:84% that you need me as a scapegoat, all right, so be it. 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:48.770 align:middle line:90% I'm here. 00:03:48.770 --> 00:03:51.720 align:middle line:90% 00:03:51.720 --> 00:04:01.680 align:middle line:84% I'm going to start off with a couple of Arizona poems, 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:04.080 align:middle line:84% about a trip I took, many years ago, with my friend Will 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:12.990 align:middle line:84% Clipman, to the Canyon, in the middle of summer, so two poems 00:04:12.990 --> 00:04:16.700 align:middle line:84% that are going to be kind of variations on the theme.