I have a whole series of announcements.
I hope you will join us after the reading for punch
and goodies in the hall.
The next reading in our visiting poet series
will be Wednesday, November 12, with poet Jack
Gilbert in this auditorium at 8 o'clock.
The Wednesday after that, November 19,
is the graduate student reading with some of this year's MFA
poetry candidates.
Matt Markovich, Jihyuk Han, Kate Rosenberg, and Robert Hepworth.
That too will be in this auditorium at 8 o'clock.
LaVerne Clark will read from her new book
at 3:00 PM at the Poetry Center on November 20, that's Thursday.
And a co-sponsored event with the University of Arizona
extended university's writing work center,
authors Adrian Castro and Victor Hernandez Cruz
will give a workshop and reading this Saturday.
Information about these events is in the lobby.
Tonight's reader, Brenda Hillman,
will also give a talk: Alternative Punctuation
in Contemporary Poetry tomorrow evening at the Dinnerware
Gallery at 7:00.
That's Thursday evening, tomorrow at 7:00.
The talk is co-sponsored by POG and Chax Press,
and made possible by support from the Arizona Humanities
Council.
To introduce Brenda Hillman, we have the University of Arizona
creative writing Professor Jane Miller.
[APPLAUSE]
Welcome.
In an age where the superficial poem or the purely experimental
one has made a noise, Brenda Hillman
has made a music by anticipating the next wave of soul searching
in American writing.
She is fearless about taking on huge themes.
Fearless about introducing dozens
of tones from the humorous to the reverent.
Fearless about self revelation.
Who among us, writers, readers, students of the art,
can not only show poise in the face of such exposure,
but also tenderness.
The early poems of "Coffee 3 A.M."
and "White Dress" anticipate her fooling around
with form and content with freewheeling confidence.
Fooling around that is, as the fool in alchemical terms fools.
With a wisdom that especially in the new poems of "Loose Sugar"
sets a standard for other poets' struggles,
and invites a new readership of contemporary poetry,
to see the world in its multiplicity.
Please join me in welcoming home to Tucson
a poet whose bright existence demands
that we examine beyond the edge of the natural world.
Winner of such honors as the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award,
the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Prize,
and Guggenheim and National Endowment Fellowships.
Ladies and gentlemen, home-girl Brenda Hillman.
[APPLAUSE]