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Fiction writer Robert Boswell
will read from his work

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on Wednesday, February 21, at
8:00 PM in Modern Languages.

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And William Kittredge
and Annick Smith,

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two significant writers
about the American West,

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will be reading from their
work on Thursday, February 22,

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at 8:00 in the DuVal Auditorium
at the University Medical

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Center.

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And you can call the English
Department or the Poetry Center

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for more information about that.

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Also, I would like to announce
that there will be a, quote,

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"Lovesick Poetry Reading" on
February 14 at the University

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of Arizona's Student Union
Cellar from noon to 1:00.

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And that is an open mic.

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And you can contact the
Department of Student Programs

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by February 13 to
get on the lineup.

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Copies of Mr. Sobin's books are
available, compliments of ASUA

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bookstore.

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They will be for sale in
the lobby after the reading.

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And I'm sure Mr. Sobin
will be happy to sign

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copies of the books.

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Gustaf Sobin is the author
of five volumes of poetry,

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the most recent of which
are By the Bias of Sound:

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Selected Poems, and Breaths'
Burials, both issued in 1995.

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His two novels, Venus
Blue and Dark Mirrors:

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A Novel of Provence, were
published by Bloomsbury

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and were critically acclaimed
both in the United States

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and abroad.

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His poetry has been included
in The Best American Poetry

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of 1990, and in Postmodern
American Poetry: A Norton

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Anthology, and in magazines
such as Talisman, Ironwood,

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and Sulfur.

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He has for the past 30 years
been resident in France.

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A professor of poetry and--

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interestingly-- of archaeology
at the Lacoste School

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of the Arts in Provence,
Mr. Sobin's creative work

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seems appropriately matched
to these two disciplines.

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His is a poetry possessing
the full knowledge

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of his modern
poetic predecessors,

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perhaps most obviously
the French surrealists

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and the American contemporaries
Robert Duncan and Robert

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Creeley.

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But it is one which
also looks back

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to a time of almost prehistoric
utterance and weighted image,

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a work where the
psychological leap and forward

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rhetorical movement are hybrid
with the pure descriptive,

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the visual.

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Sobin's interest in the basic
units of speech, the syllables,

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shows for this reader a love
of utterance, as if the poet

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wishes to dissect the
language, not to bend it

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in illustration of a theory.

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Sobin's poetry helps
its readers come

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to an understanding of the
basic syntactical units

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by placing them in positions
of tension or adoration.

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Just as the archaeologist
unearths, repairs,

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and reassembles an artifact to
gain a greater understanding

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of its innate structure
and culture of origin,

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so Sobin constructs and
reconstructs his fine poems.

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In a conversation I had
with Gustaf two days ago,

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he told me of his
living abroad, where,

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as a native English speaker
living among the French,

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he is in a way able
to reserve English

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for the production of poetry.

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It does not get used for
laundry lists or advertisements

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or political rhetoric, but
maintains its inherent beauty,

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its edge.

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This linguistic
isolation allows him

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to write a poetry that is
highly visual, almost cinematic,

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with great lyric intensity,
while remaining fully aware

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of the weight and
magnitude of our language.

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As one critic has
written, Sobin's poetry

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performs an otherwise
inconceivable melding

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of austerity and exuberance.

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From his poem,
"Caesurae, Midsummer,"

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"Was no room white enough to
catch this, this lightning,

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your fabulous lash?"

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I'm pleased to
introduce Gustaf Sobin.

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[APPLAUSE]

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