Hello, everybody.
Hello, hello.
Can you hear me in the back OK?
You can.
Good.
I can kind of see you.
There's a lot of you.
This is great.
There's a lot of people choosing to be a little cold for poetry,
which I think is an exceptional choice
to make at any moment but especially this week.
So I'm glad you're here.
Welcome to the Poetry Center.
Welcome to the Spring 2025 Season at the Poetry Center.
Could not be more thrilled to be welcoming
poets Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky to Tucson, and back
to Tucson in some cases.
So a round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]
They've worked very hard to get here.
And so we're thrilled that they're here.
And they'll be reading tomorrow night in Phoenix
with the Piper Center at ASU.
So we're happy to have them in Arizona right now.
And again, in a week of all weeks to have poetry to turn to
feels especially exciting, and valuable, and meaningful,
and earnestly important.
My name is Tyler.
I work as the director at the Poetry Center.
And I just wanted to talk about a couple
of quick things that are coming up.
And because it's the beginning of the season,
so many things are coming up.
So I'll talk about them really quickly.
But I want to make sure how many of you have seen this before?
Many of you?
Raise your hands.
Good.
Everyone who has not seen this yet,
this is the calendar of events that the Poetry
Center for the Spring Season.
They're around on the table that's outside.
There's some up here at the book sales table.
This will tell you everything that's happening in this season
through the Poetry Center.
Our website is also a great place
to learn about the things that are happening
and also to stay up to date if there are changes.
So great to always check the website.
But many things are coming up, including next week back here
at the Poetry Center on Thursday night,
we have our Tom Sanders Memorial Reading.
And we'll be hearing from the poet Kimberly Blaeser who
we're so excited about.
She has a tremendous book out from the U of A Press
called Ancient Light, along with many other books.
And we're thrilled to have Kimberly Blaeser here
at the Poetry Center.
On February 13, we'll be back here at the Poetry Center
with the poet Terrance Hayes, who'll be returning to Tucson.
And we're really excited about that visit.
And then on February 20, back here again,
these are all Thursday nights, 7 o'clock, this space,
with the poet Niki Herd.
So a really tremendous new book called The Stuff of Hollywood
out from Copper Canyon Press.
All amazing poets.
We're thrilled that they're choosing to come and to spend
time with all of us.
And I hope to see you back here for those readings as well.
There are classes at the Poetry Center every season.
And we have some classes that remain open right now, including
a class with Niki Herd and also a class with our spring
poet in residence Divya Victor.
And so if you're interested, if you made a New Year's resolution
to do more writing, this is your chance to make good on it.
So I hope you'll jump into those classes
and come enjoy those experiences that happen here
at the Poetry Center.
And you can learn more at poetry.arizona.edu.
There's an exhibit at the Poetry Center
that's up right now that's tremendous.
How many of you have seen Mary Ruefle's Erasure exhibit?
Good.
If you have not, join us.
It's an amazing exhibit.
And it's up until February 8.
So if you've not seen it yet, I hope you'll spend some time
and come and enjoy that before it comes down
for what comes next.
Likewise, we have a collaboration right now
with MoCA Tucson.
And there's an exhibit of lifelike poem sculptures
from the poet CAConrad.
And that exhibit will be up until February 16.
So if you've not had a chance to see that exhibit,
I hope you'll take a chance to go catch it
before it comes down.
CAConrad will be back in town and doing some workshops
at MoCA Tucson.
If you want to learn about those,
go to the MoCA Tucson website to check those out.
Those are in early February.
There is a haiku contest in Downtown Tucson right now.
And it is accepting submissions until February 3.
Our great friend, poet TC Tolbert, who's in the back,
is judging this contest for the city of Tucson
for the Poetry Center.
The theme this year is belonging.
Hope you might consider submitting work to that contest.
Free to submit and a great way to be
a part of a participatory process,
thinking about ideas together through poetry.
I mentioned books were for sale.
If you have money, it's a great thing to spend money on, books.
Always good.
We're going to skip a Q & A and forego that and just
move directly to a kind of book signing line afterwards.
So if you're interested in catching up with either Ilya
or Katie, come up afterwards, buy a book, and come meet them,
and talk to them a little bit about their work
and about the reading.
That's everything I had to say.
Everybody doing OK?
Good.
I'm not going to talk at you anymore about any of that.
But I am very excited to introduce my friend
and colleague Julie Swarstad Johnson who's going to tell us
more about the poets tonight.
Julie Swarstad Johnson is the archivist and outreach librarian
here at the Poetry Center.
It is a great joy to work with her every day.
She's a tremendous poet.
Her book Pennsylvania Furnace is wonderful.
She's also co-editor of Beyond Earth's Edge:
The Poetry of Spaceflight.
Please help me welcome my colleague Julie Swarstad
Johnson.
[APPLAUSE]
Great.