Hello, everybody.
How are you doing?
OK?
[APPLAUSE]
It's so nice to be here with you,
on this beautiful November evening in Tucson.
I'm looking, I'm scanning the crowd,
and it's like a commercial for down jackets, which
means we're in Tucson and it's a little chilly.
But I'm glad you guys are here.
Thanks for coming to be warmed up by what this will be.
And we're really excited to have this crowd here
tonight, on a Thursday night, at the Poetry Center,
in April, in National Poetry month, which we can applaud--
[APPLAUSE]
--for two terrific poets that have
been heartbeats of what poetry has been in this state
for a long time.
And so it's a great gift to be able to present both of them
together tonight, here in Tucson, at the Poetry Center.
They're both great friends, so it's a delight
from that perspective.
But their work extends far beyond in ways
that we're thrilled to be presenting here
at the Poetry Center.
So please, I'll introduce them shortly, but a round of applause
and welcome to Alison Deming and Sally Ball.
[APPLAUSE]
If we haven't met, my name is Tyler.
I work as the director here, at the Poetry Center.
I'm glad you're here.
I want to tell you about some things that are coming up
at the Poetry Center after this program
so you can have them on your radar,
be thinking about coming back to see us.
It will probably be warmer for all of these,
so just so you know.
On April 10, the next reading that's
happening in the Poetry Center is with the poet Robert Pinsky,
former US poet laureate.
We're thrilled that that's happening.
So that's back here at 7 o'clock on April 10
here, at the Poetry Center.
On the 19th, if there are small humans in your life,
children ages 0 to 10, or even 12,
we have a program called Kids Create that we do every
semester.
This Kids Create is on April 19.
It's a Saturday.
It'll be from 10:00 to noon.
There's writing workshops, there's music,
there's snacks, all the good things that one
needs to have a good time--
writing, music, snacks.
That's like a good time.
So that's happening from 10:00 to noon here,
at the Poetry Center.
It becomes a kid-centric space.
The library gets turned over to the kids that are here.
We're really excited about that.
Hope you might come back for that if there
are such humans in your life--
children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, et cetera.
Then on May 1, we have one of our last readings in the series,
and that's with the translator, Natasha Wimmer.
And we're really excited about this.
How many people know Natasha Wimmer?
You're in for a good--
Please come.
You're going to be excited.
So Natasha is a great translator from the Spanish.
Translates fiction.
This is one of the-- a collaboration
with the MFA program and their Distinguished Visiting Writers
series.
And so Natasha has translated the Nobel laureate, Mario Vargas
Llosa.
She's translated the Chilean novelist, Roberto Bolaño,
and then most recently, the Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue,
a book You Dreamed Of Empires, which was a 2024 New York Times
10 Best Books of the Year.
We're really thrilled that she'll be here.
That will likely be a somewhat bilingual reading,
and we're so excited for Natasha's presence in Tucson,
and for her practice as one of the leading
translators in the country.
We do have some books for sale this evening,
but we don't have all of them.
And this is a regret.
An error was made in getting Sally's books here on time,
so we want to make sure that you know that there'll
be book sales afterwards, if you're interested in that work.
Sally's books are on the QR codes that are right here,
and then other books are for sale
over on the table on my right.
And I know that both authors would love to speak with you.
Afterwards, we're going to forego a Q and A,
but come up and talk to the poets
after we're done this evening.