Hello, everybody.
Welcome.
How are you all?
Good.
A little more.
Yeah.
Good.
Thanks for doing that for me.
I appreciate it.
My name is Tyler.
I work here as the director at the Poetry Center.
Thanks for coming out on a Thursday night
and enjoying a cooler evening with a lot of other people
that are enjoying a cooler evening,
which you've all earned, if you've been in Tucson.
So kudos to you.
I have just a couple of things I want to say really quickly.
One is if you've seen these delightful things on your seats,
these are broadsides by our readers
tonight made by New Michigan Press and Ander Monson.
He'll probably say more about these when he's up here.
These are yours to take.
And they're beautiful, so enjoy these.
Display them proudly on your fridge, your kitchen,
your living room, other places.
They're yours to keep.
And if you didn't get some, there
are some that are around on other seats,
or there's a Breezeway table out here
that has some extras as well.
And so we want to make sure you guys take care of those
and grab those.
We're working on an update to the sale machine for the books.
And that I think is going to happen.
We're all going to manifest that it's going to happen.
Send good energy that way.
And so books are going to be for sale after the reading.
And I know the writers would be excited to sign
those books for you after the reading as well.
We're grateful to have Josh Riedel and Thomas Dai back
with us here in Tucson.
Alums of the MFA program.
Put your hands together for them and their return
back to this place, which I think
they have probably not read in since they
were graduate students.
So it's exciting to have them back here in this version
of their lives with their beautiful books,
which they're traveling behind.
I just have three quick things I want to say,
and then I will get out of the way.
And that is some stuff that's upcoming at the Poetry Center.
So our next reading that's here with the Center on October 9,
features Richard Siken and Mathias Svalina.
Richard Siken, a local Tucson poet, his book
is up for the National Book Award this year.
Hope you'll come out for that, especially Mathias
tremendous, delightful, expansive poet.
Both great.
And we're excited to have them both here on October 9, 7
o'clock back in this space.
Mathias will be here all month and does some public art
projects with poetry as part of his practice.
And so part of that is delivering
dreams, where he literally writes dreams for people
and delivers them to your house, and he
takes on subscribers where he does that.
You can learn more about that soon
on the Poetry Center's website, if you
might like to sign up to receive dreams for a period of time,
while Mathias is here.
They come in little pink envelopes.
Truly, every day, there's a dream for you, just for you
from him.
He also does dream history tours of places
where he imagines a history that's based on the real one,
but that includes dream logic and dream thinking.
And so there's two of those that are
going to happen at the end of the month as well.
So you can find out about that in our calendar.
These are available on the table that
is outside in the breezeway, also
next to the extras of the broadsides.
So if you to learn more about that that's here.
After that, on October 23, which will
be the time when I promise that these construction fences will
not be here anymore, and it'll just be a beautiful garden
space to my right.
How many of you have dealt with urban frustrated
by construction in that area?
Yeah.
Me, too.
Especially, me.
I can commiserate with you.
That'll be better.
And it's going to be a beautiful space for people to hang out,
gather where events can happen.
And it will be done by October 15.
So when you come back on the 23rd to hear Tracy K.
Smith at the Poetry Center, she'll be reading nearby here
at a venue called HSIB, which is just a five-minute walk away
from the Poetry Center.
Those details are in this calendar as well.
That event on the 23rd is following the Siken and Svalina
event on the ninth.
And then the last event of the month
that we're really excited about features colleagues in the MFA
program, faculty members Susan Briante and Farid
Matuk and their new books, which we're thrilled about.
Put your hands together for these folks.
[APPLAUSE]
We'll be in this space for that reading.
And that's at 7 o'clock on Thursday.
So lots of great things coming up in October,
including the end of construction.
We hope to see you back for those events.
I want to welcome up my great friend and colleague, Paco
Cantu, who also is a faculty member in the MFA program.
He'll talk a little bit more about the program
and the distinguished visitor writer series,
which you are here for tonight.
Please help me welcome Paco.
[APPLAUSE]