WEBVTT

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Hello, everybody.

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How are we doing?

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Good?

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You're doing great?

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All right.

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Thanks for being here.

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Happy Thursday.

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Welcome back to
the Poetry Center.

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How many people is it your
first time being here tonight?

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Thanks for coming.

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You've made a great choice.

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We welcome you and
hope you'll come back.

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This is a place where
amazing things happen

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frequently, but
especially on Thursday

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nights when we often do our
readings with visiting poets.

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And we're really excited about
this visit tonight, where

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we have the poet
Zeina Hashem Beck here

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with us, who's our spring poet
in residence here at the Poetry

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Center and visiting, I think,
the first time to Tucson.

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And so it's been a really
amazing week so far

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with Zeina here.

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She taught an amazing
class last night.

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We're so excited about this
reading that's about to happen.

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She has a few more days with
us before we sent her back

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to her home, but we're so
thrilled that she's here

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thinking about poems and
thinking about poetry here

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with us in Tucson at
the Poetry Center.

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So thanks so much for being
here to help welcome her

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and for hearing her read.

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There's a lot of
things coming up.

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We had a little bit of
a lull for a few weeks,

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but just to deceive you, because
there's so much coming now.

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You've made a great choice right
now to be here for tonight.

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And then next week there's
something happening that I just

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want to loop you into if you
have not had a chance to see

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this in our materials
or on our website,

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and that is we're
hosting the retreat

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for something called
the Indigenous Nations

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Poets or In-Na-Po.

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And this is an organization
that brings together

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cohorts of emerging
native voices and writers

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and brings them together
with leading faculty.

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And they have a retreat-based
experience for a week at a time,

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and they move this retreat
around to different locations

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around the country.

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This is the first
time that they'll

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be visiting Southern
Arizona, and we're so

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thrilled that they're
choosing to come

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to be a part of this community
for a little bit of time,

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in partnership with the Amerind
Foundation in Dragoon, Arizona.

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Has anybody been to Amerind?

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You have been?

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Good.

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If you haven't been,
your chance is coming.

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And so Amerind is
where they will

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be housed for the first
part of their retreat.

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And then at the
end of their week,

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they're going to
come into Tucson

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and do some events here
at the Poetry Center.

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And we're really
excited about this.

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It's about 25 poets altogether.

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Your opportunities are these.

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On Wednesday, April
1, there's an event

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that's going to happen at
Amerind in Dragoon, Arizona.

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So if you've been there
and you raised your hand

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that that's about an hour
to the east of Tucson,

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just past Benson on a
delightful drive on the I-10.

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Best done with friends.

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And so that is possible and that
event that's going to happen

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will feature the
poet Natalie Diaz

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and the writer Leanne
Betasamosake Simpson.

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We could not be more
excited that they're

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coming to spend some
time in Southern Arizona

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with the poets that will be
here and also in an event

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that we can help
produce with Amerind.

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So you can take that trip
out there from Tucson.

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If you want to go, it will
be at 7 o'clock at Amerind.

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It's going to be
an outdoor reading.

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It will be a full moon.

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It promises to be a really
special and unique reading.

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And one, again, that we're
really excited that's happening.

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So you can drive out there on
by yourself, and we support that

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and we encourage you to do it.

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You should bring
everything that you

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need to enjoy a delightful
outdoor reading on an April

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night in Southern Arizona.

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And if you have a
folding camping chair,

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that's a great thing to bring,
water, maybe a layer if you

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want to be--

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It has been warm.

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It's going to be
cooler next week.

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And so all of that can happen,
and we encourage you to do that.

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However, if you don't
want to drive yourself,

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there is also a poetry bus that
will be leaving from the Poetry

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Center at 5:30 on Wednesday
of next week, 5:30 sharp.

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And if you want to claim
a spot on that bus,

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there's a few seats
that are left.

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It'll get out there just
before the reading starts.

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We think that it will get back
to Tucson at approximately 10:00

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PM, or maybe just
a little bit after.

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Again, it's about an
hour each way on the bus.

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And if that appeals
to you, the way

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to find out more about
that is on the website,

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poetry.arizona.edu, and then
go to the calendar listing

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for April 1.

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No fooling.

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There is a bus and
you can sign up

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for it there to come see Natalie
Diaz and Leanne Betasamosake

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Simpson.

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And that will be
an awesome night.

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If that's not in
the cards for you,

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don't worry, because
the next night,

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on April 2, that's when the
group will come to Tucson.

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And so the retreat participants
will be reading that night here

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at the Poetry
Center, half of them,

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along with the faculty members
that are with the retreat.

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And so those faculty members
include the poet Rob Arnold,

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who's the executive director at
Poets House in New York City.

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Elise Paschen, a poet who
formerly directed the Poetry

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Society of America, wonderful
poet, many books, and then

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the poet Ofelia Zepeda,
who, of course, many of us

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here in Tucson know
very, very well.

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Half of the retreat
participants will be reading,

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and they'll be reading
in six-minute increments,

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so it'll be a many-
voiced reading

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and maybe just a touch longer
than our normal readings

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might go otherwise.

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That's on April 2, Thursday
night at 7 o'clock.

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Friday, April 3, the
other half of the retreat

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will read here as well.

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So you can come back again and
hear another set of writers,

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all new voices in
that reading, and that

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will feature the
faculty members,

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Kimberly Blaeser, who's the
executive director of Indigenous

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Nations Poets, Bojan Louis,
who's a faculty member here

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at the University of Arizona--
we're so excited that he'll

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be part of this-- and then
our brand new Arizona poet

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laureate, Laura Tohe, will
be a faculty member as well.

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So it promises to be a
really amazing three days.

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And if the world has got you
in a place where maybe you're

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feeling a little blue or
disenfranchised by reading

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the news headlines, I'm there.

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I'm really excited for
three days of poetry.

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Come join me, and
this is going to be

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a really amazing experience
that's possible Wednesday,

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Thursday, and Friday of next
week with the Indigenous Nations

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Poets retreat.

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But it doesn't stop there.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And then the last thing
I want to tell you about

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is just after that,
the next week,

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there's more to
come beyond that,

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but the next week, I'll
just say that we'll

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be hosting the Belarusian poet,
Volha Hapayeva, who's going

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to be traveling to Tucson.

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We're really thrilled
she'll be here.

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That's April 9 at 7 o'clock.

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And this is through
a new partnership

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with an EU-based poetry
organization called Versopolis,

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that's working to build bridges
between the US and the European

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Union and some inter-nation
exchange of poets.

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And so, with their
support, Volha

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is going to make
a tour of the US.

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By all accounts, she's a
leading voice in Eastern Europe,

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and we're really
pleased that she's

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going to be with
us here in Tucson,

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reading from her work
on April 9 at 7 o'clock.

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So there's a lot coming up.

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We're really excited about it.

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You can find out more
about all of these things

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on our website in
our calendar section,

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but you've made a
great choice tonight.

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And I just want to-- before I
introduce or welcome up Farid

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Matuk, who's going to tell us
more about Zeina Hashem Beck--

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I just want to ask for you
to put your hands together

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in a big round of applause
for support for the Center

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for Middle Eastern
Studies, which has helped

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make this reading possible--

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[APPLAUSE]

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--and has done incredible
work on campus, around culture

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and around language and
around diverse understandings

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for a long, long time.

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And we're really pleased to
have their support of what's

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happening here.

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We're not going to have a
Q & A after the reading,

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but books are for sale.

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And so if you want
to buy a book,

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I know Zeina will be
happy to sign those.

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And now it's my pleasure to help
welcome up a great friend, Farid

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Matuk, a professor, a
poet, a translator who

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works in the creative
writing program

00:07:52.650 --> 00:07:54.350 align:middle line:84%
here at the
University of Arizona.

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And his most recent books are
Moon Mirrored Indivisible,

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which is a book of his poems.

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And then he's the translator
of Tilsa Otta's book,

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The Hormone of Darkness.

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Please help me welcome up
my good friend Farid Matuk.

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[APPLAUSE]