WEBVTT

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Hello, everybody.

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How are you doing.

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Good.

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Great.

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It's nice to hear a response.

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You're all doing well.

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Everybody's good?

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Yeah.

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OK, good.

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Glad you're here.

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Thanks for coming.

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Welcome to the Poetry Center.

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We're really pleased to have
this reading tonight with Andrew

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Grace and Susan Nguyen.

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It's a great gift to have these
poets here with us in Tucson.

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Returning to Tucson,
both of them.

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And so we're pleased to have
them back in the city and back

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at the Poetry Center.

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This reading happens every
year at the Poetry Center.

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We call this our annual Morgan
Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading.

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Did anybody here know Morgan?

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Some of you did.

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Yes.

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Good.

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OK.

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An incredible poet,
an incredible voice

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who passed away some time ago.

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And this reading was started
with a private donation

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to help support emerging
and innovative poets

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and to bring those voices into
the Poetry Center's reading

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series every year.

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And I wanted to just tell you
a little bit about Morgan,

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so you might know a
bit more about him.

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He's the author of two books
of poems, Verge and erros,

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and those are both from a
press called Parlor Press.

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And both of those are
at the Poetry Center

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if you might like to see them or
learn more about Morgan's work,

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as well as his three chapbooks.

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And those include Otherhow, a
book called L=u=N=G=U=A=G=E,

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and a book that's titled As
Vanish, Especially, excuse me,

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As Vanish, Unespecially.

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You maybe picking up a theme
and some of Morgan's interest

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in his work, which
was about playfulness

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with language, exploring the
possibilities of language,

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what holds it together, where
it threatens to break apart.

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What happens when you put
two unlike things together,

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create new words out of that.

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And those interests of
playfulness, I think,

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guided a lot of his
aesthetic, and his work

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led to a lot of his
interest in the other poets

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that he tracked and
followed that, again,

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fed back into the work
that he was creating.

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So we do this every
year in memory of Morgan

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and celebrating his work.

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And again, it's a real pleasure
to have these two poets here

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with us tonight, Andy and Susan,
to help honor that legacy even

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further.

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I want to tell you and
pivot now to about some

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upcoming things that are
happening at the Poetry Center,

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or in Tucson more broadly.

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We've had a really
great spring season

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at the Poetry Center so far.

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How many of you have been to
other readings here this spring?

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Very good.

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I'm giving you all a high five.

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There's more coming up
and I want to tell you

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about them really quickly.

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But we shift for a bit in March.

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And so the next big happening at
the Poetry Center is on March 7.

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We'll have the state finals for
the Poetry Out Loud program.

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So that's Saturday back
here at the Poetry Center.

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That's 1 o'clock.

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Poetry Out Loud
is a program where

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high school students memorize
poems and then recite them.

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And so this brings the best
in the state of Arizona

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to do that work at
the Poetry Center.

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It's pretty amazing to see high
school students reciting poems

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out loud for you.

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And so if you're interested in
having that awesome experience,

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that's back here March 7, 1
o'clock at the Poetry Center.

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Soon after that, there's
something called the Tucson

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Festival of Books, which
has many things happening,

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and I encourage you to
get on their website

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to see the breadth and
depth of all of it.

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Lots of good poetry
things happening.

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But what I want to
particularly plug

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is the last session
on Sunday 4 o'clock,

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where the poetry
events mostly happen,

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which is in the Kiva Room.

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We'll have the first reading
from Tucson's new poet laureate,

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which has not yet
been named, but will

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be next week with an
announcement from the mayor.

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We'll also have a
first Tucson reading

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since she has been named as
our new state poet laureate

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by our governor, Katie Hobbs.

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And our new Arizona poet
laureate is the poet Laura Tohe.

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And so Laura will
be here to read,

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as well as the new
Tucson poet laureate.

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That's 4 o'clock in the
Kiva in the Student Union.

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I hope you can join us and
be a part of that happenings,

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amongst many other
things happening

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with lots of excitement
at the book festival.

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There's a new exhibit
opening at the Poetry Center,

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and that's Indigenous Poets
from the Rare Book Room.

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It's a beautiful exhibit.

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It opens officially on
Tuesday, but it is up now.

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So if you want to come check
that out as early as tomorrow,

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I would be happy
for you to see that.

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And that will be in place
throughout the spring season

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and into the early summer.

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It's a beautiful exhibit of a
lot of really incredible work,

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and we hope you'll spend
some time with that if you're

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at the Poetry Center and
want to check it out.

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We will do readings again.

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And the next one
that's coming up

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is with the poet
Zeina Hashem Beck,

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who will be here
as our spring poet

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and residence in collaboration
with the Center for Middle

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Eastern Studies.

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And that happens on
Thursday, March 26,

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back in this space at 7 o'clock.

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And then immediately
following that,

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we have a retreat that's coming
from the Indigenous Nations

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Poets, which will host about
30 emerging Native poets

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in Southern Arizona.

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And there will be events
happening, including

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one that we're just
getting up on the website

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with the poet Natalie Diaz and
the writer Leanne Betasamosake

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Simpson.

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And that's going to be at
Amerind on the Wednesday,

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April 1.

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And then two readings
from the retreat

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that will be here on
April 2 and April 3.

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So there's a lot coming up
and things you can learn about

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on our website.

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And I hope you'll
take advantage of this

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and come participate
in all of them.

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We're going to have books
for sale after the reading.

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We'll skip the normal kind of
Q and A that sometimes happens,

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but I know both writers would
be happy to talk to you.

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And those books are
for sale on my right

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at the table with the bookstore.

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Come buy some books and
come meet these poets

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after the poetry reading.

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My colleague Aria
Pahari is going

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to introduce Susan,
who will read second.

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And I'll just give
you some quick context

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for Aria, who will come up
after Andy's done reading.

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Aria is a poet and an editor who
works here at the Poetry Center.

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So delightfully if you come,
you get to hang out with Aria.

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You can find her work in
places like The Georgia

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Review, Waxwing, Inverted Syntax
and Margins, among other places.

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She's the library specialist
here at the Poetry Center,

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works with our
library collections

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and materials and outreach.

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She's the only
person with special

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in her title at
the Poetry Center.

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And that's not a mistake.

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That's legit.

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And she's the one.

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So she'll come up
and introduce Susan

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once Andy's done reading and--