WEBVTT

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How is everybody?

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Happy Thursday.

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Everybody doing OK?

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Good.

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You can hear me.

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Good.

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You guys can hear
me in the back OK?

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Good.

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Welcome, everybody.

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Glad you're here.

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Welcome to the Poetry Center.

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My name is Tyler.

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I work here as the director.

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We're really pleased that
you're here this Thursday.

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It's a special Thursday
at the Poetry Center

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because we have a poet with
us who speaks many languages.

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And I think we're
going to get a chance

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to hear many of those
languages tonight.

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How many people
here are bilingual?

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How many people are trilingual?

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How many are quad lingual?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Not many.

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I am jealous of all of you.

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And I'm really excited
for Volha Hapeyeva,

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who's here with us, who's
traveled very far to be here.

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Perhaps our poet who's
traveled the farthest

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to be at the Poetry
Center this year.

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And so maybe we give a
big round of applause

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to Volha for that travel
and for joining us.

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And we'll hear more about
Volha her work in a moment.

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But I want to tell you a couple
of things that are happening

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at the Poetry Center coming up.

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And then talk a little bit
about a collaboration that

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helped make tonight possible.

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And if you need,
there's more seats.

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Come in, friends.

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You guys are more than welcome.

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There's some seats
up front, too.

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Coming up.

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So next week at the
Poetry Center on the 16th,

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we'll have the
writer Julia Alvarez,

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best known for her fiction,
but also a tremendous poet,

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a poet first.

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And she has just
released a brand new book

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called Visitations.

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And that was out on Tuesday.

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So it will be one
of the launch events

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that's happening for that book
is here on Thursday next week

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at 7 o'clock.

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And that will be again on the
16th back here at the Poetry

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Center.

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Come join us for that.

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And then our very last
reading of our spring season

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will be with the Mexican
poet, Balam Rodrigo, who we're

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thrilled is coming to Tucson.

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And that's on April 30
back here at the Poetry

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Center at 7 o'clock as well.

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It has been a really
beautiful big spring

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season at the Poetry Center.

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And these are exclamation
points at the end.

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And so we hope you'll be
back to see these programs

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that are in front of
us and that are coming.

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You're already doing great
work by being here tonight.

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Everyone gets an A. Good work.

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I also want to point out
there's one of our collaborators

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and a student at
the U of A who's

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finishing her undergraduate at
the Honors College, Nagasriya

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Ramisetty, on April 17 will be
presenting her thesis of work.

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And that's going to happen at
the HSIB building, the Health

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Sciences Innovation Building,
about a five-minute walk

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away from here.

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On the 17, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM.

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And there's
information about that.

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That's on this sheet.

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And I think some of
that's on the table that's

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out in the breezeway.

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And so if you want
to hear what's

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happening next in poetry
and the next generation,

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come join Nagasriya.

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And that work again
on the 17th of April.

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That's a Friday night from 5:00
to 7:00 in the HSIB building.

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If you have not yet had a chance
to visit the inside the Poetry

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Center and see the current
exhibit, that's up.

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I want to encourage
you to do so.

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It is wonderful.

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It's a curation of
materials from our rare book

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room and our special holdings
that feature Indigenous

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voices and Indigenous poets.

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It's a sampling of all
of those materials.

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It's a tremendous exhibit.

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I hope you'll spend
some time with that.

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Also, that's not
visual right now.

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But if you had a chance to
look in the Poetry Center

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when it was lit up,
there's a display

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of flags in the front window.

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And those flags
are a partnership

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with the Office of Native
American Advancement and Tribal

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Engagement.

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And they are the 22 flags
of the 22 recognized

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nations in Arizona.

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And they're very beautiful.

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And it's an incredible
array of color,

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and images, and iconography.

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And I hope you'll take a chance
to look at those as well when

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you're over there
visiting the exhibit,

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and spend some time
with collections.

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Books are for sale on my right.

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And Mark is selling them.

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He's our model this evening.

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Good.

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Mark, can you do--

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Great.

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Perfect.

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And so visit Mark afterwards.

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And he'd be happy
to sell you a book.

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They're $10 each.

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And I think we can
do a credit card.

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Or if you have cash,
that can work as well.

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Exact change is helpful.

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We're excited for more books
to come in English translation.

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And so that's the next thing.

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And we're hopeful about
all of the things that

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loom with Volha's incredible
poetry for English readers,

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for all readers.

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But for English readers also.

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This reading tonight is possible
because of a partnership.

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And that partnership was with
a group called Versopolis.

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Versopolis is a
consortium of-- it's

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an EU-based poetry platform,
a consortium of poets that

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are working to create
more visibility for EU

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poets, emerging poets, and
more recently, building

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bigger connections and bridges
between the EU and the United

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States.

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American poets and EU poets,
EU reading communities,

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poetry communities, and
American poetry communities.

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And so we're really thrilled
to be in collaboration

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with this group.

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And looking forward to
building on this work

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and the seasons that come.

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There's a collaboration
of American partners

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that are part of this.

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And so the University of
Arizona and the Poetry Center

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is one of them.

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But the other partners include
Georgetown University, Cornell,

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Princeton, Washington
University in St. Louis,

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and the University of Iowa.

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And so it's great to be in
conversation with these groups,

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thinking about how we can
build bigger connections,

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and a bigger, and broader
internationalism among poets

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who are doing work in
a contemporary way.

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Maybe a big round of
applause then for Versopolis.

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That's worth celebrating.

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[APPLAUSE]

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And here's to building bridges,
which we're excited to be doing.

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I am excited to welcome
up Kelsi Vanada, who's

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the program director of the
American Literary Translators

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Association, or ALTA.

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Some of you may know about
ALTA, who is based here somewhat

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in Tucson, will have its 50th
anniversary conference next

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year.

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Not 2026, but 2027
back in Tucson.

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They bring together in
these conferences 100, 500,

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600 translators doing
the work of moving

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literature between languages.

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And that will be in Tucson.

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That's something we
can look forward to.

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Kelsi helps lead
that work for ALTA.

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She's also a poet, and
has a wonderful book

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of poems called Optional
Saint, and is a translator

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of seven different collections.

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I think I counted.

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From Spanish, from Swedish, and
people from Belarus also writing

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in Spanish now most recently,
which is pretty exciting.

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So please help me welcome
Kelsi Vanada, who's

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going to tell us more
about Volha Hapeyeva.

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[APPLAUSE]