We could not be more excited to announce our Spring 2024 Reading & Lecture Series, featuring an amazing slate of writers! We're grateful for support from the College of Humanities, Health Sciences Innovations in Healthy Aging, the W.A. Franke Honors College, and from supporters in the Poetry Center's Walt Whitman Circle for their underwriting support.
Events take place at the Poetry Center and will be livestreamed at the time of the reading unless noted otherwise on the Poetry Center website.
January
Thursday, January 11, 7:00 PM
Terrain.org 25th Anniversary Reading: Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Derek Sheffield, and Julie Swarstad Johnson
Join us to celebrate Tucson’s own Terrain.org, the world’s first online literary magazine of place, on its 25th anniversary. A limited-edition, commemorative broadside will be available for attendees. Learn more>
Thursday, January 18, 7:00 PM
Edgar Kunz
Edgar Kunz is the author of two poetry collections and has been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Recent poems appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, APR, and Oxford American. Learn more>
Thursday, January 25, 7:00 PM
Tom Sanders Memorial Reading featuring Brenda Hillman
Brenda Hillman is the author of ten collections of poetry and in 2016 she was named Academy of American Poets Chancellor. Among other awards Hillman has received are the 2012 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the 2005 William Carlos Williams Prize for poetry, and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Learn more>
Saturday, January 27, 3:00 PM
Robert Hass
Robert Hass’ most recent poetry books include Time and Materials, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems and Summer Snow: New Poems. Hass translated many of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, and he has edited Selected Poems: 1954-1986 by Tomas Transtromer, as well as the The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. Learn more>
February
Thursday, February 22, 7:00 PM
Letras Latinas 20th Anniversary: Sheila Maldonado, Edgar Garcia and Gina Franco, hosted by Laura Villareal
Join us and celebrate the profound impact Letras Latinas has made on American Poetry. This reading will feature poets Shelia Maldonado, Edgar Garcia and Gina Franco, with remarks from Letras Latinas associate Laura Villareal. Learn more>
Thursday, February 29, 7:00 PM
Matthew Zapruder
Matthew Zapruder is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Father’s Day, as well as two books of prose: Why Poetry and Story of a Poem. He is editor at large at Wave Books and teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California. Learn more>
March
Monday, March 11, 9:00 aM
Poetry Center Building Sign Dedication and Celebration featuring Deborah Jackson Taffa
Join us to celebrate the Poetry Center’s building sign, which now features a dedication in the Quechan (Yuma) language as part of the University of Arizona’s Native Languages of Arizona Campus Sign Initiative.
Thursday, March 14, 7:00 PM
John Murillo
John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections Up Jump the Boogie and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry. His many honors include the Four Quartets Prize from the T.S. Eliot Foundation and the Poetry Society of America, two Larry Neal Writers Awards, a pair of Pushcart Prizes, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Fine Arts Work Center, Cave Canem, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Learn more>
Thursday, March 21, 7:00 PM
Celebrating Aurelie Sheehan
Join us to help celebrate and remember the legacy of one of Tucson’s most vibrant authors and creative writing professors, Aurelie Sheehan, a professor of English for more than 24 years at the University of Arizona, who died on August 13th, 2023. This public celebration will include readings, remarks, and reminiscences from Sheehan’s colleagues and students. Learn more>
Thursday, March 28, 7:00 PM
Saretta Morgan
Saretta Morgan’s work explores the ecologies and intimacies that materialize in the shadows of U.S. militarization. Her first full-length poetry collection, Alt-Nature, addresses these subjects through the landscape of the Sonoran desert. Learn more>
april
Thursday, April 4, 7:00 PM
The Place Where Clouds Are Formed Reading: Ofelia Zepeda, Amber Lee Ortega and Su:k Chu:vak Fulwilder
Join us in celebration of The Place Where Clouds Are Formed, a visual art and poetry exhibit which examines the intersection of spirituality, migration, and current and historical policies that have impacted the borderlands of the Sonoran Desert. The special reading features poets Ofelia Zepeda, Amber Lee Ortega and Su:k Chu:vak Fulwilder. Learn more>
Thursday, April 11, 7:00 PM
Distinguished Visitors in Creative Writing Series: Brenda Lozano
Brenda Lozano is a narrator, essayist, and editor who has been anthologized on several occasions, has taught university courses and workshops, and has been involved in contemporary art and film projects. She was recognized by Conaculta, Hay Festival and the British Council as one of the most important writers under 40 in her country, and is part of Bogotá 39, the most prominent new authors in Latin America. Her novel Soñar como sueñan los árboles will soon be published in Alfaguara. Learn more>
Thursday, April 18, 7:00 PM
Hannelore Quander-Rattee Works in Translation Reading featuring Natalia Toledo and Clare Sullivan
Natalia Toledo is a bilingual poet, who writes in Zapotec and Spanish. She received the National Prize for Nezahualcóyotl Literature in 2004. She has written several books, has appeared in numerous anthologies, and has received grants from the National Fund for Culture and the Art and the Oaxaca State Fund for Culture and the Arts. Learn more>
Clare Sullivan, professor of Spanish at the University of Louisville, teaches language, poetry, and translation. Her collaborative translations of Natalia Toledo and Enriqueta Lunez have appeared in Phoneme Media and Ugly Duckling Presse. Deche bitoope/El dorso del cangrejo/Carapace Dancer, a trilingual version of Natalia Toledo’s 2016 collection, is forthcoming from Deep Vellum.
May
Thursday, May 2, 7:00 PM
Alumni Reading: Gabriel Palacios, Margo Steines, Gabriel Dozal and Maddie Norris
Join us in celebrating new books from University of Arizona Creative Writing Alumni Gabriel Palacios, Margo Steines, Gabriel Dozal and Maddie Norris. Learn more>
Saturday, May 11, 12:00 PM
Classes & Workshops Reading
Presenting students and instructors who participated in the Poetry Center’s Classes & Workshops program during the Summer 2023, Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 semester. They share their original writing. Learn more>