By
Graig Uhlin
Arizona Daily Wildcat
National Poetry Series award recipient Barbara Cully to
The UA Poetry Center continues its poetry reading series today with a reading from nationally renowned local poet Barbara Cully.
Cully, a University of Arizona lecturer who teaches composition and creative writing, will be reading poems from her new work, "Desire Reclining."
"Desire Reclining" is a series of prose poem meditations. Each poem is comprised of between four and nine sections united by the poem's title," Cully stated in an e-mail interview. "The poems in the book speak to each other by way of their voices, subjects, imagery and lyrical progressions.
"My poems, especially my most recent poems, meditate while they conduct lyrical inquiries into their various subjects," Cully added. "What I hope is engaging about them is their use of language and visuals, their thought process, and their voices."
Cully was born in San Diego in 1955, a place where, she stated, there were many friends and teachers that introduced her to the world of poetry. She further refined her craft at the Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa She earned her Master of Fine Arts there under the guidance of teachers like the acclaimed poet Jorie Graham before coming to the University of Arizona.
The process by which Cully writes her poetry relies heavily on the sound of the words.
"I write and revise by ear. I write my poems out loud," she stated. "Nothing is finished until it sounds right - to the intellect and heart, of course, but by way of the ear."
Cully is also the author of another book of poems titled "The New Intimacy." The collection was awarded the 1996 National Poetry Series Open Competition, a prestigious nationwide contest where one manuscript is selected from thousands for publication.
Her work addresses themes of loss and penitence, which Cully stated come from "a decidedly spiritual -though not religious in the traditional sense - relation to the world."
"A reader I trust has told me that the themes in my new manuscript, 'Desire Reclining,' are penitence, desire, motion, duty and loss," Cully stated. "I think intuitively that she is right."
UA Poetry Center director Jim Paul, who selected Cully for this reading, said he always sees similar themes emerging from her work.
"To me, the central aspect of Barbara Cully's work is a profound understanding of the paradox of loss - that what reduces us outwardly, augments us inwardly. That what is taken from us, lives in us, so that we continue in totality, either way," Paul stated in his opening address to Cully's reading.
Although a self-professed introvert, Cully stated that she enjoys public readings of her poetry.
"Before I had the opportunity to read my poems publicly, I wrote poems quietly to myself that others might read quietly to themselves. After reading publicly, a shift happened and I became aware of my lyrical voice as a gift that I wanted to bring across to an audience," she stated. "So reading, I think, is one way to make one's set of intentions larger. It also returns the poem to the air where it might best reside - and disappear."
The reading will take place in the Modern Languages Auditorium at 8 tonight. Admission is free and open to the public.
