![[ ARTS
]](/images/fall97/artsublogo.gif)
Arizona Daily Wildcat September 18, 1997
Poetry Center offers readings, 'totally eclectic' poetry collection
Imagine your grandmother lives just north of campus, in one of those quaint old houses with a front porch and a back garden. Imagine said grandma has filled her house with comfy couches and books. Imagine this collection of books includes everything from John Donne to Allen Ginsberg, with more poetry coming in (just about everything that gets printed, in fact) every year. Imagine also that your grandmother entices some of the most exciting and talented writers in America to come read in her big rumpus room in Modern Languages.Either we're talking about the literary crowd's answer to Mary Poppins or the University of Arizona's own Poetry Center.
Now in their third decade of offering a vital poetry pit stop to the Tucson community, the Poetry Center will kick off their Fall Reading Series on Sept. 24 with a reading by Leslie Scalapino in the Modern Languages Auditorium. Scalapino is the first in a lineup described by the Center's Acting Director Richard Shelton, as "enormously diverse, what we always strive for."
Also on the agenda this fall are Linda Hogan, an American Indian poet; Brenda Hillman, making a return appearance to the Series; Steve Orlen, a UA Creative Writing professor; and Jack Gilbert, described by Shelton as "not mainstream ... a very unusual and independent poet." And - this just in - LaVerne Harrell Clark, the Poetry Center's very first director, will read from her new novel "Keepers of the Earth."
In addition to this world-class talent, the Reading Series presents showcases of our local talent in the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Readings.
Shelton, also a Creative Writing professor, feels that the Reading Series helps make poetry more accessible to the community.
"Some poets feel (public readings) are beneath them, but others feel they owe it to the audience, " he notes. He says that the Reading Series tries to bring in not just great writers, but effective readers as well.
He goes on to note that at least half of the audience at the readings are from the community at large, proving that poetry is not an exclusively academic pursuit. The Poetry Center prides itself on its accessibility to the community.
"We cater to the public," Shelton explains, "which makes you more accountable."
This accountability has garnered the Poetry Center one of the best reputations in the country. The library helps too.
"There's nothing like it in the Southwest," Shelton comments, adding that the Center "orders everything in poetry that is published, almost. This collection is totally eclectic." (The library is, by the way, non-circulating, which helps explains those comfy couches.)
So how lucky are you that you can drop by anytime for a poetry fix?
Go, read, listen, be enlightened. Your grandma should be so cool.
