Cybele Knowles works as a program coordinator at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, where she coordinates the PW-funded Center’s Reading and Lecture Series, Classes & Workshops program, and Closer Look Book Club. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona and an MA in English from U.C. Berkeley. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the Destroyer, Spiral Orb, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, the Asian Pacific American Journal, Faucheuse, and the Prose Poem.

In this post I’m going to lead you on a tour of the University of Arizona Poetry Center. As I think you’ll see, in its design and function, it combines elements of a library, university, theater, community center, garden, workspace, home, aerie, and even church. In Fall 2007, after a decade of envisioning, designing, fundraising, and construction, the Poetry Center moved into this custom landmark building.

The spaces of the building allow us to do so much more than ever before!

Perhaps most importantly, our entire library collection of over 70,000 items is now housed under one roof. We have open stacks (pictured here), an archive room, and a rare book room.

Here are a few treasures from our rare book room. From top to bottom and left to right: Accidentally on Purpose by Robert Frost (Christmas card). New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1960. Book of Common Prayer. 1764. Second Avenue by Frank O’Hara. New York: Corinth Books, 1960. Field Talk by Frank Stanford. Seattle: Mill Mountain Press, 1975. Fast Speaking Woman by Anne Waldman. San Francisco: City Lights, 1975. Chartings by Lyn Hejinian and Ray Di Palma. Tucson: Chax Press, 2000.

Since our move to the new building in 2007, we’ve been able to mount permanent and rotating exhibits. Here’s my favorite of our permanent exhibits: a collection of posters for Poetry Center readings from the 70s and 80s.

In addition to permanent and library exhibits, we exhibit work by visual artists. Our current art exhibit by Karen McAlister Shimoda (mother of the poet Brandon Shimoda) includes this piece. It’s the artist’s wedding dress, on which she inscribed a history of a history of her marriage, from when she met her husband-to-be through to the divorce.

Here’s a close-up. Being a fan of both words and textiles, I’m rabidly in love with this piece.

The Poetry Center is bordered by a minimalist meditation garden. In this photo, you can also see the Poetry Center’s “Turning Wall.” Perhaps this wall was inspired by the fact that the word verse comes from the Latin root -vert, for "turn or turn away, bend, incline.”

At the back of the meditation garden is this memorial fountain for poet Steve Orlen (1942–2010), creative writing professor at the University of Arizona for decades, and beloved teacher.

At the opposite end of the building is the room where we hold events that are part of our Reading and Lecture Series, a program supported by Poets & Writers. Here, poet Thomas Sayers Ellis reads his work for an audience of middle- and high-school students.

Here’s a special peek into a private space of the Poetry Center: our guest house for visiting poets and summer residents. It’s just steps away from the library, but hidden from view. It’s decorated with broadsides and a few furnishings from the original Poetry Center of 1960.

We’ve inhabited the building for five years now, and I have a real fondness for the signs of our habitation. The little details. Like this drawing, hanging in Renee’s office, created during one of our children’s programs...

...this print of H.D. (and her hedgehog) by Gwyneth Scally, commissioned by the Poetry Center, and hanging in the Children’s Corner...

...and this text/art object, created by one of our Classes & Workshops students, abandoned by the creator, but rescued by me, and now displayed in my office.

Our virtual tour of the Poetry Center ends here, with the feet of poets Joyelle McSweeney and Zachary Schomburg (who read together at the Poetry Center in September 2012). But there’s a lot more to see; we hope you can stop by for a visit sometime soon!

All Photos Credit: Cybele Knowles.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Tucson is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Since 2008, P&W has supported readings and workshops presented by literary publisher Marick Press. Its founder, Mariela Griffor, answered our questions about her experience publishing writers from around the world out of Grosse Pointe, MI, a small city neighboring Detroit. Griffor was born in the city of Concepción in southern Chile. She is the author of Exiliana (Luna Publications, 2007) and House (Mayapple Press, 2007). Her work has also appeared in Passages North, Cerise Press, and Washington Square Review. Her forthcoming translations include Canto General by Pablo Neruda (Tupelo Press, 2013), At Half Mast by Carmen Berenguer, Militant Poems by Raúl Zurita, Desolation by Gabriela Mistral and Bye, have a good time! by Kristina Lugn. She is Honorary Consul of Chile in Michigan.

What makes Marick Press unique?
Marick Press strives, across boundaries of nations, cultures, and languages, to create fine literature and make it a personal experience. We seek out and publish the best new work from an eclectic range of aesthetics—work that is technically accomplished, distinctive in style, and thematically fresh.

What project have you been especially proud of?
I’m proud of every single book I've published, but the translation series is something very, very special. This series includes some of the most accomplished and original writers in the world, translated into English.

I have always been able to find a special or unique book of poetry that has been overlooked in its original language or is essential to understanding the complete work of a poet. Particular cases of this are INRI by the Chilean poet Raúl Zurita, and From Threshold to Threshold by Paul Celan.

What’s the most memorable event you’ve hosted?
P&W sponsored a festival of poetry held in Marick’s home town of Grosse Pointe, MI. The writers, publishers, and public shared some of the most remarkable readings I’ve experienced. It was the first time a poetry festival had been held in our community. For many in attendance, it was their first personal experience of fine literature—and it was new, fresh, and exciting!

What do you consider to be the value of literary programs for your community?
A community with a literary program is an intellectually vibrant and relevant community not only for itself, but for its surrounding communities. I admire the work of Ann Arbor District Libraries here and in Ann Arbor. Individuals and community groups in my area use a lot of its resources.

I could not live in a place that is not interested in literature. Once a community experiences literature personally, it will go to any lengths—establishing writing programs, festivals, and public readings—to perpetuate and expand the personal experience of writing to everyone. If you counted how many writers of note have been attracted to, or were raised or born in Michigan, you would be stunned!

How has publishing and presenting informed your own writing and life?
If you are a publisher, you learn to be humble. You struggle, you struggle more, and then you get some satisfaction when the book is out. The creation of a book is not an easy task. It is a work of art, but also a responsibility. Very few can handle the weight of this work. You listen, take notes, produce, and through it all get to know people as they are.

The writing community in the United States is very assured, very eclectic, and much more resistant to foreign influence than those in other countries. Being a publisher and the host of a reading series has taught me the blessings of comparative literature among living writers.

Photo: Mariela Griffor. Credit: Javiera Denney.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Detroit is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, write a love letter to an inanimate object that explores why you appreciate what you're writing about, what its special qualities are. Title it as you would address the letter: Dear Subway, Dear Keychain, Dear Gloves.

Cybele Knowles works as a program coordinator at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, where she coordinates the PW-funded Center’s Reading and Lecture Series, Classes & Workshops program, and Closer Look Book Club. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona and an MA in English from U.C. Berkeley. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the Destroyer, Spiral Orb, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, the Asian Pacific American Journal, Faucheuse, and the Prose Poem.

The University of Arizona Poetry Center is run by a staff of eight arts administrators and librarians with specializations in education, grant writing, fundraising, marketing, and more. Most of us work full-time and, being employed in the nonprofit sector, we work intensively. Each of us also has an important other job: We are all poets and writers.

Here’s where the phrase “finding a balance” tends to get yoked up. That tired old plowhorse. For me, the phrase “finding a balance” evokes a delicate and precise action, like a jeweler weighing out diamonds by the milligram. But I experience the process of negotiating between the roles of worker and writer as…somewhat more rough. For me it’s like being a perpetual beginner on the balance beam—falling off, landing hard (puff of chalk dust), and then getting back up, but this time with a sore butt. And repeat.

I asked my coworkers how they manage the demands of their day jobs, their calling as a writer, and all the other business of being human. They had wonderful responses, some practical and some perceptual, but all helpful and genuine.

Renee Angle, Programs Coordinator: When I get down about how much I’m not writing, I think of my heroes: Frank O’Hara who wrote in short bursts and did not seek out publications or residencies but the company of other artists; William Carlos Williams who became a doctor because he wanted to write and write what he wanted, not what a publisher expected; and Wallace Stevens who worked all day in order to come home to a fabulously expensive library each night. But then, of course, my heroes did not care for young children as I do. So, I think of my heroines: Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz who devoted her whole life to reading and writing despite extreme pressure to do otherwise and Anne Bradstreet who wrote poems without a microwave or dishwasher.

Allie Leach, Education Programs Assistant: For me, staying focused and on track with my writing is super hard without deadlines and encouragement. For that reason, having a writer’s group has been a life saver. Not only do we hold each other accountable with oral and written feedback, but we are also cheerleaders for each other. Another plus: Our meetings always include wine and cheese (and sometimes cupcakes).

Sarah Kortemeier, Library Specialist: My solution so far has been twofold: First, to create a regular block of time for writing and another for submitting, both once a week; second, to give myself permission to devote free moments outside those times to other activities. When I was in graduate school, I tried to write every day, and I’ve had to accept the fact that that schedule isn’t very productive for me (I seem to need a lot of space around my writing time). A “writing morning” once a week, on the day I work the late shift in the library, is the best compromise I’ve come up with.

Julie Lauterbach-Colby, Development Program Coordinator: I would honestly get depressed if I were to treat only the time I actually sat at my computer and wrote as writing time. The guilt, the shame by comparison as I hear love stories between other writers and the weekly six-hour stints they have at their computers. So I’ve had to retrain my brain to “practice” writing in everyday ways: by thinking, by looking, and focusing on everyday scenes, conversations, stories, images, and treating those as written opportunities. I carry these scenes with me in my head. I mull them over. If I’m around my notebook, I write them down and then I think about them some more until they’ve manifested in my mind as something more solid. Sometimes this could be just a word: I’ll focus on, say, speed, and like a practice in mindfulness breathing, that word will become a way to constantly “return to writing” throughout my day. It’s like Pinterest, but in my head.

Annie Guthrie, Marketing Director: I try and banish entirely any dichotomous inner argument about time/not enough time, which I have found to be a seductive whirlpool of a time-waster in itself. “Not having time” is a cultural spell I’d like to undo. It’s a spell that becomes a chant. I am interested in seeing what I can do with the time I do have, and how I can come into it, my life, as a writer all the time. For example, if I can become more alert and more observant and more thinking and more feeling during even the most mundane of tasks, then I feel I am making the most of my time.

Speaking for myself: I've worked as a desk jockey for years in a variety of professions, and I've found that compared to any other job I've held, working in literary arts administration is, itself, a great support to my writing. The job and the calling synergize. As an example, every day at the office I have the opportunity to think and talk about literature with the talented working writers quoted above. That’s pretty fabulous.

Top Photo: Cybele Knowles. Credit: Allie Leach. Photo: (back row) Cybele Knowles, Wendy Burk, Sarah Kortemeier, Allie Leach; (front row) Renee Angle and Annie Guthrie. Credit: Meg Wade.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Tucson is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.