Laura Da’: No Easy Thing to See Deeply

Laura Da’ selects poems that report back to us with forthright courage She introduces James Welch speaking with a ringing sense of sovereignty (“In My First Hard Springtime”), Saretta Morgan crossing thresholds of space and perspective (“Consequences upon arrival (i)”), and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha resolving to speak and continue speaking (“To Be Self-Evident”). Da’ closes with “A High Bank to Spare the Flood,” a poem of returning to Shawnee homelands.

Find the full recordings of Welch, Morgan, and Tuffaha reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
James Welch (November 10, 1971)
Saretta Morgan (March 28, 2024)
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (February 19, 2026)

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Transcript

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JULIE SWARSTAD JOHNSON: 0:02

You're listening to Poetry Centered where we linger in the space between a poem being spoken and a poem being heard. This show comes to you from the University of Arizona Poetry Center. And the poets voices you'll hear come from Voca, our online archive of poetry readings given at the center across the last six decades. I'm Julie Swarstad Johnson here to welcome you. Our guest host for today's episode is poet and teacher Laura Da'. As I read Laura's most recent book, her third, titled Severalty. I was struck by a sense that her poems shift the world. She shows us her home places in the Pacific Northwest, moments inside the hospital following surgery. A golden eagle in a clearing, land, and culture stolen from Indigenous people. All from multiple angles, encountered again, in ways that build a complex understanding across time. Hers is an attention that restores wholeness by seeing in parts. In this episode, Laura brings together recordings by poets who also see deeply, James Welch, Saretta Morgan, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. We heard a different poem from Saretta Morgan's reading in our last episode. And I enjoy these unexpected moments when two hosts choose the same writer unbeknownst to one another. I hope you'll enjoy it, too. And it's also a reminder that you can listen to the entire original recording if it's of interest. But Laura, thank you so much for these great selections. Welcome to Poetry Centered.[MUSIC PLAYING]

LAURA DA': 1:44

Hello my name is Laura Da'. And I'm speaking to all of you today from the Snoqualmie Valley, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. It's a particular pleasure to hear a poet read their poem across time. My perusal through the archives reacquainted me with poems I've loved for decades. And introduced me to New work to enjoy and admire. I found the quality of each reader's voice, and the sonic background texture, combined with the murmurs of the audiences, assisted me by infusing my listening with a documentary lens. It's no easy thing to see deeply and offer an honest accounting that does not wither under the pressure of violence, discomfort, evasion and exhaustion. The poems I've selected to share, all look deeply at the state of things. They capture the lay of the land, and they report back with forthright courage. I see these poems as they move over time and landscape, as clear eyed in their observations. And particularly insightful, and their acknowledgments of the surreal conditions of living through the situations at hand. To begin, I'd like to share one of my favorite poems of all time."In My First Hard Springtime," written by the great James Welch and read on November 10, 1971. James Welch was born in Browning, Montana. And this poem is from his first and only collection of poems, Riding the Earth boy 40. I read this poem for the first time in Northern New Mexico. In the summer of my first year as a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I happened to be working at a summer camp, so I read it by flashlight during the Perseid meteor shower. And let me tell you, it was something else a truly grand introduction to poetry. This is the kind of poem that creates a before and after in my understanding of how a poem can take its place in the world. It's surefooted, astounding. And there's an element of absolute integrity inside of the lines."My horse, Centaur, part Cayuse, was fast and mad and black, dandy in flat hat and buckskin. I rode the town and called it mine." I find the honesty in this poem to be deeply satisfying. There's a bit of wish fulfillment inside it. Or maybe more accurately, it's a spirit of true righteousness. To ride into the Blackfeet town, appropriated by settlers and strangers. But tribal at its heart, and be recognized as the source of absolute authority and more. This poem rings with a sense of sovereignty. Starve to visions deified by the land. It feels like the town recognizes this speaker and honors him. And thus, as the speaker rides down in this hard springtime, to bring knowledge or hunger, rebirth, catastrophe, or judgment as he sees fit. It brings a sense of Justice that finally feels trustworthy. It's this conviction inside the poem that brings to my mind the frank nature of courage that unites all the poems I've selected to share. I think it's a wise course for each and every person to read everything James Welch ever wrote, prose and poetry alike. It feels appropriate that Riding the Earth Boy 40 is so singular in its place in Welch's body of work. It is a singular book of poetry and a masterpiece. So here's James Welch reading"In My First Hard Springtime."[MUSIC PLAYING]

JAMES WELCH: 6:02

This first poem is called,"In My First Hard Springtime." And it's a poem of affirmation and also a poem of denial at the same time. Those red men you offended were my brothers. Town drinkers, buckles pipe, star boy, Billy Fox were bled to bison. Albert Heavyrunner was never civic. You are white and common. Record trout in Willow Creek chose me to deify. My horse Centaur, part Cayuse was fast, and mad, and black. Dandy, and flat hat, and buckskin I rode to town and called it mine. A slow, hot wind tumbled dust against my door. Fed, and fair, you mocked my philosophic nose. My badger hair. I rolled your deference in the hay. And named it love, and lasting. Starved to visions, famous cronies top mount chief, for names to give respect to blackfeet streets. I could deny them in my first hard springtime. But choose amazed to ride you down with hunger.[MUSIC PLAYING]

LAURA DA': 7:38

The next poem, I'll share is written by a poet, I admire deeply, Saretta Morgan. This poem is drawn from a sequence poem called, Consequences Upon Arrival. Which may be found woven throughout the book, Alt nature. I'm calling attention to the first movement of this poem, but I hope those listening will seek out the work in its entirety. Both within the recording itself and within the text. The reading that I'm going to share is from March of 2024. Saretta Morgan is the author of, Alt Nature, and the chapbooks, Feeling Upon Arrival and Room For A Counter Interior. Morgan was born in Appalachia and raised on military installations, and her bio identifies her as a daughter of the South, East, and West. The entirety of Seretta Morgan's body of work is illuminating and insightful. This poem is a wonderful epic of deep thought, courage, and observation. I'd like to share this excerpt from one of Seretta Morgan's interviews that contextualizes the beauty and complication that this poem seeks out to consider in regard. Morgan states, we stumble through language and subject positions, the web of desires and antagonisms. Our bodies emerge upon contact with systemically exploited lands. Lands that still function as long, shallow graves. And they collect a sky, so stunning. That unless you who are dying, you forget at times, how fresh they are, the graves. I see this attunement in the stunning lines that occur in each passage of this sequenced poem. In one section, which I hope you will all seek out. The speaker notes, we observe the cleft faces. The conditions under which each depression was an appropriate place to look. The poem I'm sharing with you today feels connected to a long tradition of witness to me. It brought to mind Dante's lyrical accounting of being guided by Virgil through the Inferno, and the Divine Comedy. And the guided peregrinations of Indigenous oral traditions that connect long journeys of the mind, the collective and place to time out of mind. The opening sequence of this poem crosses a threshold of place. And perspective with the lines. We woke to the frames at the edge of dunes, which we'd always believed was a metaphor, but they're ajar along the sagged sand fencing. We said this with care, though, the sagging was one of hostility. We said someone should fix this. And now here is Saretta Morgan reading consequences upon arrival one.[MUSIC PLAYING]

SARETTA MORGAN: 11:00

Tyler mentioned that tomorrow, there's a performance at Tucson MoCA. And it's from five poems that occur across the book that are all connected. And I'm going to start the first one right now. It begins with an epigraph from the writer Cristina Rivera Garza, which is in the beginning there was a we. We being the most intimate and also the most political form of accessing one's subjectivity. I have no idea what time it is. Tiny myself.

7: 11:32

24. Consequences Upon Arrival. The sharp calls advancing across the valley were no longer for us. Or they would be again. But not yet. Stretching yards and deserts in their weight. Though we could name the places and their capitals, we could pull a needle through every orifice, long and small. Water falling is the sensual conflict of a heart split open. We felt for every boundary adjacent to which neighboring vertebrates fed themselves. A simple degree toward the wrong coordinate, and the moment could change completely, and the change would be thoroughly complete, would ring through the bones of our appearance. A thoroughly surrounding contour indicative pulse. The voices advancing, in some instances observing our fear, accelerated the physical expression of ours publicly in suggestive, incongruent thrusts. We slept through the engine breaking. The conflicting night milk intrusions woke morning after morning to swarms of fruit sucking bees. They too were on their way down river to welcome the morning in a good way. Tender ensembles to articulate the water's edge. We woke to the door frame at the edge of dunes, which we'd always believed was a metaphor. But there, ajar along the sagged sand fencing, we said this with care, though the sagging was one of hostility. We said, "someone should fix that." Little past through the frame, the pulsing stitches, the counter stitches, the stitched rosettes, tenderness surrounding their appearance, tenderness indicating in introduction a growing necessity to breed. We followed our intentions, swaying soft with desire on the tails of the processions, whose shoulders did not rise above the brush. Our intentions pleaded in such a way that our intentions could neither be challenged nor brought entirely to light. Their tenderness veiled by the inversion of light. Doubt, our precise and technical transformation. Of all the things we didn't know, the most efficient way to release a dog's bite is to? We never would have guessed, put a finger in its ass. Which demonstrates clearly the importance of context with regard to appropriate behavior. Context was what we waited for. These conflicts in passing accumulated in the moment for which we prepared. Though when it arrived, we were wet. We were wide eyed and well read, waiting. Readiness, we realized, was never the appropriate goal. I want to give a shout out to Amber Morningstar, buyers here in the front row, who taught me that the most efficient way to release a dog's bite is to put a finger in its ass. I never would have known.[MUSIC PLAYING]

LAURA DA': 14:35

Finally, I would like to share a poem from Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. Lena and I both live in the Pacific Northwest, so I've had the great pleasure of hearing her read. And reading with her and standing in awe of her incredible body of work. The poem I'd like to share today is to be self-evident, from her most recent National Book Award winning book, Something About Living. This reading is from February of 2026. Lena is a Palestinian American poet, essayist, and translator. She's author of three books of poetry, Something About Living, winner of the 2024 National Book Award for poetry and the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize. Khan, and her sisters, and Water and Salt. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Arab and New Zealand and Letters From The Interior. I recommend that readers seek out all of these books, both for their individual merits and for the way that sound, image, and attention cycles within them. In her acceptance speech for the 2024 National Book Award, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha said, "I don't want to write anything that is a consolation. I don't want to console." This poem and its wonderful reading is unforgettable to me. In its power of attestation, imagery, and anaphora. This poem makes powerful use of repetition, which connects to something that Lena shared in an interview. Repetition is a feature of the Palestinian experience. We are locked into a series of repetitions, not of our own making. In the penultimate stanza, the palm poem examines this inexorable cycle every empire promises a revolution against itself. The children are tasked with designing the future. Growing walls of hydroponic greens. Rebranding old protest anthems. The force of this poem exists for me in this resolution to look and speak again and again with the clarity of recursive study. If consolation is a looking away, this poem is its antithesis, as it refuses to avert its eyes and thus ours. Please enjoy this reading of to be self-evident."[MUSIC PLAYING]

LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA: 17:15

To be self-evident after Edward Said. Every empire tells its subjects a story of Revelation. The trees let down their aging leaves listless in late drought. The children thrive on filtration. Their classroom air and their selfies sanitized. Every empire seems invincible, as its borders submerge. Its manicured hillsides incinerate between guaranteed next day deliveries. Every empire eulogizes its value system. Splurges for pyrotechnics. Decorates its mausoleums for the holidays. Every empire turns against its colonies, cradling the embassy's crystal in bubble wrap. Packing extra treats for the dogs on the evacuation flight home. Every empire promises a revolution against itself, the children are tasked with designing the future. Growing walls of hydroponic greens. Rebranding old protest anthems. Every empire denies the iceberg it crashes into. Hires a chorus. Funds the arts. Every empire sings itself a lullaby.[MUSIC PLAYING]

LAURA DA': 18:59

I hope everyone listening has taken strength from these poems. I've learned a great deal from these poets whose guidance has inspired me. They've encouraged me to be brave and forthright, which is a useful stance for the best and worst of times alike. I'll conclude my time with a very recent poem that I wrote while visiting South Central Ohio. The traditional homelands of the Shawnee people, which is my tribal nation. We Shawnee, were militarily removed from our homelands just under 200 years ago. So now when I go back to the small towns, I come as a visitor. And usually as a visiting poet. It's a region, I find truly beautiful, but it's a strange place to travel over alone. When we were once so many. So the poem I'll read for you now is called, A High Bank to Spare the Flood. I'm reading this poem, once again from the Snoqualmie Valley in the month of May, 2026. A High Bank to spare the flood. Dear future, I write to you from a bluff on the little Miami. En route the bullskin trace. Where seven Raptors gingerly draw back obsidian curtains of sky, to frame the brisk cavorting of seven lightning bolts. A stylized frieze of rowers on a sail to canoe, decorates the facade of a crumbling hotel. At old Chillicothe, it astounds me, that any of us made it back on this side of the grass. Haughty spring, peepers blend with the hum of the electrical wires, and the longhouse was perhaps here. The cornfield certainly there. The sun clears so fast, and bright prairie flowers open with each pass of my strides. Thrums of sun eyed bluets and rutilated Miami mist. Some roads are still named for the long lance blocking the path until the fee is paid. I do find it hard not to sprint across these pikes. Warping the shuttle of townships where the cemeteries outnumber the residents, and the purple dead nettle casts a dawn-time haze across the raised fields. Those bull hides I mentioned above were for transporting salt and our living skins similarly shroud that faithful currency that opens every threshold. The biscuity undercarriage of a mourning dove. And the fecund smell of dogwood blooms mark the outermost circle of town. They never failed to astound me, burrowing as they did within one of the concentric mounds. Brick in one hand and lead led in the other. Raising, then duplicating the circle as the footprint of the city itself, with the courthouse, dead center. Bold as brass and forever seeking to draft some equation to tally ratios of penance versus prudence. They mark the curves of the old frontiers in blue spray paint on the sidewalks now. Neat haunches of small deer leap into the oak savanna, before the whoosh of trucks. The trail through these parts is called, the warpath, or the Virgin trail. Perhaps there will come a time when the Narcan distribution kiosks will no longer be necessary, and the gaunt cheeks of the starving will flesh out. Layer upon layer of black hand sandstone. Who's to say which strata marks the middle world. In a ledger where the summer and fall skins, cohosh trade beads, sewn linen shirts, Black wampum and copper kettles are all neatly marked. There is a column that notes the amount to be carried over. And this tabulation is a part of my purpose alone. I'm a Voyager, but together, we mark the indicated sequence of generations. And perhaps you will live to see us become knitted once more. One dish, one spoon. I hope the time to come pulls its harshest punches. Dog waste bags fluttering on the periphery of an earthwork depicting the great being of influence, constituting a memorably solid blow that left knee reeling during my time of passing. I imagined the past as a panther, and the future as any one of these elegant Raptors that spiral, attack, evade, sway and nest overhead. It's not that the grief of removal is gone. It's not even in the back seat, quietly breathing a haze on the window, as I navigate the slick lacuna of floodwater, silvery silos twirling like dancers around a maypole. Eastern redbuds, plummy profusion, pawpaws delicate, leathery scabs. Sprightly white suds of Hawthorn. Just now as I passed the standing stone, and return on the ancient trace, in early spring, everything has come to bloom.[MUSIC PLAYING ]

JULIE SWARSTAD JOHNSON: 25:32

You've been listening to Laura Da', and this is Poetry Centered. Laura, thank you for bringing these poets together. As you said of them in your introduction, you two have looked deeply and reported back to us with forthright courage. Listeners, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you've been inspired by the courageous looking of these poets. We're in the midst of a great new season. Tune in again in two weeks for an episode with Eduardo Martinez Leyva. As ever, more than thousand hours of recordings await you on Voca, which you can access from anywhere in the world at voca.arizona.edu. Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

ARIA PAHARI: 26:19

Poetry Centered is a project of the University of Arizona Poetry Center, home to a world class library collection of more than 80,000 items related to contemporary poetry in English and English translation. Located on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson, the Poetry Center library and buildings are housed on the Indigenous homelands of the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui. Poetry Centered is the work of Aria Pahari, that's me, and Julie Swarstad Johnson. Explore Voca, the Poetry Center's audio visual archive, online at voca.arizona.edu.