2011 Poets

April 6 - Cynthia Hogue & Rebecca Ross
When the Water Came (Sharing poems and images based on interviews with Katrina Survivors

Cynthia Hogue has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Or Consequence and, with photographer Rebecca Ross, When the Water Came: Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, both in 2010. She is the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University.

Rebecca Ross’s photographs have been exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe and are represented in public and private collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale. Her awards include an individual Artist Fellowship and Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. View Hogue and Ross' work

April 13 - David Kader & Mike Stanford
Poetry of the Law

David Kader is a professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He holds a JD degree from the University of Washington and a LLM from the University of London in England and studied poetry as an undergraduate with Philip Levine and C.G. Hanzlicek.

Michael Stanford holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Virginia. For more than two decades, he taught literature and interdisciplinary humanities at the university level. In 2007, after earning a law degree at Arizona State, he left teaching to serve as a public defender. Read Kadar & Stanford's work

April 20 - Renee Simms

Renee Simms, winner of the 2003 Inkwell Grand Prize in Poetry, selected by Elizabeth Alexander, has had poetry and fiction in numerous journals and anthologies, including North American Review, Hawai’i Review, Oregon Literary Review, Inkwell Journal and “Step Into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature” (Wiley & Sons 2000). She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, PEN’s Emerging Voices Program and the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation. Read Simms' poetry

April 27 - Lois Roma-Deeley & Christopher Scinto
High Notes

"Ballad of Downtown Jake" is a contemporary jazz opera based on Lois Roma-Deeley’s book, High Notes. Lois Roma-Deeley, poet, and Christopher Scinto, composer.

Lois Roma-Deeley is the author of three collections of poetry: High Notes (2010), northSight (2006) and Rules of Hunger (2004). Roma-Deeley has won many awards and honors for her poetry, including the Samuel T. Coleridge Literary Prize. She has been published in numerous literary journals in the United States and Canada.

Christopher Scinto's compositions have been featured at music festivals in Europe and throughout the United States. He holds degrees from ASU and Bowling Green State University and is currently the Division Chair of Fine Arts at Paradise Valley Community College as well as the artistic director of the music ensemble Crossing 32nd Street. View Roma-Deeley & Scinto's work

The performers
Dan Kurek, Tenor
Alicann Lunceford, soprano Keith Kelly, saxophone/clarinet
Christopher Scinto, piano Andrew Schiller, bass
Brett Reed, percussion