Rosa Alcalá: Bodies, Presence, Performance

Rosa Alcalá curates poems in which the body plays a central role as a performing presence. She selects and shares Roberto Tejada’s exploration of control and surrender (“Sun bursting as in water beads”), Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop’s stereophonic collaborative poem (“Light Travels”), and Black Took Collective’s daring, experimental performance piece on race and racism (“Betraying Blackness”). Alcalá concludes by reading her poem “You in Cutoffs,” which looks back at the self in the past, a body lifted above a crowd.Watch the full recordings of Roberto Tejada, Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop, and Black Took Collective on Voca:Roberto Tejada (2013)Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop (2011)Black Took Collective (2012)You can also watch several readings by Rosa Alcalá on Voca, including her most recent from 2020. 

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Poetry Centered features curated selections from Voca, the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s online audiovisual archive of more than 1,000 recordings of poets reading their work during visits to the Center between 1963 and today. In each episode, a guest poet introduces three poems from Voca, sharing their insights about the remarkable performances recorded in our archive. Each episode concludes with the guest poet reading a poem of their own.