The UA Poetry Center's fall calendar is full of exhibitions, lectures, workshops and other events

New exhibitions, readings, community classes, lectures and both visual and audio responses to the eco-art movement are among the events to be hosted this fall at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Currently on display at the UA Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen St., is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reimagine." The collection focuses on sustainability in book arts and contains endpapers made from T-shirts, aluminum foil, waxed paper and other objects. The collection will be on display through Nov. 3.

The center is also hosting several workshops that are open to the public, beginning this month. Registration is required, and workshops generally cost between $150 and $155. They are:

"Focus on Voice," a fiction workshop led by novelist Lydia Millet will be held Sept. 14 through Oct. 19.

Ken Lamberton, an author and UA alumnus, will lead a workshop on intermediate memoir writing Sept. 17 through Oct. 22.

Eric Magrane, a naturalist, poet and educator who has had residencies with several national parks, will lead a session on eco-poetry, which will be held Oct. 5 through Nov. 16.

Poet Ann Fine will lead an introduction to poetry workshop Oct. 15 through Nov. 19.

Lila Zemborain, an Argentine poet and critic, and Rosa Alcalá, a poet who has held residencies in the United States, Scotland and Latin American countries, will co-host a Nov. 19 colloquium on translation.

Then, on Sept. 24, the center will host the release of the Terrain.org issue,"Borders & Bridges." The event will feature David Rothenberg, a jazz clarinetist and author whose writings have been published by The Nation, Wired, The Guardian and other major publications.

The local Web-based journal examines the interface between human made and natural environments. The release party is free and open to the public and will begin at 8 p.m. at the center.

The center is also collaborating with the Center for Biological Diversity to present the work of artists affiliated with "The Ghost Net Project" through Oct. 2. The showcase coincides with a lecture series featuring artists who directly engage with ecological issues.

"The Ghost Net Project" is a collaboration that uses the physical remains from fishing expeditions as a lens to examine historical, cultural and ecological relationships to the Sea of Cortez.

The project consists of 25 shadow boxes constructed with salvaged shrimp boat wood and filled with a display of flotsam and jetsam collected on the rocky shores of La Cholla near Puerto Peñasco. Each box is paired with a poem.

Artwork by artists involved in the project is for sale and will benefit the Sociedad Cooperativa Buzos de Puerto Punta Peñasco, a group of commercial divers of Puerto Peñasco that fish sustainably.

The project features collaborations by Heather Green and Katherine Larson, and a reception with the artists and the public will be held at the center on Sept. 10 at 7 p.m.

Green's projects and installations employ an extensive range of media including traditional oil painting, letterpress, sculpture, photography and the Internet. Green, a UA alumna and adjunct instructor at the UA and Pima Community College, examines the nuances of place, memory and natural phenomena and is concerned with ecological awareness and preservation.

Larson, also a UA alumna, was a Henry Hoyns Fellow at the University of Virginia where she received her master of fine arts in 2004. In addition to writing, she has pursued a career as a research scientist and field ecologist and has both lived and studied in Uganda, Ireland, British Columbia, Costa Rica and the UA's Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz.

The center will also present, "Oh Earth, Wait for Me," an exhibition featuring works by UA fine arts students. The show will run Nov. 17 through Dec. 11.

As part of the event, UA School of Art students, faculty and others will respond to the Poetry Center's theme for the fall 2009 semester, completing experiments in contemporary drawing inspired by the Earth's predicted fragile future.

The themed semester is focusing on the new dialogue surrounding the role that the environment is taking in the work of contemporary artists and writers.

All readings will be held at 8 p.m. at the center beginning Sept. 10 with Alison Hawthorne Deming, a poet and essayist.

Deming, also a UA English professor, will present “Baba Yaga, Demeter, and the Drunken Mother: Myth, Metaphor, and Science at the End of the World” on Thursday, Sept. 10, at 8 p.m.

Deming's talk will be interdisciplinary in nature, culling topics related to environmental science, literary analysis and environmental ethics.

Her newest book, a collection of poems entitled "Rope," follows the paths of imagination into meditations on salt, love, Hurricane Katrina, Greek myth and the search for extraterrestrial life. The collection will be published this fall.

Others who will speak during the series include prize-winning poets and authors such as Sandra Alcosser, Jonathan Skinner, Juliana Spahr, David Dunn, Lucinda Bliss and Eleni Sikelianos.

The Poetry Center is also hosting an event, that will include a benefit, on Nov. 2 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the center.

The lecture and workshop, "The Inspirational Fact: The Role of Research in Writing Creative Nonfiction," will be presented by UA creative writing Professor Fenton Johnson and novelist Ander Monson.

Johnson and Monson will talk about ways that information and events inspire literary nonfiction and ways that writers can incorporate research into their creative works.

Tickets for The Inspirational Fact cost $60, and all proceeds will aid a fellowship fund for UA students in the master of fine arts program.

To purchase tickets, contact Marlene Cooksey at 520-621-3880 or mcooksey.arizona.edu.