ASU professor's public art in the news

The public art and poetry projects by Arizona State University Regents' Professor of English Alberto Ríos were the subject of an in-depth story published in the Casa Grande Dispatch on April 7.

The piece "Noted poet brings his voice back to CAC" highlights Ríos's personal history and local contributions, such as "one of his larger projects, 'Words Over Water,' that involved writing phrases – poetry snippets – for some 600 tablets embedded in a 61⁄2-mile-long parapet fronting Tempe Town Lake. All the sayings relate to water."

Reporter Bill Coates also chronicled Ríos's days in the early 1980s as Pinal County writer in residence, teaching creative writing on the road. "He helped ranchers tell their stories -- and they had lots of stories -- in artful and creative ways."

“My job was to go where I was needed or wanted – libraries, schools, households, ranches – and work with people on creative writing,” Ríos said.

The Dispatch article promoted Ríos as the featured speaker at Central Arizona College’s “Astronomy Night” on Friday, April 12 in Coolidge, Ariz. Ríos has themed his remarks to fit the event, calling his talk “The Poetry of Science.” Ríos, an award-winning poet, believes that poetry “can add a human quality to the cold facts of science.”

“Science may be our best way of understanding the world, but not the best way of living in the world,” he said.

CAC’s Astronomy Night will take place from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. on Friday in Room T116 on the Signal Peak Campus.

Ríos holds the Katharine C. Turner Endowed Chair in the Department of English at Arizona State University. He is also entering his fourth year as the host of "the long-running Channel 8 show 'Books & Co.' He interviews authors of Arizona and national note. The new season of "Books & Co." airs at 2:30 p.m. on Sundays," according to the Dispatch piece.

The Department of English is an academic unit in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.