Ofelia Zepeda Reads Poetry at Tucson’s Mission Garden

Date: Saturday, June 13, 2026

Time: 6-8 p.m., MST

Place: Mission Garden, 946 W Mission Lane, Tucson, AZ

Ofelia Zepeda will read poetry at Tucson’s Mission Garden on Saturday, June 13, as part of the Summer Sunset Series. Enjoy sunset colors and cooler temperatures in the lush garden with your friends and family. The event is free and open to the public. Ofelia Zepeda is a poet, regents’ professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona, and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship for her work in American Indian language education. She is the current editor of Sun Tracks, which was launched in 1971 and is one of the first publishing programs to focus exclusively on the creative works of Native Americans.

About Where Clouds Are Formed:

Ofelia Zepeda is a Native American poet who possesses a kind of double vision. She sees the contemporary world through her own highly observant eyes and, at the same time, through the eyes of her Tohono O’odham ancestors. Seeing this way infuses her poetry with a resonance and depth that makes it a delight to read—and re-read.

Zepeda is as clear-eyed about the past as she is about the present. She recalls waiting for the school bus on a cold morning inside her father’s truck, listening to the sounds of the engine, the windshield wipers, and the “soft rain on the hood.” She remembers celebrating Mass on the “cold dirt floor of the Winter Solstice.” In the present, she sees both the frustration and the humor in a woman she observes trying to eat pancakes with one hand while her other resides in a cast: “Watching her, I realize eating pancakes is a two-handed job.”