The Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah is pleased to host Robinson, an award-winning science fiction author, for the Tanner Lecture on Human Values on March 16 at 7 p.m. at Kingsbury Hall.

Last fall, I was the keynote speaker at the North Dakota Library Association’s annual conference. The theme was “Libraries: The Place For Everyone.” There were rainbow flags, paper-link chains and multicolor glitter scattered across tables. It was the safest I have ever felt back home as an out, gay man. When I was a young person, libraries were where I went to find stories that made me feel I could fit in, not only in North Dakota, but in the wider world. But two pieces of legislation that may soon be signed into law in North Dakota would make it possible to restrict libraries and, in some cases, to imprison librarians.

Indigenous peoples have for centuries remained “nearly nonexistent in the American book of poetry,” writes former United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. This absence forms part of a more significant problem in American culture, “indigenous peoples of our country are often invisible.” However, hundreds if not thousands of Native Nations poets are working today, and perhaps none has done as much to restore their visibility as Harjo.