When Francisco Aragon writes a poem, he always has one word in mind: patience.

"I allow some of these poems to live inside of me for a long time and percolate to the surface," Aragon said. "You can't force a poem to come to the surface before it's ready to."

Aragon will present a public reading of his poetry at 7:30 tonight in Foster Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Aragon is the editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry and author of another poetry collection called Puerta del Sol. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. He also serves as the director of Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

He plans to read a mixture of new and old work at tonight's reading, including pieces from Puerta del Sol, which was written during the 10 years he lived in Madrid.

"A lot of that work is urban in nature and takes the perspective of an American who is living in a foreign country," Aragon said. "As someone who is Latino, it's also work that tried to get back to my cultural roots, in this case the Spanish language."

Aragon said he characterizes the collection as bicultural. While the poems are written in English, he also wrote Spanish versions for all of them.

Aldon Nielsen, Kelly Professor of American Literature at Penn State, said the bilingual poems are a "really interesting experiment." He said the added translation almost makes two different poems. Aragon said memory is another theme in his work.

"A lot of the poems try to mimic how memory works, hearing a song or smelling something that conjures up a memory of a lost experience," he said.

Julia Kasdorf, associate professor of English and women's studies and Master of Fine Arts director for the department of English, said she finds Aragon's poetry interesting because of the mixture of the two languages.

"His poems are very clear lyrics, full of imagery and feeling," Kasdorf said. "The poems put you in this space of a bilingual consciousness."

She urged students who are studying Spanish or are bilingual with any language to come to the reading.

Aragon said he tries to "demystify" his work to make it accessible to those who have never attended a poetry reading. Listening is the best way to experience poetry, he added.

"Maybe students who might initially be intimidated would be pleasantly surprised if they allowed themselves to experience it as another type of live performance," he said.

Nielsen coordinated Aragon's visit and also said he hopes students will attend.

"We're delighted that he was able to fit us in his schedule," he said. "Stu-dents will be happy to have met him. He has a truly original voice in America, and he's also just a personable guy."