PennSound Daily

Dmitry Golynko: Close Listening Reading and Conversation, 2009

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:57:48 EST

While we're justifiably proud of the diverse array of American voices represented in the PennSound archives, we're equally glad to be able to provide our listeners with the opportunity to interact with poetry outside of the English-speaking world, through programs such as UPenn's Writers Without Borders series, among others. Today, we turn our attention to Russia for the latest Writers Without Borders event, a new two-part Close Listening program featuring poet Dmitry Golynko.

In the first program, Golynko reads a selection of his poetry, assisted by Eugene Ostashevsky, who reads his (and others') translations in English to complement the poet's Russian, and provides cultural and technical contexts for the works. The second set — a forty-minute conversation — begins with host Charles Bernstein asking Golynko about the influence of post-Cold War culture on his work (n.b. the program was recorded on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall). His life almost perfectly bisected by this influential event, Golynko views that event as "a historic moment encompassing the highpoint of the heat of catastrophic socio-political changes, as well as a melting-pot moment characterized by a huge influx of novel cultural influences and vast amounts of knowledge that had been kept in secret by official party censorship in the previous epoch," however, he's quick to note that "this doesn't mean that the state of war and emergency was banished from Post-Soviet cultural process. Quite the opposite is true: language itself turned out to be a battlefield where a fierce contest between controversial layers of everyday speech resulted in the effect of immersion in incessant warfare." This leads to questions about the political stance of the poet's work, as well as the evolving gender-consciousness that's present there.

In the program's second half, Bernstein asks Golynko about his interest in "the tension between the poetry archive [...] and other non- or even anti-archival sites for poetic thinking and action." "I'm really fascinated with poetry archives like PennSound and consider this to be fruitful and fantastic work," he observes, however such projects force him to wonder whether "writing itself tend[s] towards the further archivization and retention in cultural memory or does it tend towards a spontaneous emergence from an inexplicable source?" His "dubious and controversial" answer is that "poetical utterance stretches between archivization and spontaneity and the site for its occurrence resides at the point of the elusiveness of poetry itself, which could disguise it in vernacular language or in the idiosyncratic voice of a phantom authority, but cannot be caught in its force field."

The show concludes with Golynko discussing his role as an art critic and its effects upon his writing. He sees "poetry and critical-academic activity [as] two completely separate professional fields, two crafts which in principal cannot be mixed together." In the early 1990s, he saw "art criticism as the most necessary form of intellectual production," due to art's role as "an instrument, on one hand, of daring and future-oriented aesthetic search, and on the other hand, of immediate reaction on social catastrophes," however he notes the increasing influence of the market upon the art world today, likening it to "a glamorous variety show." Returning to the role of poetry, he ends by observing that "[q]uite possibly, the reformist task now standing before poetry and art is one and the same: to produce a community, elite and at the same time dialogically open, which could respond to the problematic of the loss of the concrete human individual in the context of globalized cultural processes."

On Golynko's PennSound author page, you can also hear a reading (the date and location of which are unknown) featuring the poems "Springs of Joy," "Unfounded offences / some peculiarities / tense expectations" and "Elementary Things." To learn more about Writers Without Borders and listen to recordings of previous events, visit our Writers Without Borders series page, and finally, don't forget to check out our Close Listening home page for dozens of programs from the past five years.

CAConrad and Frank Sherlock: New Readings from "A Voice Box"

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:43:09 EST

Today, we're closing out an exciting week with new recordings by two of our favorite local-grown poets — the always-dynamic duo of CAConrad and Frank Sherlock — taken from the archives of A Voice Box. Recorded September 11, 2009 at Small Press Traffic, the two poets were invited to discuss "Class/Warfare," which each approaches through a combination of poetry and conversation in lengthy individual sets.

Conrad's set starts with a discussion of Philadelphia locales and his plans for performance art involving the Liberty Bell and dark chocolate before moving on to his poetry — first, a number of poems from (Soma)tic Midge (including, in honor of the day, "from the womb not the anus WHITE asbestos snowfall on 911"), followed by two newer "(Soma)tic Poetry Exercises," along with the poems composed by these methods. Next comes a series of poems from The Book of Frank, and he concludes the set with readings from his other new book, Advanced Elvis Course.

Sherlock begins with two selections from his latest collection, Over Here — "This Could Be a Day of Historical Interest" and "Spring Diet of Flowers at Night" — before moving on to his post-Katrina collaboration with Brett Evans, Ready-to-Eat Individual. Next comes "Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show," which the poet dedicates to the Bay Area poets (in particular, David Buuck and Juliana Spahr) who came to his aid several years back when he was struck with a life-threatening case of meningitis. This leads to a discussion of torture both international and domestic, governmental and personal — "they try to spread democracy," Sherlock avers, "but all they spread's perversion" — which leads into the poem "XOXO." He continues with shorter poems from Over Here ("Ouch Ouch," "Baby Baby") and another excerpt from Ready-to-Eat Individual, before concluding with the title poem, "Over Here."

Speaking of Conrad, we recently posted another new recording from the poet: his October 2009 appearance on the Joe Milutis Poetry Show, which runs nearly two hours long. You can hear this, along with recordings from the Segue Series, and a PennSound-produced Studio 111 Session on his PennSound author page. Sherlock's Studio 111 Session, as well as readings at the Bowery Poetry Club, the Kelly Writers House and other locales, can be found on his PennSound author page, and stay tuned for The City Real & Imagined: Philadelphia Poems, a collaboration between the two poets and longtime friends, coming out this January from Factory School.

PennSound Congratulates Keith Waldrop

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:40:42 EST

All of us at PennSound send the heartiest of congratulations to Keith Waldrop, who won the National Book Award in Poetry this week for his collection, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy.

The National Book Foundation's citation hails Waldrop, noting: "If transcendental immanence were possible, it would be because Keith Waldrop had invented it; he's the only one who could — and in Transcendental Studieshe has. These three linked series achieve a fusion arcing from the Romantic to the Postmodern that demonstrates language's capacity to go to extremes — and to haul daily lived experience right along with it: life imitates language, and when language becomes these poems, life itself gets more various, more volatile, more vital." You can read more about the award and Waldrop on The National Book Foundation's website, and if you haven't already checked out Waldrop's PennSound author page — including the new Kelly Writers House reading and Close Listening programs we mentioned earlier this week — then you'll definitely want to do so now.

Of course, Waldrop's win means that two excellent collections by writers near and dear to both PennSound and our many listeners — Rae Armantrout's Versed and Ann Lauterbach's Or to Begin Again — did not win. Nevertheless, we congratulate them on being part of a particularly exciting and broad-minded list of finalists, and reiterate our wish that all three could have won. While we're issuing fantasy proclaimations for prestigeous literary awards, could we get a Nobel Prize in Literature for John Ashbery as well?

Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop: Kelly Writers House Reading and New Close Listening Programs

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:03:49 EST

This month at the Kelly Writers House got off to a great start with a visit from Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop, which yielded a number of new PennSound recordings.

First and foremost, we have the evening reading on November 4th by the husband and wife pair, which starts (after introductions by Jessica Lowenthal and Sarah Dowling) with a set by Rosmarie, who starts off with the prose poem series, "Lawn of Excluded Middle," from her 2006 collection, Curves to the Apple before moving on to a new sequence of prose poems, "Time Ravel." After a hearty round of applause, she warns the audience, "you're actually not quite rid of me yet," and brings up Keith for a joint reading from their collaborative experiment in the renga form, "Light Travels." After another introduction by Dowling, we have Keith's set which is drawn exclusivly from his 2005 Omnidawn collection, The Real Subject: Queries and Conjectures of Jacob Delafon, with Sample Poems. We've just uploaded the audio from this reading, and should have the video up and running in short order.

The next day, the pair sat down with Charles Bernstein to record individual two-part Close Listening programs, including intimate conversations — in which they discuss their compositional practices, influences and poetic development — and reading segments. Rosmarie chose "Holderlin Hybrids," from her 2004 New Directions collection, Blindsight, for her set, while Keith took the opportunity to read a broad retrospective of his work, sharing selections from A Windmill Near Cavalry (1968), Windfall Losses (1977), The Garden of Effort (1975), The Ruins of Providence (1983), A Ceremony Somewhere Else (1984), Hegel's Family (1989), The Locality Principle (1995) and The House Seen From Nowhere (2002).

You can hear these Close Listening programs, segmented recordings from the Kelly Writers House readings and much, much more by visiting PennSound's individual author pages for Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop.

New Segue Series Recordings by Seldess, Elrick, Burger, Barber

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:41:46 EST

Under organizers E. Tracy Grinnell and Laura Sims, the Segue Series has presented some wonderful Saturday afternoon readings at the Bowery Poetry Club this fall, and there's still one more reading left before they hand the reins over to Thom Donovan and Sara Wintz for December and January. Today, we're very happy to highlight the last two readings, featuring a quartet of exciting young poets.

We begin with the November 7th pairing of Stefani Barber and Mary Burger. Barber's set begins with a number of new poems before moving on to selections from her most recent collection, Non Eligible Respondent, including "The Marine Layer," "thursday 1/16 20:50" and "wednesday 4/21 11:35." Burger kicks off her reading with "From the Cult of Obfuscation to the Land of Over-Bright: A Citizen's Guide to Ecology," a discursive piece inspired by her recent studies in landscape architecture, and continues with "Look, Here Comes a Human" and the serial work, "Everyone is Partial," before concluding with the essay, "Notes from the Ground."

This past Saturday's set, featuring Jesse Seldess and Laura Elrick is now available as well. Seldess' segment consists of two poems — "Left Having" and "Which is Exhibited" — both taken from his forthcoming book, also called Left Having, which "last four years [living] in Germany [...] not very far from where my mothers' father and other relatives lived before fleeing to America in '37 from Naziism. This is partly an attempt to repond to, or more accurately repond with, this elusive but nonetheless substantial interweaving of past and present there, to address what I think of as intersubjective quality of living memory." You can hear more recordings from Seldess, including a Segue Series set from 2004 and readings in Brooklyn and Chicago, on his PennSound author page.

Elrick reads exclusively from her new manuscript Oscillatory: a Near-Miss Sequence, now titled Near Missing (in her introduction, she laughs at the similarity between her title and Seldess'), an intricate and dizzying maelstrom of recursive speech and sound, delivered in grand fashion by a reader who occasionally leaves herself (as well as the audience) breathless. We launched our Elrick author page this summer, and there, you'll find recordings from a wide variety of sources, including Cross-Cultural Poetics, Ceptuetics Radio, textsound, and tangentradio, among others.

You can listen to all of these recordings, and the rest of this fall's readings — including recent sets by Keith Waldrop, John Keene, Kim Lyons and James Belflower — on PennSound's Segue Series at the Bowery Poetry Club homepage.

Rae Armantrout at the Kelly Writers House, 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:41:13 EST

In addition to recent visits by Robert Grenier and Kathleen Fraser, another definite highlight of this fall's reading series at the Kelly Writers House is this October 22nd reading by perennial favorite, Rae Armantrout.

Bob Perelman introduces his longtime friend as "the master of the philosophical line, the San Diego noir syllable, the musical phrase that encompasses life and death deftly, lightly, permanently." Armantrout begins by acknowledging that she read a number of poems from her then-unpublished collection, Versed (Wesleyan, 2009) when last she visited the Writers House in 2007, and that since that recording (and others of material from the new book) are already available on PennSound, "what I decided to do is, by and large, read poems that I didn't read last time and to some extent to read poems from the book that I don't read very often." Titles included in her thirty minute set include "A Resemblance," "Outer," "Operations," "Pleasure," "Worthwhile," "Inscription," "Together" and "Dark Matter."

On Armantrout's PennSound author page, you'll find a wide array of recordings, including several visits to the Kelly Writers House (in 2007, 2004, 2000 and 1998) and numerous Segue Series readings (from 2007, 1998, 1992, 1988, 1984 and 1979), along a 2006 Close Listening reading and conversation with Charles Bernstein, and many, many more.

Additionally, we would like to congratulate Armantrout — along with PennSound favorites Ann Lauterbach and Keith Waldrop — for being part of what Ron Silliman has deemed "the most interesting National Book Award finalists' list ever. We wish you all could win! Speaking of Waldrop, stay tuned to PennSound Daily next week for new recordings from Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop's recent visit to the Kelly Writers House, including new Close Listening programs with each.

In the meantime, to listen to this wonderful recording, and all of the other Rae Armantrout readings mentioned above, click on the title above to visit her PennSound author page.

PoemTalk 25: Alice Notley's "I The People"

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:45:09 EST

Yesterday, we launched the latest episode in the PoemTalk Podcast Series, number twenty-five overall, which features Alice Notley's "I The People," taken from her 1986 collection, Parts of a Wedding. Joining host Al Filreis for this program are a far-flung group of panelists including Erica Kaufman, Joe Milutis, and Zack Pieper.

The discussion begins with Milutis, who notes the poem's mystical elements — initially, he doesn't want to deal with these amidst the resounding political content, but comes to see the two as working together as an "agon in American culture between the gnostic impulse behind things and [the] rationality of democracy." Pieper feels "a tender sense of humor" here, particularly in light of Notley's mild embarrassment at the title (admitted in her introductory comments), which threatens to make the work seem either too lofty (via the inflated rhetoric of political speech) or (Filreis adds) too lefty. "What are the politics of the poem?" Filreis asks; Pieper sees it addressing the body, the poet's Lower East Side milieu, mundane mysticism and much more: "I think it's kinda against any sort of exclusivity, against any sense of categorizing those experiences." Kaufman likes this inclusivity, which "give[s] a glimpse of routine thoughts and the way that we interact with our environments," and sees the question of "who or what is the subject" as being at the heart of the poem — "it is the American problem," Filreis agrees, "is it 'e pluribus unum' or the opposite? Is it 'we' or 'I'? Which comes first, the 'I' or the 'we'?" Milutis sees a dialectic between these two positions in American democracy which leads to a slightly problematic polarization between "I" and "the people," with "we" functioning as an interesting middle ground.

Next, the discussion turns to weddings, which appear in both the poem itself and the title of the book in which it was first published. Filreis wonders whether it sets up an analogue between marital bonds and democratic participation, while Milutis, having researched the geography of "10th & A" (at which he finds Tompkins Square Park, the Boy's Club, a Russian Orthodox church and the Horus Café, an Egyptian-themed eatery) and constructs a narrative from those sites. Kaufman instead finds a satire of the trappings of marriage, which brings "certain rights and a certain status." Milutis concedes that the specific address isn't important, and Filreis wonders whether the Lower East Side as both "an exception to the way American has interpreted the Preamble and the getting of happiness" and "exactly the place where democracy gets realized at the level of the body." For Pieper, "personal vision and the realization of that will outride any mode of abstraction forced upon you by a political system" and the poem reinforces this message, specifically through marriage, where clichés and platitudes concerning that institution are countered by Notley's perspective.

Filreis then asks Kaufman to situate "I the People" and its locality within the traditions of the New York School (of which Notley is a key second-generation member) — for her its authenticity is rooted in its clearly stated sense of time and place, as well as its peripatetic, incident-driven nature. He follows up by questioning how the New York School relates to the politics of "I the People," and Kaufman points to the role of gender within NYS discourse and as a perennial element of Notley's aesthetic, often tied to exploration of identity. Returning to the poem's title, Pieper believes that "politics is what happens to people . . . to a person, a single person," and thus all one can offer is her individual perspective on it. Milutis sees America as undergoing "a constant cosmogonical process," which entails a fair amount of self-referential mythologizing.

In conclusion, Kaufman is impressed by the poem's contemporary feel, more than twenty years later, while Pieper marks its technical aspects ("it's both very fluid [...] but yet she uses those clipped phrases") and its dexterity, allowing listeners to focus on one discrete part while being carried along by "different tones and subtle changes." For Milutis, this poem's flow (in spite of its enjambments) is equally powerful, and notes the inclusion of the poem "'In the Dark I'" as a coda in the particular recording discussed here, which complicates one's reading by making it a more democratic expression and also legitimizing the poem as a comment on love.

PoemTalk is a co-production of PennSound, the Kelly Writers House and the Poetry Foundation. If you're interested in more information on the series or want to hear the previous twenty-three episodes, please visit the PoemTalk blog, and don't forget that you can subscribe to the series through the iTunes music store. Our next episode, will feature Filreis and his PennSound co-founder, Charles Bernstein, along with A.L. Nielsen and Michelle Taransky, who'll be discussing Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo." Stay tuned also for future programs in the series which will address poems by Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Kit Robinson and William Carlos Williams. Thanks, as always, for listening!

Charles Bernstein: Two New Recordings, 1989 and 2007

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:15:54 EST

Today, we've got a pair of newly-recovered recordings from PennSound co-director, Charles Bernstein — one a recent retrospective set of poems, the other a vintage reading from two decades ago.

First up chronologically is a December 28, 1989 reading at Bick's Books in Washington, D.C.. Recorded by Aldon Nielsen, this recording came to us recently along with several others for PennSound's Heatstrings collection, and after fixing some technical issues (note: a slight fluctuation in volume might still be noticeable), it's all set for your listening pleasure. We've segmented this reading into two parts: first, a fifteen-minute suite of poems from The Nude Formalism (his collaboration with wife Susan Bee, released that same year by Sun and Moon), followed by "How I Painted Certain of My Pictures" (which would eventually appear in 1995's Dark City, also published by Sun and Moon).

Next, we have a set recorded May 28, 2007 in honor of Jerome McGann's seventieth birthday, which was uncovered last week and given its own page. The set includes poems from Bernstein's last major collection, 2006's Girly Man — including "Don't Get Me Wrong," "Wherever Angels Go," "from Canti Antichi" and "Shenandoah" — and the earlier volumes Controlling Interests ("For Love Has Such a Spirit that if It Is Portrayed it Dies"), The Sophist ("The Simply" and "from Lines of Swinburne") and Blind Witness ("Lenny Paschen Redux"), along with "Loneliness in Linden," "Sad Boy's Sad Boy" and "Dea%r Fr~ien%d."

To listen to either of these recordings, follow the links above, and visit Charles Bernstein's author homepage for many, many more recordings from 1969 to the present, including readings, lectures, interviews, videos, Yellow Pages commercials and documentary evidence from the poet's short-lived beatboxing phase (no kidding!).

The PennSound Anthology of Restoration and 18th Century Verse

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:13:49 EST

We've twice had the pleasure of announcing new PennSound Classics recordings by UPenn Professor Emeritus John Richetti — including a set of poems by John Dryden this past spring, and selections from Pope and Swift two years ago — however, today, we're tremendously proud to unveil his most exciting set of recordings yet: The PennSound Anthology of Restoration and 18th Century Verse.

A fitting complement to The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660-1780 (2005), which Richetti edited, The PennSound Anthology of Restoration and 18th Century Verse consists of twenty-one tracks from fifteen authors, including Samuel Johnson, Daniel Defoe, Oliver Goldsmith, Aphra Behn, William Cowper and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In a blog post celebrating the collection, PennSound co-director, Al Filreis notes that "[t]his is the first of its kind for this body of writing, so far as we know," and indeed, when ably rendered by a talented performer such as Richetti — who blends the powerful voice of a classically-trained actor with the scholar's robust understanding — the end result is very likely the best of its kind as well.

On the same day as this session, Richetti also recorded parts one and two of Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism," which you can hear — along with the two aforementioned sets and an earlier selection of poems by Pope and Swift — by visiting John Richetti's PennSound author page. To start exploring The PennSound Anthology of Restoration and 18th Century Verse, click on the title above, and don't forget to check out many other fascinating reworkings of canonical texts by David Wallace, Thomas McEvilley, Allen Ginsberg and Caroline Bergvall, among others, on our PennSound Classics homepage.

Robert Grenier: Two New Recordings

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:07:21 EST

The fall semester keeps rolling along here at UPenn, with one fantastic reading after another at the Kelly Writers House. Today, we're highlighting last week's visit by poet and editor, Robert Grenier, along with another recently-added recording by the poet.

Recorded October 27th, Grenier's reading at the Writers House begins with warm introductions by Al Filreis and Bob Perelman, who observes, "Robert Grenier is, in a number of facets, a major American poet, somebody who has been living the tradition of innovative poetry in this country for decades, and somebody who has been changing that tradition and taking it into quite uncharted territory, that at the same time is bringing up the fundamental questions of literary form, literary ethics, experience of poetry . . . in many ways and in many different poetic incarnations he's been a major and inspirational figure."

Grenier's set, which runs just over an hour, consists of his working through his latest body of work — "a random set of seventy-one images" in the handwritten or "drawn" poem style that he's gravitated towards in recent years — and going back to tell the stories behind select works, inviting participation and dialogue from the audience. We're presenting this reading in two formats: MP3 audio and streaming video (the latter courtesy of KWH-TV), which will allow listeners to view the visual texts alongside his reading and commentary.

This new reading is very nicely complemented by the other recording we've just added: a July 9, 1992 lecture on "Drawing from Nature," at the Naropa Institute's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

You can hear both of these recordings, and many more — including a 2006 Close Listening reading and conversation with Charles Bernstein (the former devoted to his masterpiece, Sentences), along with readings from Mills College (in 2003) and the St. Mark's Poetry Project (in 1981), plus a 1978 reading whose location is not known. To listen to any and all of these recordings, click on the title above.

PoemTalk 24: Barbara Guest's "Roses"

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:46:16 EDT

In the midst of last week's John Ashbery celebration, we released the latest episode in the PoemTalk Podcast Series (our twenty-fourth in all) — a discussion of Barbara Guest's poem "Roses." For this program, host Al Filreis was joined by a panel of Randall Couch, Michelle Taransky and Natalie Gerber.

The discussion begins with the panelists unpacking a few of Guest's allusions, starting with the poem's epigraph from Gertrude Stein (taken, Couch tells us, from Paris France), which the opening lines seem to refute. Gerber reads Stein's sentiment as "looking back at a moment just before the cusp of a modern experience [...] looking at the the breaking into modern poetry," which, in the context of Guest's poem (particularly the start of the second stanza), provides two possibilities: that Guest is agreeing with Stein's statement, or disputing it.

Next, Filreis asks Taransky to unpack the poem's distinction between stickiness (emblematic of Juan Gris' aesthetic) and "stick-to-it-ness" (which is "an alternative to the Gris/Stein/Williams lineage") — she sees stickiness as both a direct nod to Gris' technique of collaging newspaper to create his painting (1912's Roses, which Stein once owned), but also to that artwork's being tied down to a specific time and place: "this can't be Guest encountering this for the first time, she's encountering something that's already encountered and for her that experience is in the composition, in how she proceeds to make the poem." Therefore, for Filreis, there's the possibility of an alternative genre, which also embodies "focus and concentration," setting up a potential anti-modernism, or postmodernism, and Guest's tone is ironic, she's challenging Stein.

The panelists focus on Guest's statement, "It might be / quite new to do without / that air," in light of Pound's proclamation, "Make It New." Filreis paraphrases, "sure, Gertrude, it's new to do without air, airlessness is new, but still, there are certain illnesses that require air." For Taransky, Guest begins a different logical approach here — she parallels the newness of her experience (reconsidering this artistic time period) with Stein's own childhood conversion (leading her to make the observation that "painting has no air"). Couch points out a characteristic choice, and repetition, of words here (specifically "new" and "air"), leaving room for mystery: "if you think of the word "air" as being roughly equivalent to "atmosphere," and you look at Guest in the context of someone like Ashbery, for example, it seems to me that there's an exploration here of other kinds of poetic value [...] it seems to me like an explorat[ion], fairly gentle and generous, but ultimately [...] declining to follow in Stein's footsteps." Filreis also notes "a very moving pitch," as the poem moves from the second stanza to the third, due to both mental and physical distress, and the mystery of what "one does outside / the cube" (a reference to Cubism), all of which "take place in air."

In the program's final third, the panelists read Guest's "Roses" through the frame of William Carlos Williams' 1923 poem, "The Rose is Obsolete" (from Spring and All), which features, in Filreis' words, "the metal rose, the sharp-edged rose, the lovely unlovely rose," and which also addresses Gris' painting. Taransky points out Guest's Objectivist leanings: "the air in here, it is the insistence to notice the particular atmosphere you are in and look at that rose [...] that's her showing us how poetry can point to particular things." Couch chimes in, noting that "the Guest poem is full of ideas about the thing and not the thing itself" — while Williams attempts to be a Cubist poem, "concentrating meaning at and of edges." Her tone is not "a reinforcement of Williams, but rather, perhaps a sort of dialogue or perhaps friendly dispute." Gerber sees a nostalgia in the final stanza, "a way of both embracing with a certain wistfulness but ultimately rejecting these techniques and strategies," and picking up this idea, Filreis sees a nod back to Stein's childhood experience "this poem seems to be reminiscence, maybe even nostalgic, that there could be such a moment when one looks at a painting and one's course changes."

In concluding, Couch praises the poem for being one "that's so much about openness and possibility, and the instability of objects," and likens it to the elusive logic found in the work of John Ashbery. Gerber sees it as "a meditation on poetics [...] a poem about a painting about a poem owned by a poet, looking at the rose, the most symbolic symbol/object of all time," which asks, "what is poetics to do with roses?" Taransky is reminded of a favorite Guest poem of hers, "Invisible Architecture," and sees "Roses" as "a perfect example of the poet performing the surface of the poem and being happy while doing it." Finally, Filreis, sees the poem's origins in anti-modern rhetoric, however he finds it "much more generous toward the alternative possibilities."

PoemTalk is a co-production of PennSound, the Kelly Writers House and the Poetry Foundation. If you're interested in more information on the series or want to hear the previous twenty-three episodes, please visit the PoemTalk blog, and don't forget that you can subscribe to the series through the iTunes music store. Our next episode, will address Alice Notley's classic, "I The People," with a panel featuring Filreis, along with Erica Kaufman, Joe Milutis, and Zack Pieper. Stay tuned also for future programs in the series which will address poems by Vachel Lindsay, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Kit Robinson and William Carlos Williams. Thanks, as always, for listening!

Poems for the Millennium, Volume 3 Launch Events at the Kelly Writers House

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:24:05 EDT

Earlier this month, the Kelly Writers House hosted a pair of events celebrating the recent publication of Poems for the Millennium, Volume 3: The University of California Book of Romantic & Postromantic Poetry, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, and today, we're making recordings of both available for your listening pleasure.

The evening's proceedings began with a panel discussion, moderated by Charles Bernstein, which featured both editors, along with UPenn's own Michael Gamer (author of Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation) and Princeton's Esther Schor (author of Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning from the Enlightenment to Victoria and The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley). Running more than eighty minutes, this fascinating symposium is presented in both audio and video formats (the latter courtesy of KWH-TV), as is the ninety-minute reading that follows.

After an introduction by Bernstein, Gamer kicks off the second set with a brief talk (a continuation from the earlier discussion), and is followed by editors Rothenberg and Robinson, who read a selection of manifestos from the book. Next, a number of poets from the Kelly Writers House community share selections from the, beginning with a breathtaking montage from Bernstein, which ably blends selections from Whitman and Blake, the poet's own translations of Hugo, Heine and Baudelaire, and a trio of original works. Rothenberg then shares a translation of the Goethe's "Mignon's Song" (a translation begun by Coleridge which he finished) and Coleridge's "Urine," while Rachel Blau DuPlessis reads from Wordsworth's "The Prelude" and an excerpt from her own "The Wander." She's followed by Robinson sharing a pair of his own poems which borrow from a number of late drafts by Wordsworth, George Economou's reading of three poems about sharks taken from the anthology, followed by one of his own, and Rothenberg's reading of Shelley's "On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci." Rochelle Owens comes next (reading Adah Issacs Menken, followed by her own "Song from Out of Ur"), followed by Robinson (reading Emily Dickinson), Bob Perelman (reading his "Transcription," inspired by Whitman's "Passage to India") and finally, Rothenberg, who closes out a wonderful evening with his poem "Romantic Dadas," dedicated to his co-editor.

If you enjoy this reading, you'll definitely want to check out the reading which precedes it on PennSound's Poems for the Millennium page: an earlier celebration of the same volume, recorded March 29th at the Bowery Poetry Club, featuring Rothenberg, Robinson and Bernstein, along with Pierre Joris, Anne Waldman, Cecelia Vicuña, and BPC proprietor, Bob Holman. You'll also find a September 1998 reading at the Kelly Writers House celebrating the first volume in the series, featuring many of the same poets. We're particularly proud to have been able to celebrating these groundbreaking anthologies for more than a decade, with their editors and many members of our writing community. Click on the title above to listen to all three of these readings.

James Schuyler: Six New Recordings Added

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:44:39 EDT

As promised in last week's conclusion to John Ashbery week, today, we're unveiling a bevy of new recordings from another stalwart of the New York School's fabled first generation: James Schuyler. Altogether, there are six new recordings, some provided by Ashbery, the rest recently unearthed by poet and scholar Nathan Kernan.

We begin with Schuyler's half of the November 23, 1989 reading with Ashbery at New York's 92nd Street Y, that we highlighted on Friday. Recorded less than two years from his death, this set includes many of the poems Schuyler had intended for his never-completed next collection (which finally saw the light of day in the "Last Poems" section of 1993's Collected Poems), including "A Cardinal," "Mood Indigo," "Horse-Chestnut Trees and Roses," "Rain," "Shadowy Room" and "Let's All Hear It for Mildred Bailey!" A number of earlier favorites — such as "Korean Mums," "Fauré's Second Piano Quartet," "A Man in Blue" and "Empathy and New Year" — are present here as well.

This late set is nicely complemented by a reading several months earlier at the San Francisco Art Institute at the invitation of Bill Berkson, who celebrates the recent publication of Schuyler's Selected Poems by noting that "the appearance of virtually every one of Mr. Schuyler's books, and indeed of any poem of his in a big or little magazine, has constituted, for the poets of my generation, something on the order of an epiphany. One anticipates his poems the way one anticipates, with whatever degree of eagerness or need, the break of a new day in one's life, because Schuyler's poems are primarily accounts of what there is to be lived on particular days, and no one else does this quite the way he does in poetry." While there's quite a bit of overlap between this set and the previous one, a few standout poems unique to this reading include "February," "Light Blue Above," "Today" and "Light from Canada."

Our next recording comes with no indication as to where or when it was recorded. While the introductory voice (Ron Padgett's, perhaps?) makes reference to Schuyler's 1980 collection, The Morning of the Poem, the setlist seems to sample liberally from throughout the poet's collected works — including poems from Freely Espousing ("Salute," "An Almanac"), The Crystal Lithium ("Empathy and New Year," "Scarlet Tanager"), Hymn to Life ("Poem," "Just before fall," "In Wiry Winter," "The Bluet"), The Morning of the Poem ("Dining Out With Doug and Frank"), A Few Days ("At Darragh's I") and his final poems ("Over the hills," "Six something") — suggesting that perhaps this is a retrospective reading at the St. Mark's Poetry Project from sometime in the mid-to-late-1980s.

We find another chronologically diverse set of poems in a 1989 BBC interview with Schuyler, recorded at his home in the Hotel Chelsea — presented here as both the finished broadcast-ready production (which runs twenty-five minutes) and the full raw audio from that day (running seventeen minutes longer) — which also includes several interview segments and thoughtful commentary by presenter Adam Philips. We conclude with a pair of recordings from the mid-1980s: a single track from 1982 ("The Morning of the Poem") and a sixteen-minute suite of love poems recorded in New York City in September 1986, almost all of which come from the "Loving You" section of The Crystal Lithium.

Last March, we ended a PennSound Daily entry highlighting our (then) sole James Schuyler selection — the 1986 Watershed Intermedia release, Hymn to Life & Other Poems — by observing "[w]hile we'd love to have even more material to share with our listeners, we're very glad to be able to make these recordings available so that a wider audience may know and appreciate this less well-known, but no less important member of the New York School's first generation." Half a year later, our enthusiasm for Schuyler has not abated one iota, and thanks to Nathan Kernan and John Ashbery, we (and you, our listeners), now have a substantial archive of the poet's work to savor. Click on the title above to start exploring these new recordings.

John Ashbery Week, Day 5: With James Schuyler at the 92nd Street Y, 1989

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:49:01 EDT

We're celebrating the second anniversary of PennSound's John Ashbery author page with a week's worth of PennSound Daily entries highlighting newly added recordings from the venerable poet.

We've saved perhaps the most exciting selection for the end of the week: a rare recording of Ashbery reading with his great friend and collaborator, James Schuyler, recorded November 23, 1989 at New York's 92nd Street Y. The evening's proceedings are introduced by Jonathan Galassi, who lauds the pair, noting, "I wish the New York of tonight retained in the flesh the vitality and brilliance and multifariousness and sheer exuberance it will immemorially have in and because of their work."

Ashbery's set starts with a number of poems from his 1987 collection, April Galleons — "Riddle Me," "Alone in the Lumber Business," "Vaucanson" and "Some Money" — before moving on to new material which would later appear in 1992's Hotel Lautréamont. Some of the titles included in the second half of the reading include "Still Life with Stranger," "In Vain, Therefore," "Revisionist Horn Concerto," "From Palookaville," "[untitled]," "Film Noir," "Notes from the Air," "The Little Black Dress," "Le Mensonge de Nina Petrovna," "Avant de Quitter Ces Lieux" and "Autumn Telegram." The significant amount of overlap between this recording and yesterday's 1990 set at the University of Arizona (along with other readings) underscores the benefits of an archive as thorough and dense as our Ashbery page: listeners often have the opportunity to select from multiple readings of a given poem, experiencing it in different moods, different rooms, all of which yield radically different performances. Moreover, the frequent presence of introductory comments, asides and discussion during Q&A sessions and interviews all help to broaden our understanding of the work, whether we're coming to Ashbery with new ears or are old friends of his work.

On Monday, we'll discuss James Schuyler's half of this reading, along with a number of other new recordings recently added to PennSound's James Schuyler author page, thanks to Ashbery and Nathan Kernan (whose scholarship unearthed a number of important recordings).

Click on the title above to listen to this reading (and many, many more) on PennSound's John Ashbery author page, and keep an eye out for more wonderful recordings from this contemporary American master as we continue to process the tapes the poet has generously donated to PennSound.

John Ashbery Week, Day 4: WNYC and Academy of American Poets Anniversaries, Modern Languages Auditorium

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:43:40 EDT

We're celebrating the second anniversary of PennSound's John Ashbery author page with a week's worth of PennSound Daily entries highlighting newly added recordings from the venerable poet.

Today, we begin with two short recordings marking the anniversaries of well-respected institutions. First, from 1983, a brief appearance on NPR's Morning Edition, occasioned by the 50th birthday of the Academy of American Poets. A much-lauded poet who cannot subsist on his book sales alone, Ashbery (who received a grant the previous year), is cited as an example of the beneficial work the Academy — which he calls "a one-of-a-kind institution in a society that doesn't pay much attention to poets and poetry" — does. Marie Bullock (the Academy's founder) and New York Mayor Ed Koch (who's involvement in the city's poetry scene goes back to the 1960s, as detailed in Daniel Kane's All Poets Welcome) are also interviewed. This is followed by a recording of the poet reading "Syringa" as part of a June 13, 1994 celebration of the 50th anniversary of public radio powerhouse WNYC.

Finally, from September 12, 1990, we have a longer recording from the Modern Languages Auditorium at the University of Arizona. This 45-minute set, drawing exclusively from poems that would be part of Ashbery's 1992 collection, Hotel Lautréamont, begins with "[untitled]" (a piece commissioned by Siah Armajani for inclusion in the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge in Minneapolis, MN), and continues with titles including "Avant de Quitter Ces Lieux," "Still Life With Stranger," "Hotel Lautréamont," "In Vain, Therefore," "From Palookaville," "Notes from the Air," "Autumn Telegram" and "Korean Soap Opera," before concluding with an excerpt from 1991's Flow Chart.

All of these recordings, and a great many others, are available now on PennSound's John Ashbery author page. Stay tuned tomorrow for even more new additions to our Ashbery archives.

John Ashbery Week, Day 3: "Attitudes Towards the Flame" (with Robert Creeley) and Reading T.S. Eliot

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:26:17 EDT

We're celebrating the second anniversary of PennSound's John Ashbery author page with a week's worth of PennSound Daily entries highlighting newly added recordings from the venerable poet.

We begin today with the 1983 radio program, "Attitudes Towards the Flame", part of the series, The Territory of Art, produced by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which features readings by and profiles of Ashbery and Robert Creeley. Some of the topics discussed during Ashbery's segment of the half-hour program include his creative methods, the development of Ashbery's iconic collection, Three Poems, strategies for approaching his poetry and his working relationship with composer Elliott Carter. The poet reads an excerpt from "The System" from Three Poems and Houseboat Days' "Syringa," which formed half of the lieder to a Carter composition of the same name. Creeley's short segment (which starts the show) tackles similar writerly questions (including the influence of jazz upon his work and his approach to rhythm and meter), and "Mother's Voice," "Retrospect," "The Edge" and "Still Dancers" (from Mirrors).

Our second recording comes from "In Different Voices: T.S. Eliot at 100," an October 22, 1988 event at New York's Symphony Space, organized by Richard Howard. In his uproarious introduction, Ashbery explains how, during his student years, he was first led to Eliot's work through the writings of W.H. Auden, before discussing the poet's "Ariel Poems," from which his two selections — "Marina" and "Animula" — were chosen. "I don't know why these are called 'Ariel Poems,'" he admits, "and I just took a brief poll of my learned colleagues backstage and was relieved to find out that they don't either . . . except for the fact that these poems are somewhat light in texture and spirit-like. I have no real explanation for the title."

Both of these recordings, and a great many others, are available now on PennSound's John Ashbery author page. Stay tuned tomorrow for even more new additions to our Ashbery archives.

John Ashbery Week, Day 2: New Letters on the Air and Radio Helicon

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:58:55 EDT

We're celebrating the second anniversary of PennSound's John Ashbery author page with a week's worth of PennSound Daily entries highlighting newly added recordings from the venerable poet. Our first pair of new recordings come from two very disparate sources, yet in both, we perceive not only the immensity of his talents, but also his warmth and sociability in the commentary between poems and interview segments.

Our first selection is from an August 1986 broadcast of New Letters on the Air, a production of the magazine, New Letters, which presents the poet's commencement address at the Kansas City Art Institute that year. "I was the class poet when I graduated from college," Ashbery begins, "and I wasn't able to produce a class poem, so what I did was to take a poem that I had already written that sounded kind of ominous and I read that, and that seemed to go over okay. Since then, I've written a lot more ominous poetry, which I'm going to share some with you . . . not too much, but a little." He starts with "Soonest Mended," then continues with "Whatever It Is, Wherever You Are," "The Songs We Know Best," and an excerpt from "A Wave," providing helpful annotations and asides to his young audience as he goes.

Next comes Ashbery's appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program, Radio Helicon, which dates from 1987 or 1988. Hosted by noted Australian poet and critic, John Tranter (also the editor of Jacket), and guided by his love and respect for the poet's work, this sprawling broadcast, which runs well over ninety minutes, includes lengthy interview segments (addressing Ashbery's artistic development, his poetic process, influences, and many of his published collections), commentaries by critics (including Stephen Greenblatt, Philip Mead and Imre Salusinszky) and readings of a number of poems. While Ashbery often reads solely from contemporary work, the proximity of this program (and the preceding one as well) to the 1986 publication of Penguin's Selected Poems permits him to sample freely from throughout his collected poetry (and more importantly, discuss these works), therefore, we're treated here to a diverse selection of poems, including, "Two Scenes," "The Picture of Little J. A. in a Prospect of Flowers," "Some Trees," "Thoughts of a Young Girl," "Last Month," "Paradoxes and Oxymorons," "Forties Flick" and "Soonest Mended." At some point in the near future, we'll break this program down into individual segments, but we didn't want to keep it from our listeners any longer.

Both of these recordings, and a great many others, are available now on PennSound's John Ashbery author page. Stay tuned tomorrow for even more new additions to our Ashbery archives.

John Ashbery Week, Plus PennSound Daily's Anniversary

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:35:10 EDT

Two years ago today, we launched PennSound Daily with a brief 78-word blurb announcing that a recent Studio 111 Session with Rachel Blau DuPlessis had been added to the site (along with two equally short, backdated items on Charles Olson and Rae Armantrout). Over the past twenty-four months, what started as a Twitter-length newsfeed has moved from the right-hand sidebar to the heart of our front page, grown exponentially in both size and scope — providing information on new additions as well as analysis, historical contextualization and suggestions for further investigation within the PennSound archives — and, in a way, brought our mission full-circle as the poetic text is vivified through the spoken word and then commented upon through writing. With our recent integration of the PennSound Daily archives and our main author and event pages, we hope this resource has become even more useful to our listeners, and if you haven't already subscribed to the feed, we encourage you to do so by clicking on the orange icon above.

We kicked off our first full week of PennSound Dailies on October 22nd with a five-day celebration of the newest author to be added to our roster, John Ashbery. At the time, our Ashbery holdings were so scant at that time that his Kelly Writers House Fellows reading and conversation had to be covered on separate days, and the single track, "They Dream Only of America" (from the Peter Gizzi-edited Exact Change Yearbook) also got its own entry. However, thanks to the generosity of both John Ashbery and David Kermani, and their commitment to the PennSound project, our John Ashbery author page has developed into a remarkably broad archive of five decades of the poet's recorded work, from Some Trees through to a number of as-yet-uncollected poems, written since his latest volume, A Worldly Country. We've recently finished digitizing a number of new recordings from the Ashbery Resource Center, and have decided to mark the two-year anniversary of our Ashbery page with another week of PennSound Daily entries, so keep an eye out, starting tomorrow, for the first of many exciting additions.

David Bromige: "Intention and Poetry" Talk, San Francisco, 1977

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:25:22 EDT

We've been processing tapes from the archives of our own Bob Perelman for the past year or so, yielding some wonderful historic recordings. Key among these materials are a number of "Talks" from the legendary series the poet curated in San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s, featuring, among others, Rae Armantrout, Tom Mandel, Lyn Hejinian, Bill Berkson, Ron Silliman and Fanny Howe, and today, we're very happy to announce a new addition to this formidable collection: David Bromige's June 2 1977 talk on "Intention and Poetry.". Beginning with a reading of the "Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other" section of his much-beloved book, My Poetry, this talk illuminates not only Bromige's unique poetics, but also makes evident his warmth and wicked sense of humor, and deepens our sense of loss over his recent passing.

This evening, a number of the poet's close friends and colleagues will gather at New York's Poets House for "Living in Advance: A Tribute to David Bromige. Those scheduled to perform include Charles Bernstein, Corina Copp, Rachel Levitsky, Daniel Nohejl, Perelman, Nick Piombino, Silliman, Gary Sullivan and Geoffrey Young, and the event begins at 7:00. Please visit the Poets House website for more information.

New Recordings from and by A. L. Nielsen

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:23:36 EDT

A few weeks ago when we launched our new A. L. Nielsen author page, we mentioned that Nielsen would also be sharing a wide variety of recordings from his own personal archives through our site. Today, we're proud to announce the first additions to PennSound's Heatstrings series page, along with a new recording of Nielsen reading in Ghana.

Thanks to Nielsen's diligence, we'd already been able to share recordings of the MLA Off-Site Readings from 2004, 2006, 2007 and last year's event in San Francisco. We've now added additional recordings of the readings from 2005, 1996 and the very first event in 1989 (which, rather interestingly, features only four readers — Nielsen, Charles Bernstein, Bob Perelman and Marjorie Perloff — while recent readings have showcased dozens of poets). All of these recordings are available on our MLA Off-Site series page.

The next series page we've created is for Incognito Lounge, a bi-weekly radio program hosted by Nielsen which aired on San José's KSJS-FM between 1989 and 1995. Our first, and so far only offering from this innovative series is a 1990 broadcast with noted author John Edgar Wideman, however many wonderful readings and interviews will be added to this page in the future.

Bringing things to a close for the time being, we have a pair of readings by Charles Bernstein from the 1990s: a February 1995 reading at UC Berkeley (introduced by Douglas Messerli) and a February 1998 salon in Los Angeles for Messerli's press, Sun and Moon, both of which were recorded by Nielsen.

Finally, as we mentioned above, we have a new recording of Nielsen to go with all these new recordings made by Nielsen — a July 2008 appearance at the first Pan African Writers Forum in Ghana. The poet notes: I'd been invited there to deliver a lecture and hadn't brought any of my poetry with me. When the organizers asked me to do a poetry reading, I hurriedly gathered a few poems from web sites, and one in progress from my notebook — The reading took place late one night under the stars and just a few yards from the ocean." You can hear this recording, along with Nielsen's recent reading and interview on Bernstein's Close Listening program on PennSound's A. L. Nielsen author page, and be sure to keep an eye out for new additions to both that page, and the Heatstrings series page, in the near future.

Segue Series at the Bowery Poetry Club: Laura Moriarty and Paul Foster Johnson

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:46:28 EDT

Hopefully you were able to make it out to the Bowery Poetry Club this past Saturday for the Segue Series' latest fall season reading featuring Paul Foster Johnson and Laura Moriarty, but if you weren't so lucky, we've got the recordings ready for your listening pleasure. Thanks to the good work of the BPC's tech staff, we were able to post the reading a little over an hour after the event's conclusion — so quickly, in fact, that some folks who were in the audience hadn't even made it home yet.

The afternoon's first reader was Paul Foster Johnson, who started with a number of poems from his latest collection, Refrains/Unworkings (Apostrophe Books, 2008) — "Personal Nimbus," "Shadowbox Fragment" and "After-Image," among others — before switching to his new project (which maintains a similar conceptual dichotomy, this time between "Pavilions" and "Panic Rooms"), which included "Self-Study in Pavilions," "Intimate Immensity Safe-Room," "Fountain of Friendship," "This Tortured Earth," "Palace of Arts," "Digital Cities" and "Portable Survival System." On PennSound's Segue at the Bowery Poetry Club series page, you can also hear Johnson's 2005 reading with Norma Cole.

Inspired by Paul Foster Johnson's poem, "A Farm Shadowbox," Laura Moriarty opened her set with "Waking From Sleep a Thousand Miles Thick," the first and earliest poem in her latest collection, A Semblance: Selected and New Poems, 1975-2007 (Omnidawn Press, 2007). She continues with the poem, "Non-Tonal," which is followed by "Allegory of Estrangement," a chapter from her manuscript-in-progress, Prosodic Beings, which serves as a sequel to her "poetic science fiction novel," Ultravioleta (Atelos, 2006). The reading concludes with Moriarty reading "Ladybug Laws" from her forthcoming Slack Buddha chapbook, Divination. Moriarty's PennSound author page archives more than a decade's worth of readings, starting with her 1997 appearance on the first episode of PhillyTalks alongside David Bromige. Alongside a Segue Series Reading from 2005 and a 2007 appearance on Cross-Cultural Poetics, you'll also find a pair of recent Bay Area readings courtesy of A Voice Box.

Next Saturday's Segue Series Reading will feature Keith Waldrop and John Keene, and don't forget, you can see the complete Fall lineup of readers on Charles Bernstein's Blog.

PoemTalk 23: Cid Corman's "Enuresis"

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:04:22 EDT

Earlier this week, we proudly released the twenty-third episode in the PoemTalk Podcast Series — a discussion of Cid Corman's poem "Enuresis." For this program, host Al Filreis was joined by panelists with a Philadelphia-centric panel of Frank Sherlock, Fran Ryan and Thomas Devaney, and this show serves as a reunion of sorts, as these four writers served as the moderators of a 2001 event at the Kelly Writers House celebrating Corman's life and work (from which the recording of "Enuresis" was taken).

Filreis begins the discussion by addressing the two kinds of terror present in the poem: Ryan frames the poem against the historical context of the 2001 event, which took place right after 9/11, while Sherlock feels it's more emblematic of Vietnam-era terror, as embodied in Vietnam veteran George Evans' book, Sudden Dreams, which Corman invokes in the poem's introduction (Evans being the "Ed" addressed in the opening line). Devaney agrees, stressing the dialogic nature of the poem, and Filreis picks up the thread, distinguishing between an adult's wartime terror and childhood terror, in which the fear of bedwetting is secondary to domestic discord and the fear of abandonment. Sherlock points out Corman's insistence that George Evans "never killed anybody" during his time in Vietnam, and asks whether then the poet is identifying with Evans, whether that makes the child narrator a pacifist figure who opts out of the Cold War struggles embodied by Mother and Dad and the violence inherent in their relationship. Ryan recalls the first acquaintance with Corman and this poem in particular, citing the poet's ease in sharing uncomfortable familial details, and the way in which he welcomed close friends into an extended family, further heightening this potential significance.

Filreis offers a Freudian interpretation of potty training as a civilizing practice, and the speaker's denial of this process as a means of maintaining his freedom: "I want to hold on to the power closest to my body, even if it means I smell." While Ryan believes Corman would reject so intricate an interpretation of his own work, he admits that the visceral preoccupations present in much of his poetry reinforce the lesson that (in Corman's words) "the hardest thing you will ever do is you will live your life," and even five years after his death, Ryan can find solace in the poet's acknowledgment that "life is not meant to be easy." Devaney concurs, finding a tremendous complexity of life present in the poem's "elemental trauma": "there's a communication beyond the clear-eyed speech of the poem."

After ruminating on this emotional resonance, Filreis reconsiders what he deems the audacity of Corman's assertion — i.e. that the experience of childhood trauma gives one the ability to understand the terror of the foxhole. Ryan returns to the word, "livingdying" (the title of a 1970 Corman collection and a term he often used) that underscores our human condition, noting, "I don't think that he sees the soldier's experience as somehow different than what all humans must do." Devaney makes note of the "Asian consciousness" present in this poem and throughout Corman's work (a cultural inheritance from Ezra Pound), however, much like Philip Whalen, his voice remains essentially American (through his directness, his brashness, etc.). Ryan also hears traces of William Carlos Williams, particularly in the conversational tone.

The program winds down with Filreis asking the panelists to address Corman's relative obscurity and his feeling that his poetry was underappreciated: "What do we miss if we don't include Cid Corman in conversations about modern and contemporary poetry?" Sherlock begins by citing Corman's work as both translator and editor (of Origin) and the geographic and interpersonal distances that kept him removed from acknowledgment as a major voice in the New American Poetry. It's a hopeful sign, however, that so many young poets (including Sherlock, Ryan and Devaney) have sought out his work, and Ryan points out the reciprocal nature of this cross-generational relationship, namely Corman's role as a generous and incisive mentor, even as these poetic conversations were carried out via international aérogrammes. Devaney notes that many older poets (including Carl Rakosi and Lorine Niedecker) enjoyed similar correspondence with Corman, and his thoughtful writing about their work is yet another reason he'll be remembered long after his passing.

PoemTalk is a co-production of PennSound, the Kelly Writers House and the Poetry Foundation. If you're interested in more information on the series or want to hear the previous twenty-two episodes, please visit the PoemTalk blog, and don't forget that you can subscribe to the series through the iTunes music store. In the next episode, Filreis will be joined by Randall Couch, Michelle Taransky and Natalie Gerber for a discussion of Barbara Guest's "Roses." Stay tuned also for future programs in the series which will address poems by Alice Notley, Vachel Lindsay and Robert Duncan. Thanks, as always, for listening!

Segue Series at the Bowery Poetry Club: Zhang Er and Trey Sager, October 3, 2009

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:50:53 EDT

This past Saturday, the Segue Series kicked off its Fall 2009 season of readings at the Bowery Poetry Club, which will be curated by Laura Sims and E. Tracy Grinnell. The first of eight very exciting events featured the pairing of poets Zhang Er and Trey Sager.

Trey Sager begins his set with a number of poems taken from The Weeds, his recent collaboration with painter Munro Galloway. He continues a newer work-in-progress, "On the Rocks," as well as several selections from his "Dear Failures" series (each of which is addressed to a failed poem), including "Dear Lumberjack," "Dead Orphans" and "Dear Modifications."

For her set, Zhang Er was accompanied by Martine Bellen and Bowery Poetry Club proprietor, Bob Holman, whose translations followed her readings in the original Chinese (or in Holman's case, was delivered simultaneously). Her set list was drawn from the nine introductory poems she composed for her most recent collection, Because of Mountain, which depicts her journey home to China to bury her grandparents.

The next Segue Series Reading will take place this Saturday at 4:00 PM, and will feature poets Paul Foster Johnson and Laura Moriarty. You can view the entire Fall lineup of readers on Charles Bernstein's Blog, and can visit the Bowery Poetry Club homepage for more information. Also, don't forget that you can listen to recordings of hundreds of Segue Series events spanning four decades by visiting PennSound's pages for the series' three homes: the Bowery Poetry Club, Double Happiness and the Ear Inn

Ed Dorn: Four New Recordings, 1969-1981

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:52:06 EDT

As you can plainly see from the "New at PennSound" sidebar to the right, there's a tremendous amount of exciting new material being added to the PennSound archives on a daily basis (and we'll be writing up some of those recordings on PennSound Daily in the near future), however today, we wanted to make sure that a key addition from this past summer didn't go unnoticed — namely, four new recordings from the late, great Ed Dorn, which were recently uncovered in the reel-to-reel archives of Robert Creeley.

The earliest these new recordings, dating from May 6, 1969 at the University of New Mexico, features Dorn reading a lengthy portion of his best-known book, Gunslinger. Running just over an hour, this two-part recording features excerpts from Books I and II of his western epic.

Next, we have the first of two new lectures: a December 7, 1978 conversation as part of the Walking the Dog Seminars at the University at Buffalo, which were organized by Creeley. Dorn begins the recording by mentioning Amiri Baraka, who he'd read with the following day at the Just Buffalo Literary Center (a recording we discussed on PennSound Daily in May 2008). Dorn would return to Buffalo three years later to take part in the third annual Charles Olson Memorial Lecture series. Altogether, we have three talks, occurring on March 19th and 24th (the date of the third was not preserved).

Finally, there's a recording of Dorn reading from The North Atlantic Turbine, the date and location of which are unknown. Poems in this half-hour set include "Song (Again, I am made the occurrence)," "The Sundering U.P. Tracks" and that volume's long central poem, "Oxford."

On PennSound's Ed Dorn author page, you'll find all of the recordings mentioned above, along with number of additional readings covering the high points of the middle years of the poet's writing life. We first announced his 1973 reading at Toronto's A Space on PennSound Daily in December 2007, and other recordings include a two-day visit to the University at Buffalo in April 1974 (yielding an hour-long reading from Gunslinger and a lengthy set of poems from Recollections of Gran Apacheria), a 1975 cassette release of Gunslinger by Germany's S Press and a 1984 reading at Milwaukee's Woodland Pattern bookstore (featuring selections from Captain Jack's Chaps and Abhorrences). Considering that a great many of these recordings come from Robert Creeley's personal archives (the majority of them documenting events he curated), it's evident that he had a great deal of respect for Dorn's work, and hopefully you'll enjoy listening to them just as much as he did.

A. L. Nielsen: New Author Page Plus Close Listening Reading and Conversation

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:25:01 EDT

We're wrapping up this week with a new author page for the venerable poet, critic and anthologist, A. L. Nielsen, anchored by a new Close Listening reading and conversation with Charles Bernstein, recorded last month at the Kelly Writers House.

The first of two programs features Nielsen reading a selection of poems spanning "about thirty years in about thirty minutes." Titles in this set include "On the Disappearance of Species," "Emily's List," "Exemplary Sentences," "The Virginia Monologues" "Epistemological Hesitation" and "My Dinner With Andrea." This is followed by a second conversation segment, which begins with the poet discussing his formative years and his education during the 1960s, where it seemed that some new aesthetic or cultural movement was emerging at a terrifying pace — however, he notes, "the danger of this, as we saw in the early 70s, was that people began sort of waiting to see what the next thing was going to be rather than making the next thing happen." In the face of this growing complacency, and guided by Ron Silliman's notion of "the new sentence" and the encouragement of David Bromige, among other sources, Nielsen felt that he had stumbled upon new personal means of expression early in the 1980s.

This leads Bernstein to question him as to his relation to form and style within his work: Nielsen admits to a long-time interest in "structuring aesthetic uses of language," though he might not make use of explicit form. Using free jazz innovations by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor as examples, he concedes, "I was fascinated from early on in listening to the ways that musicians found to structure the work they were doing and the relationships to one another, once they had done away with traditional harmonic relationships and traditional units of measure [. . .] I was always trying to do that kind of thing in poetry" — not simply creating "jazz poetry," but rather, "find[ing] new ways of structuring rhythm and new ways of relating the sounds within lines to one another without relying upon the more traditional means, including the more traditional means of free verse." Given the tremendous influence of music upon his work, it should come as no surprise that song forms also filter their way into his writing, as everything from imitative structures to a general "songishness."

Another fostering influence during Nielsen's formative years, in the late 70s and early 80s, were the various regional scenes of poetry scenes (predominantly in Washington D.C. and the Bay Area), who shared a similar driving ethos, sometimes called "Analytic Lyric," which for Neilsen, entailed "saving a certain lyric modality" for himself within his experimentations. Next, the discussion shifts to the role of the comic and the ironic within his work, which Bernstein sees as a "rhythmic force," and citing George Burns and Henny Youngman as examples, agrees that "comic timing [is] not that different than lyric timing."

The program's second half begins with a discussion of "Self-Organizing Networks," the first poem read in the previous segment, which draws both syntax and sentiment from Nielsen's readings in the field of science, specifically concerning artificial intelligence. The poet sees language, and particularly poetic language, as a sort of "self-organizing network," "language gives us certain kinds of possibilities, but it's also constantly pulling our presumptions out from under us, so that we're in a constant state of having to revise our assumptions about the environment we live in, which means that we are ourselves a kind of self-organizing network as well."

Next, Bernstein asks about the role of identity structures in Nielsen's work: "to what degree are your poems organized around the fact of your whiteness, your maleness, your heterosexuality, if in fact you are any of those things?" The poet concedes to being all three, but doesn't see any of those factors as explicit organizing structures, though he has written "a number of poems that take up a direct address of racial subjects in one way or another," and sees his early immersion in African-American culture, including attending a black college, as having shaped his work. From here, the subject shifts to Nielsen's critical work in the field of African-American poetry and poetics, which was initially spurred by his distressing grad school discovery that there were scarcely any writing on white poets and racial discourse (the subject of his first book, Reading Race). Fittingly, the program comes to a close with Nielsen discussing the overlapping relationship between his creative and critical pursuits, including the very different levels of receptiveness publishers have to the work.

In addition to these Close Listening shows, you'll find links to two appearances on Leonard Schwartz's Cross-Cultural Poetics radio program (from 2004 and 2006), along with the poet's own recordings of the legendary MLA Offsite Readings in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Nielsen has generously agreed to share a number of key recordings from his archives — both of his own work and other poets — with PennSound, as he recently announced on his HeatStrings blog, so keep an eye out for those readings in the near future.

During this same visit to Philadelphia, Nielsen also recorded a PoemTalk Podcast episode with Al Filreis, Charles Bernstein and Michelle Taransky, discussing Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo." While that program won't be made available until a later date, you can listen to all of the exciting recordings mentioned above by clicking on this entry's title.

George Oppen author page (and whose invaluable work on our William Carlos Williams page cannot be overstated), we're tremendously proud to announce nine new full-length recordings by the Objectivist master.

We begin with an April 9, 1964 reading for the Academy of American Poets at New York's Guggenheim Museum, which showcases titles including "A Narrative," "The Mast," "This Land," "Her Ankles are Watches" and "Psalm," among many others. Next, we have a February 15, 1966 recording from Long Island University, followed by two readings from February 1967: the first, an updated recording of Oppen's reading at the 92nd Street Y (introduced by Armand Schwerner, and featuring poems from Of Being Numerous) and a February 17th reading at SUNY-Buffalo (the setlist of which includes Of Being Numerous, "A Preface," "Historic Pun," "Epigram," "Ballad," "Power," "The Enchanted World," and "Route").

Moving forward, we have a pair of San Francisco-area readings that were broadcast by KPFA, dating from 1968 and 1972, followed by a pair of 1973 readings (the first at UCSD on March 7th, then a late-May reading from Of Being Numerous, recorded at the Modern American Poetry Conference at the Polytechnic of Central London). Our final new addition is a September 17, 1974 set from Shippensburg University, which includes his late-period classic, "Myth of the Blaze," along with "Five Poems about Poetry," "Confession," "Guest Room" and "The Book of Job and Draft of a Poem to Praise the Paths of the Living."

We're grateful to Dr. Swigg for his thoughtful conservation of these historic recordings, as well as his generosity in sharing them with PennSound's listening audience. Click on the title above to start exploring our much-augmented George Oppen author page, where you'll all of the readings mentioned above, along with many others. Those interested in finding new perspectives on the poet will also want to check out our pages for Oppen Centennial celebrations at the Kelly Writers House and Poets House in April 2008, as well as PoemTalk Podcast #3, which addresses Oppen's "Ballad."

Kathleen Fraser: Kelly Writers House Reading, September 2009

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:00:05 EDT

Last Tuesday, the UPenn fall semester kicked into high gear with the year's first major solo reading at the Kelly Writers House, featuring poet, editor and critic, Kathleen Fraser. The poet was introduced that evening by Michelle Taransky, who lauds the Fraser's poetic space as "an open canvas, gray from memory; the template above a door of hidden resolve; another kind of use value; a forehead on which to scrawl a new language; the recovery of lost grammars of women written over; a slate on which to collage and draw and reconfigure the lessons of the master teacher; a topos of silence and emptiness; a briefest hint or suggested nuances; a record of temporality."

The evening's three selections all come from collaborations with artists, starting with her 2007 Chax Press book, W I T N E S S. Next comes hi ddevioleth i dde violet (dedicated to fellow poet Norma Cole and published in 2003 by Peter Quartermain's Nomados Press) before Fraser concludes with a lengthy reading from the "In the Photo Day" section of Second Language: Constructions in Collaboration (a recent collage work with Joann Ugolini completed at the American Academy in Rome). The forty-minute reading is followed by a nearly half hour-long Question and Answer period, which is presented in its entirety. We've also segmented out a particularly interesting selection from that recording, during which the poet responds to a poet from Charles Bernstein about her response to the misogynistic overtones present in the life and work of Charles Olson.

On PennSound's Kathleen Fraser author page, you'll also discover recordings from the poet's last visit to the Kelly Writers House ten years ago, along with four Segue Series Readings recorded between 1986 and 2008 (two each from the Ear Inn and the Bowery Poetry Club) and a 1982 reading at San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts. These readings are augmented by a 2005 appearance on Cross-Cultural Poetics and a 1997 lecture on Dante, as well as PoemTalk #13, which discusses her poem, "The Cars." Click on the title above to hear all of these recordings, and be sure to visit the Kelly Writers House monthly calendar, where you'll find information on all of the exciting events taking place at UPenn this semester.

"Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader" Launch Event at the Bowery Poetry Club

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:36:15 EDT

If you couldn't make it out to the Bowery Poetry Club last Saturday for the afternoon reading celebrating the release of Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader, then you're in luck: we've just created a new page with individual recordings of all of the event's participants.

Edited by Maria Damon and Ira Livingston, Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader (University of Illinois Press) brings together classic writings from Wordsworth, Adorno, Benjamin, Deleuze & Guattari and DuBois, among others, along with a selection of new essays written by the likes of Barrett Watten, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Kamau Brathwaite, Charles Bernstein, Audre Lorde, Trinh Minh Na and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, creating a rich and rewarding resource for new students and well-established scholars alike.

Joining the volume's two editors for this event were contributors Bernstein and Amitava Kumar, along with Tracie Morris, Pierre Joris and Renato Rosaldo. You can hear individual tracks from all of these readers by clicking on the title above, which will redirect you to PennSound's Poetry and Cultural Studies event page.

Those in the New York metropolitan area should also take note and keep your Saturday afternoons free: the Poetry and Cultural Studies event serves as a precursor of sorts for the venerable Segue Series, which will be returning from its summer hiatus for a 32nd year of readings. Click here for more information on the full series of eight fall readings, which begin on October 3rd, and if for some reason you can't get down to the Bowery Poetry Club (note: you'd better have a good excuse), fear not — as always, we'll be posting recordings not long after the readings take place.

Pat Clifford and Aryanil Mukherjee: chaturangik / SQUARES

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:19:48 EDT

Earlier this week, Cincinnati poets Pat Clifford and Aryanil Mukherjee sat down to record their recent bilingual collaboration, chaturangik / SQUARES, in its entirety and discuss the poem's origins. The pair alternated segments of the book's four sections &mdash "Knight," "Bishop," "Rook" and "King" — in English, with Mukherjee reading select passages in Bengali.

Inspired by Satyajit Ray's 1977 film, Shatranj Ki Khilari (The Chess Players), chaturangik / SQUARES finds analogues for contemporary global struggles in the structure of the game of chess: the power relationships inherent between its pieces and the limitations each one must face. Moreover, as Mukherjee explains in the accompanying discussion segment, it acknowledges the game's colonial development — the ways in which its ancient Aryan rules were modified by both Muslim and British rulers — and this cross-cultural evolution serves as a fitting model of the book's composition, in which each poet began in his native language, and then worked to transliterate the lines of his co-author. In addition to the four segments and the brief discussion between Clifford and Mukherjee on PennSound's chaturangik / SQUARES page, you'll also find a link to the book's page on Kaurab Online, a repository of Bengali poetry as well as translations of many international poets, where you can learn more about the poem, browse critical responses, and read the final segment, "King."

Mukherjee also recently appeared on the PoemTalk blog, where he shared insights on the most recent program, which focused on Louis Zukofsky's Anew. An engineering mathematician during business hours, the poet ably demystified some of the more arcane scientific references in that poem, specifically, the relationship between the electrical condenser and the sea imagery which begins the poem. You can read that note here, and listen to chaturangik / SQUARES by clicking on the title above.

The Emergency Reading Series: Dan Featherston and Patrick Pritchett, 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:34:44 EDT

Last week, we brought you the new academic year's first offering from the Whenever We Feel Like It Reading Series, and today, we're very proud to offer the year's first event from a perennial favorite of the Philadelphia poetry community (and through PennSound, a wider international audience): the Emergency Reading Series. Started in 2006 as a Kerry Sherin Wright Prize-winning project by Julia Bloch and Scott Glassman, the series "is designed to address several questions we see arising in contemporary North American poetry around issues of emergence and literary community. We've created an ongoing dialogue among working poets on how they think about poetic lineage, theoretical stances, and aesthetic practice."

Joined by co-curator Sarah Dowling, the Emergency Series kicked off its 2009-2010 programming with a September 15th reading at the Kelly Writers House featuring a double-threat pair of poets and scholars: Dan Featherston is the author of The Radiant World, The Clock Maker's Memoir, United States and Into the Earth, and co-founder of Arizona's POG Collective (some of whose readings can be heard on PennSound's POG Sound page). A former story analyst and script editor, Patrick Pritchett has left the film industry for poetry's sake, publishing a number of chapbooks as well as the full-length collection, Burn - Doxology for Joan of Arc.

You can hear lengthy sets by both of these poets, followed by a spirited discussion, on PennSound's Emergency Reading Series homepage, where you'll also find a link to the series blog and nine previous events from Emergency's first three years, including sets by Jena Osman, Thomas Devaney, erica kaufman, Dorothea Lasky, Matthew Rohrer and Sueyeun Juliette Lee, among many others.

PoemTalk 22: from Louis Zukofsky's "Anew"

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:13:37 EDT

Today, we're very proud to launch the twenty-second episode in the PoemTalk Podcast Series, which focuses on the untitled twelfth section of Louis Zukofsky's Anew, beginning, "It's hard to see but think of a sea . . ." Joining host Al Filreis for this latest show is a veritable team of Zukofsky all-stars, including Charles Bernstein (editor of the Library of America's Louis Zukofsky: Selected Poems), Bob Perelman (author of The Trouble with Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein, and Zukovsky) and New Zealander poet and critic, Wystan Curnow.

Filreis begins by asking the panel to consider the poem's sound. Perelman recalls his initial reading of the poem's first line, and the confusion caused by Zukofsky's punning on see/sea, however he admits, "the interplay between all the senses and the trans-sensual waves that he's talking about are all there in a nutshell in that opening line." Bernstein likewise sees this alternation as being a key concept here: "what you hear with your ear is not the same as what you see with your eye, because the hearing of the poem — even when you hear it yourself — it switches, and what happens over the poem is that many of the words switch in their value." Filreis then touches upon the poem's preoccupation with science, which Perelman sees as reminiscent of the poet's "A"-9, which similarly uses a physics textbook's discussion of light (along with Marx's Das Kapital) as a source of language. He then asks Curnow how this scientific discourse serves the poem's purpose: while he's not an expert on electromagnetics, he believes that Zukofsky intends to "propose something to do with meaning that is very implicated in polysemy and metaphorical applications," and therefore this use of language is meant to return what has become a specialized and remote discourse to a more universally apprehensible use. Bernstein points out one more key word that does double duty: "stress," which points towards poetic meter as well as electrical impulses.

The discussion then turns to how these concepts relate to the poem's touching conclusion, in which Zukofsky ruminates on his fortieth birthday. For Bernstein, there's a connection to Einstein (in that "relativity in meaning is context-dependent"), while Perelman hears echoes of Wordsworth (both his dictum that "wherever science goes, the poet will go," and the father contained within the man, tied here to the seed). "So it's the Romanticism of the child put into the context of 20th century science," Filreis summarizes, "because it's not, 'I go back to child,' this is 'I am simultaneously child and me, that produces multiple subjectivities and multiple attentions.'" Bernstein quotes Zukofsky here, "I see many things at one time / the harder the concepts get, / Or nothing," seeing the "[o]r nothing" as a crucial addition.

The panelists next consider the poetic metamorphosis embodied in the title "Anew," and the way in which this work represents a move from the politically-centered work of Zukofsky's early career to a more personal poetics. "This poem is as complex and difficult as Zukofsky ever is, and as absolutely what it is, as something, as an object or another thing in the world, which is refracted like light through a prism," Bernstein affirms, and Perelman cites the poem's discursiveness and anecdotal nature as qualities which mark distinct differences from earlier high points like "A"-8 and -9. Curnow also notes the poem's internal development, from a more restrained and scientific tone in the beginning to warmth at the end, and Perelman concurs, seeing the conclusion as a potential criticism, or a call for continued reflection upon it.

Towards the end of the program, Filreis asks the panelists for their thoughts on why, despite Zukofsky's great influence (upon Objectivism, Modernism and 20th century poetry in general) his work is not as widely known or respected as some his peers, let alone kept in print (save the Bernstein-edited Selected). Bernstein turns the question around somewhat, asking why poetry in general is not better known. Perelman admits that "there's something very uncontainable about Zukofsky, and I think ultimately, you have to identify with the power of poetry to say, 'that's what we like,' as opposed to feeling, 'this is beyond me,' which I think it's very easy for a non-reader of Zukofsky [to feel]." Curnow observes that the poet's work is no more or less obfuscated than that of his peers, and the form of this poem in particular conforms to popular conventions of what poetic form should be, therefore there's no reason he should be singled out for obscurity. Returning to scientific jargon, Bernstein notes that "Zukofsky has an incredible half-life" — his work maintains its vitality and still addresses our present concerns decades after its initial publication. It's heartening to realize that, year-by-year, more readers take notice of him, and hopefully, this program will introduce his work to new audiences.

PoemTalk is a co-production of PennSound, the Kelly Writers House and the Poetry Foundation. If you're interested in more information on the series or want to hear the previous twenty-one episodes, please visit the PoemTalk blog, and don't forget that you can subscribe to the series through the iTunes music store. Our next episode will feature Filreis discussing Cid Corman's "Enuresis" with a Philadelphia-centric panel of Frank Sherlock, Fran Ryan and Thomas Devaney. Stay tuned also for future programs in the series which will address poems by Barbara Guest, Alice Notley and Vachel Lindsay. Thanks, as always, for listening!

our Facebook page and one for our Twitter feed. While a great many listeners are keeping up-to-date with the site through those two venues &mdash in the eleven months since we created our Facebook page 561 fans have added us, while 223 people are following our Twitter feed six months after its launch — we wanted to extend another invitation to those who might not know that these options exist.

You can also quickly and easily get updates on our newest additions is by subscribing to the PennSound Daily newsfeed, which will automatically deliver entries like this one to your iGoogle page, Google Reader or favorite feed aggregator. You can browse through nearly two years' worth of these entries by visiting the PennSound Daily archive, and thanks to the hard work of our summer interns, these short, informative blurbs have now been integrated with the author and event pages mentioned in them (you'll notice them at the very bottom, just above the copyright notice).

Another great service is the Writers House's Dial-a-Poem hotline: just dial 215-746-POEM (7636) to get news on upcoming events at KWH and hear brief recordings from past readings (currently, two selections from the "Live at the Writers House" series: Ron Silliman's "Philadelphia" and Matthew Hart's "A Future Like That Right Dancing"). Finally, we're sad to report that, due to budgetary constraints, our PigeonSound project has been shelved for the time being, but Facebook, Twitter, the PennSound Daily newsfeed and Dial-a-Poem are all wonderful ways to stay in touch with PennSound, and we encourage you to take full advantage of them.

Don't forget that you can connect with many of our partner sites in a similar fashion: the Kelly Writers House, the Electronic Poetry Center and UbuWeb all have Facebook pages, and Ubu is also on Twitter.

Whenever We Feel Like It: Dara Weir, Ben Kopel, James La Marre

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:13:41 EDT

The latest addition to PennSound's roster of reading series is Whenever We Feel Like It, which, we're told, "is put on by Committee of Vigilance members Michelle Taransky and Emily Pettit," who originally organized the series during their time together at the Iowa Writers Workshop. One is benefitted greatly in knowing that "[t]he Committee of Vigilance is a subdivision of Sleepy Lemur Quality Enterprises, which is the production division of The Meeteetzee Institute," as well as the fact that the series moved to Philadelphia last year, along with Taransky (who, during regular business hours, does double-duty for the writing world as assistant to Kelly Writers House director, Jessica Lowenthal).

Recorded September 12, 2009 at the Kelly Writers House, this reading, which features sets by James La Marre, Ben Kopel and Dara Wier, is the fifth event in the series' history. For more information about Whenever We Feel Like It, its readers and future events — which include Andrew Zawacki, Joshua Harmon and Kaegan Sparks next month, and a reading next spring featuring Srikanth Reddy and Danny Khalastchi — you'll want to visit the Whenever We Feel Like It blog. Also be sure to keep an eye on PennSound's Whenever We Feel Like It series page for audio and video from these upcoming dates, as well as a reading by Heather Christle, Natalie Lyalin and Cecilia Corrigan at the Writers House last spring, which will be added in the near future.

A Tribute to David Bromige, KRCB-FM, 2009

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:59:15 EDT

Today, we're very happy to announce a new addition to our author page for the late David Bromige: produced by Katherine Hastings, "A Tribute to David Bromige," first aired on KRCB-FM (a public radio station serving the Northern San Francisco Bay Area) on August 26th of this year. Here's a brief description of the hour-long program:

The author of dozens of books and the recipient of many literary honors, David Bromige was also a former Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, a professor at Sonoma State University, and a mentor to many. His experimental style and sharp wit translated to a large collection of work so varied that the poems could easily be mistaken as the work of many. Born in London in 1933, Bromige died in Sebastopol in June of this year. Participating in tonight's program will be his wife, Cecelia Belle, their daughter, Margaret, and others. Recordings of Bromige reading his work will also be featured.

For more recordings of Bromige's work, including many featured in the radio tribute, be sure to visit PennSound's David Bromige author page. You'll find a fairly comprehensive rundown of the readings you'll find there — which span nearly two decades, beginning with a 1978 Segue Series set at the Ear Inn — in our own small tribute to the poet, which appeared on PennSound Daily on June 3rd, the day of his passing. We also draw your attention to the website set up by Bromige's family, where listeners can sample the poet's work, view a gallery of photos from throughout his lifetime, and read memories and tributes from many of his friends and colleagues.

Bruce Pearson: Close Listening Conversation, 2009

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:44:48 EDT

Our recent focus on visual artists with new additions to the PennSound archives continues today with this recent Close Listening program featuring painter Bruce Pearson in conversation with Charles Bernstein, recorded August 4, 2009 at New York City's Clocktower Studio.

The show begins with Bernstein asking the artist to discuss the techniques used in his work — which features multi-dimensional styrofoam forms overlaid with paint — as well as the development of that aesthetic lexicon, particularly the role of topographical maps and the tensions between flat-surface painting and sculpture. Pearson explains, "I've always been kinda interested in deciphering how a body's described, how information is described, so a map is one way to get there." He goes on to describe the role of language in his creative process: "I usually find a series of words that will trigger some ideas, or something that interests me, and from there I try to figure out a way to maybe decipher or map them in a pictorial space, or to intersect them with pictorial space." Bernstein mentions one recent work, "Funny That You Should Think That Walking Backwards is a Sign of Intelligence" (inspired by a poem by Mónica de la Torre, another recent Close Listening guest) and Pearson takes listeners through the painting's transformation and what traces of the original text are present in the end result. This leads to a more general discussion of the various ways text, whether source quotations or the letterforms themselves, are manipulated in his work.

The conversation next turns to Pearson's color choices, which are every bit as conceptually constrained as his textual choices, and the ways in which the artist conceives of new and ongoing series of works which are linked by similar sentiments. Bernstein asks about the influence of 1960s psychedelic art, which leads into an exploration of Pearson's upbringing — he was born in Aruba and lived in the San Francisco area during his formative years, where the various rock posters he encountered inspired both his color palate and his typographic morphology: "I was just thinking that this culture was kinda hallucinatory, it just seemed very, very loopy to me, and so I was kinda having fun with this language, creating these kinda optical, hallucinatory word structures, to get the language presented that way, and then very quickly, I realized that I needed to keep moving out, so I started finding other ways to present the words, and then to combine them with images, and then have them intersect and kinda create puzzles out of them, along with mappings."

Towards the show's end, Pearson discusses the ways in which his recent work has trended towards using line drawing to make evident the multiple structures and processes present in finished paintings. Playing off the observation by a friend of Pearson's that, "you can read the paintings, or you can see the paintings, but you can't do the two often at the same time," they comment upon the dichotomy between verbal and visual and the ways this tension filters into his work, along with the interplay between figuration and abstraction. While Pearson disdains the way in which the latter distinction is often upheld in a strict, either/or binary, he is interested in exploring the ways in which viewers' minds navigate these two systems, and particularly in the overlaps, the space between: "I like all of those points of slippages, wherever there's a binary." Bernstein ends the show by asking Pearson to describe, "the kind of perceptual experience that you want from your painting," and poses the classic question of when he knows a given work-in-progress is done, and the artist's thoughtful answers bring the conversation to a fitting conclusion.

This program is but one of the latest series of Bernstein's Close Listening readings and conversations, which started in 2003 as the successor to his LINEbreak series. You'll find dozens of programs on PennSound's Close Listening homepage featuring painters, filmmakers, scholars and theorists, along with some of the most influential voices in contemporary poetics.

Abigail Child: Selected Films 1986-2006

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:49:34 EDT

Today, we bring our week of film-related PennSound Daily entries to a close with a series of recently-added works by poet and filmmaker Abigail Child. Our new page for Child's Selected Films 1986-2006 — edited, like the Stan Brakhage page we launched earlier this week, by PennSound Contributing Editor, Danny Snelson — showcases four short films from throughout her past two decades of work.

The most recent film present here is 2006's Mirror World, a collaboration with Gary Sullivan, which reworks material from Mehboob Khan's Bollywood film, AAN into a fascinating twelve-minute short that layers soundtrack, dialogue and subtitles, manipulates framing and fractures narrative to critique both gender and social roles within Indian cinema while simultaneously celebrating its bright spectacle.

Next, we have three selections from Child's ongoing series, Is This What You Were Born For?: Perils (1986), Mayhem (1987) and Mercy (1989). Each organized around a central abstract notion, and embracing a jarring montage aesthetic (that's wonderfully complemented by scores featuring Christian Marclay, Charles Noyes and Zeena Parkins, among others), these films navigate a broad array of source materials to create mesmerizing meditations on our relationship to film and the ways in which the everyday and the extraordinary are reflected through the medium.

In addition to these videos, you'll want to check out the extensive archive of recordings on Child's main PennSound author page. A perennial favorite of the Segue Series, you'll find no less than six readings taking place between 1985 and 2008, split equally between the Ear Inn and the Bowery Poetry Club. There's also a 2000 appearance on PhillyTalks (which includes four poems) and a wonderful Close Listening reading and conversation with Charles Bernstein in 2007 (the former show, featuring writing from Solids, A Motive for Mayhem and Post Industrials, among others, is also segmented into six individual files). An audio-visual introduction to Child's work is only a click away.

Ken Jacobs: Close Listening Reading and Conversation, 2009

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:38:24 EDT

Our week continues with another cinema-related addition to the PennSound archives: a trio of new Close Listening programs featuring experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs recorded with Charles Bernstein earlier this summer at New York City's Clocktower Studio.

Jacobs starts the conversation by imploring listeners to read Matt Taibbi's "The Great American Bubble Machine," a recent Rolling Stone exposé of the business practices of Goldman Sachs, whom Jacobs likens to the Mafia. Bernstein uses this political discussion to segue into the origins of Jacobs' filmmaking in the 1950s, asking whether he thought his films were capable of effecting social change, or futile to do so — Jacobs confesses that he felt the latter, however "one is alive, and the toes have hope, the body has hope, and this kind of energy would move into the work and mess it up with hope." They discuss the political dimensions of Jacobs' films throughout his career, starting with his classic Star Spangled to Death, and the tenuous relationship between reality and the cinema, as well as the filmmaker's responsibility to make light of the unreality of film form. This leads to a consideration of one particular facet of Jacobs' aesthetic — manipulation and subversion of the standard frame rate of 24 frames per second to break the veil of cinematographic illusion and create startling imagery, as in 1969's Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son, which deconstructs a 1905 short subject of the same name.

The program's second half start with Bernstein asking Jacobs to discuss the role of integrated text within his filmmaking, which was born of his shift from film stock to video in the earlier part of this decade. Knowing that the film would be presented in DVD format, where viewers have the ability to break up the usual flow of images through pause and replay, allowed him the freedom to make use of wordy flash frames within works like Star Spangled to Death. Embedding these texts backs up the filmic imagery with supporting facts, and while they don't subliminally conveying everything Jacobs wishes to say in one instant, they do spur viewers to go back, to re-watch individual scenes and the film as a whole, engaging in a recursive process he feels is ideal.

Bernstein next asks about another recent film, 2007's Child Labor (based on a nineteenth century stereograph image of a thread factory), which he frames in relation to the concept of film as "the redemption of physical reality." Jacobs concedes his friend's assertion, noting that "just letting the mind humanely examine things is already something of a redemption," however he feels less hopeful about the potential of art to wholly counteract or erase the enormity of capitalism: it can make the pain of this child worker a visceral and empathetic experience for viewers, however, "you can't do anything for those kids anymore." "This problem goes on in the world," he continues, under the sway of capitalism, "most peoples' lives are . . . I don't know what to call it except slavery [...] a tragic misuse of a life [...] a waste of fucking time." He ends the discussion by effectively summing up the relation between filmmaking and his own life: "I have to explore these spaces and relish the phenomena that's there. I'm in this peculiar situation of being offended by things and at the same time, my appetites, which include an appetite for space and an appetite for rhythm . . . you can't help but play with these things and enjoy them."

Next comes a pair of half-hour readings of texts both old and new. The first showcases Jacobs' short story, "The Day the Moon Gave Up the Ghost," composed in the fall of 1961 after a separation from his eventual-wife, Flo (she had to return to her classes at RISD, while he stayed on in Provincetown). In the second, he reads "Painted Air: The Joys and Sorrows of Evanescent Cinema," an autobiographical piece first published in Millenium Film Journal in 2003, and we're able to provide a link to the full text of the essay.

While we're speaking of film and filmmakers, it's worth noting that Ken Jacobs is also the subject of Henry Hills' short film, Nervous Ken — the first installment of his magnum opus, Emma's Dilemma, which you can also see on PennSound, along with a number of earlier films, including A New Life, Gotham, Money, Radio Adios and Kino Da!. Hills is also the subject of a 2008 Close Listening conversation with Bernstein, and you can hear and see all of the aforementioned materials on Hills' PennSound author page. To listen to Ken Jacobs' Close Listening reading and conversation, just click on the title above.

Stan Brakhage: New Resources Added

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:56:12 EDT

Today, we bring the month of August to a close with an exciting addition to our roster of authors &mdash (or, in this case, auteurs): a new page hosting several recordings by the legendary experimental filmmaker, Stan Brakhage. Organized by PennSound Contributing Editor, Danny Snelson, our Brakhage page brings together a pair of newly-digitized recordings from Robert Creeley's archives, along with select resources from our sister-site, UbuWeb to present a different side of the iconic artist.

First, we have an undated radio interview with Brakhage, broadcast on Albuquerque's KHFM-FM, in which he discusses his particular aesthetic in relation to the early development of the film form (including the similarities between visual effects and the magician's sleight-of-hand, the imaginative possibilities of the medium and its effects upon the audience) as well as personal versus public aims, authenticity and his response to his critics, among other topics.

Next, we have a lengthy recording taken from Brakhage's visit, at Creeley's invitation, to SUNY-Buffalo as part of the Walking the Dog Seminars (which preceded the Wednesdays @ 4 Plus series of the 1990s) on November 30, 1978. Running more than ninety minutes, the event starts with a discussion of literary pilgrimages before segueing into an exploration of dreams, including their power and influence upon the filmmaker's work. The set concludes with a long question and answer session as well several conversational interludes with Creeley.

Finally, we have a link to Brakhage resources on UbuWeb : Sound, including a fascinating discussion with venerable film critic Pauline Kael and "The Test of Time," a twenty-part series of half hour-long radio programs broadcast over the University of Colorado's KAIR-FM in 1982. Snelson has chosen the sixteenth episode — in which the filmmaker discusses his friendship with Creeley and showcases recordings of inspirations including Creeley, Ed Dorn, Gertrude Stein, Louis Zukofsky and Tennessee Williams — for inclusion on our Brakhage page itself. To start listening to the recordings mentioned above, click on this entry's title.

Allen Ginsberg: Several New Recordings from the Creeley Archives

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:10:06 EDT

Our latest dip into the audiotape archives of the late Robert Creeley brings us several historic recordings by his long-time friend and compatriot, Allen Ginsberg, adding a number of new and fascinating takes on some of his best-known work to his PennSound author page.

We begin with what's identified as a benefit reading for the literary journal Big Table, founded by Irving Rosenthal and Paul Carroll, who resigned from the editorial staff of the Chicago Review after the contents of the Winter 1959 issue were repressed by university authorities. While it's clear that the contents of this recording are taken from several different venues, biographer Bill Morgan notes that Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso did a number of readings to support the fledgling journal in January 1959, and so perhaps this complete recording contains material from several different events. Regardless of the location, the set represents some of the poet's finest work of the mid-to-late 1950s, bookended by his epic collections, Howl and Other Poems and Kaddish and Other Poems. Aside from those two title works (the latter still a work-in-progress at the time), Ginsberg also reads classic poems like "Sunflower Sutra," "A Supermarket in California," "America" and "A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley," along with "Transcription of Organ Music," "In Back of the Real" and "Europe! Europe!"

A second set of three recordings, unidentifiable in regards to date or location begins with a twenty-eight minute reading, which, given the selection of poems, the background noises and Ginsberg's banter with Creeley between pieces, appears to have been recorded at the Creeleys' home in or around 1959. Drawing from the body of material which would later comprise Reality Sandwiches and Kaddish and Other Poems, this set begins with "Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square," and continues with the first part of "Laughing Gas," "My Sad Self (for Frank O'Hara)" and "To Aunt Rose," before concluding with parts I, III, IV and V of "Kaddish."

Next comes a recording of "Wales Visitation," taken from an unidentified radio program, which begins with the poet chanting a mantra for the consecration of bhang (an Indian cannabis confection), an appropriate lead-in, given the influence of psychedelics upon this visionary poem. After reading the poem, Ginsberg briefly discusses its origins, including the role of the visitation within the bardic tradition, Wordsworth and LSD.

Finally, we have a rather interesting recording of Ginsberg's sprawling anti-war epic, "Wichita Vortex Sutra" — preceded by several minutes of chanting, this rendition starts at the start of Part II of the completed version, where the original 1966 chapbook begins. While many of us know and justifiably love the Philip Glass setting of a lengthy portion of this poem, or the all-star performance of the complete work at the St. Mark's Poetry Project (later released as a commercial album), this particular iteration has much to recommend it, from the heavy slap-back echo on Ginsberg's voice — which speaks to the poem's tape recorder composition method and nicely complements his "electric arguments," especially his thunderous refrain of "language language" towards the poem's conclusion — to the multilayered soundscape, which includes the Buddhist chanting, a sea of slow-dying reverberations, and other subtly clever tricks, like a perfectly-timed sample of Bob Dylan's "Queen Jane Approximately" paired with the poet's appropriation of the song's refrain.

We're tremendously happy to have these new recordings to add to our Allen Ginsberg author page, and equally glad that Robert Creeley had the presence of mind to make these recordings, creating an indelible record of some of the 20th century's most influential poets. Click on the title above to check out these recordings, and don't forget to spend some time exploring our Robert Creeley author page as well — an astoundingly detailed collection of recordings spanning fifty years of the poet's life.

Ted Berrigan Reading at Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, August 1971

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:04:05 EDT

Recently, we've added a number of new recordings to the site taken from the reel-to-reel archives of the late Robert Creeley, including the two new John Wieners readings we mentioned late last week. Today's featured reading — of Ted Berrigan at San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts in August 1971 — also comes from that body of recordings, and represents a happy ending of sorts, as the tape we'd originally processed a year ago didn't match the list of contents on the tape case, and appeared to be lost forever. Thankfully, intrepid summer intern Rebekah Larsen found this nearly-forty minute set on a different reel last week, segmented it, and made it available to our listening audience.

Berrigan's marvelous reading is largely comprised of poems which would appear in 1975's Red Wagon, such as "Wishes," "Ophelia," "Wrong Train," "Frank O'Hara" and "Crystal," along with "Three Sonnets and a Coda for Tom Clark" (which here bears the subtitle, "An Appreciation for His Kindness and Features") and "Poem (for Larry Fagin)" ("You are lovely. // I am lame."), which would later be incorporated into one of that volume's standout poems, "Buddha on the Bounty." Other titles included in the set are "People Who Died" (from the previous year's In the Early Morning Rain), "Southampton Business" (which would later appear in 1977's Nothing for You) and the unpublished "Things To Do in Bolinas."

However the purest delight here is in hearing some of Berrigan's best-loved and most characteristic poems (or at least some of this commentator's favorites) — "Words for Love," "What I'd Like for Christmas, 1970," "Today in Ann Arbor" and "Things To Do in Providence," all of which make their first appearance on Berrigan's PennSound author page — performed with their full emotional weight and playful hilarity, by a young writer at the peak of his poetic abilities. It's a truly memorable reading that adds a considerable number of important poems to our large, but still not large enough, archive of Ted Berrigan's work, which also includes The Sonnets read in its entirety from the poet's controversial residency at the New Langton Arts Center in 1981, and a 1978 appearance on In the American Tree, along with a handful of scattered recordings.

As a final note, we'd like to thank a formidable trio of poetry detectives — Bill Berkson, Lewis Warsh and Ron Silliman — who, by deciphering clues in the recording itself and drawing upon their memories, were able to pinpoint the location of this reading, correcting Creeley's tape-case notation of "Dillard's" (which astute listeners might've seen on the page earlier this week).

PoemTalk 21: Charles Bernstein's "In a Restless World Like This Is"

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:39:17 EDT

The twenty-first episode in the the PoemTalk Podcast Series hits close to home, as it features PennSound co-director Charles Bernstein's "In a Restless World Like This Is," taken from his 2004 chapbook, World on Fire and the 2006 collection, Girly Man. Joining host Al Filreis to discuss the poem, is another trio of first-time panelists: Marcella Durand, Hank Lazer and Eli Goldblatt.

Durand kicks off the conversation by giving listeners a gloss on the title, which comes from a line in the 1950's pop ballad, "When I Fall in Love," made popular by Doris Day and Nat "King" Cole: "In a restless world like this is / love is ended before it's begun." Goldblatt further decodes the poem by finding analogues in book eleven of St. Augustine's Confessions, which ruminates on the differences between past times and the present, while Lazer finds a comforting nostalgia in the poem's tone. Filreis then asks about the unsolvable "it," recurring throughout the poem, which Durand ties to the poem's sonnet form — the four unanswered its being addressed after the poem's turn (marked by the em dash) in a comment upon poetry itself. Lazer points out the similar rhetorical force of the repeated ors, while Filreis adds the nos to the discussion before returning to the titular "this," finding a restless syntax to match the restless world around it. Goldblatt concurs: "there's this constant moving . . . and that's what reminded me of Augustine . . . this sense that the world is dissolving behind you and in front of you is an indivisible mass and all you've got is a presentness." The panelists also point out several other slippery syntactical constructions.

For Filreis, the poem denies a "Frost-ian" logic — "the further you go along the path, the further you'll have to go on [. . .] and at a certain point of going on that way, the way back cannot be discerned, the way becomes indivisible." Lazer brings in words and phrases with particular resonances for him, such as "indivisible," which takes him to the Pledge of Allegiance, and notes that "what happens often with Charles' work is we get embroiled in the humor and the tonality of it, and it's easy to sever it from historical circumstance," hence he seeks to bring the conversation back to its post-9/11 setting, pointing out its first publication in World on Fire. He wonders, "When we're going along a path, what is it we're nostalgic for? Are we looping back? Is there a way to get back? And yet each part of the process that we'd want to latch onto in some way gets subverted." Goldblatt compares this later reflection (written in the summer of 2002) to the poems composed immediately in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, finding both stylistic and philosophical differences. Durand takes this comparison further, exploring the questions Bernstein raises about the role of poetry and the poet in contemporary society throughout Girly Man, while Filreis places the focus on the poet's problematization of "transparency" in recent work, likening this piece's movement to the con-man or fortune teller with nothing up his sleeve — "this a poem that's all process, but it's not hidden, it's right out there in front."

Lazar brings the discussion full-circle by pointing out a continuity with Bernstein's early work: "here, he's mastered a kind of comedic tone that allows him to assemble phrase after phrase trying to point us toward the act of doing it." Filreis asks whether one has to reconcile the light tone with the darker undercurrents within the poem, and this leads to a broader consideration of the role of humor within Bernstein's poetics. Lazer laments, "I think Charles generally has been treated as a figure in literary history, and the poetry has not been attended to in detail [. . .] I think they may see the comedy and not necessarily appreciate the seriousness of the comedy." Filreis then plays devil's advocate, asking how one might state the value of this poem to an audience not familiar with work such as Bernstein's — a situation that might arise in a classroom setting — and both Durand and Lazer offer possible answers, which carry over nicely into the panelists' final thoughts on "In a Restless World Like This Is."

PoemTalk is a co-production of PennSound, the Kelly Writers House and the Poetry Foundation. If you're interested in more information on the series or want to hear the previous twenty episodes, please visit the PoemTalk blog, and don't forget that you can subscribe to the series through the iTunes music store. Our next episode will reunite PennSound co-directors Filreis and Bernstein, along with Bob Perelman and Wystan Curnow for a discussion of an untitled section of Louis Zukofsky's Anew, which begins, "It's hard to see but think of a sea . . ." Stay tuned also for future programs in the series which will address poems by Cid Corman, Barbara Guest, Alice Notley and Vachel Lindsay. Thanks, as always, for listening!

John Wieners: Two Berkeley Readings, July 1965

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:44:01 EDT

This week on PennSound comes to a close with two new sets from the inimitable John Wieners, which come to us from the reel-to-reel collection of the equally-inimitable Robert Creeley. While Creeley's notes on the tape are somewhat scant, we believe that one recording might be Wieners' July 14, 1965 reading as part of the Berkeley Poetry Conference, while a second recording might either be his July 12th set (also as part of the conference) or another contemporaneous reading in Berkeley.

The first set begins, after an introduction by Creeley, with "Chinoiserie," and continues with a number of poems from Wieners' second book, Ace of Pentacles (1964) — such as "Le Chariot," "Procrastination," "Moon Poems" "Tuesday 7:00 PM" and "The Suicide" — as well as uncollected works including "Night Boat to Cairo," "The Mole Proposes Solitude" and "Despair is Given Me." While PennSound previously featured a recording of this reading on the site, this remastered version, taken directly from the master tape, has vastly improved sound quality, and so we've replaced the original with this take.

Wieners' second set starts with three pieces from his debut collection, 1958's The Hotel Wentley Poems: "A poem for record players," "A poem for Painters" and "A poem for the old man." These are followed by several recent works, composed a month prior to the reading (in June 1965) and apparently uncollected — "Wracked by beauty . . .," "Dion Doyle," "Grieving battle of swing . . .," "A Poem to Dawn" and "Watchman, What of the Night?" Towards the end of the set, he reads a pair of poems from Ace of Pentacles, "My Mother" and "Cocaine" (a cut featured on Steve Evans' The Lipstick of Noise yesterday).

You can hear both of these along with several other full-length readings and numerous scattered selections from the mid-60s to the late 90s on PennSound's John Wieners author page, where you'll also discover more esoteric (but no less valuable) treats like a pair of visits to Creeley's Harvard poetry class in 1972, and an hour-long conversation with Lilian and Walter Lowenfels and Alan DeLoach recorded in 1969. Clicking on the title above takes you directly there.