PennSound Daily

We're a little late hearing about the passing of poet, editor, and teacher Gary Lenhart, who succumbed to cancer on March 31st, but didn't want to miss the opportunity to commemorate his life and work. A thoughtful obituary in Valley News notes that "Ever attentive to his craft, he was working on poems and a book review the last morning of his life." It continues:

To his devoted wife and daughter he was the fine mind that enlivened theirs, the wry wit that brightened their days, and the heart so true they never felt alone. He lived with deep personal integrity and unfailing courtesy to all. He was, in the words of one friend, the best of men. His broad knowledge and inventive attention to thought and language combined with a profound love of poetry to inform the rich body of work he left behind.

PennSound listeners might best be acquainted with Lenhart through his work as (co-)editor of the journals Mag City and Transfer or as part of the group behind the groundbreaking Public Access Poetry, and while the videos on our PAP series page are currently unavailable due to the absence of Adobe Flash, we're currently working to make them — and our other video holdings — available as soon as possible. Lenhart appeared a total of three times on the program, reading on July 14, 1977; February 14, 1978; and July 27, 1978. We also enthusiastically direct our listeners towards "'Readers of the Future' Would Be Interested," at Jacket2, an astounding interview with Lenhart conducted by Ben Olin, which provides a lot of inside information on the development and history of Public Access Poetry. 

In a remembrance posted last month, Michael Lally recalls that Lenhart "was always a calm but radiant presence on the downtown scene and I admired him a lot." Certainly, many others felt the same, and we send our condolences to Lenhart's friends, family, colleagues, and fans, as well as thank him for his visionary work with poetry and media, prefiguring projects like our own.

Last week we released episode #159 in the PoemTalk Podcast series, which addresses two poems by the legendary bpNichol: "Dada Lama" and "A Small Song That Is His." For this program, host Al Filreis assembled a virtual panel that included "Tracie Morris, Douglas Kearney, and Derek Beaulieu, from Brooklyn, Minneapolis, and Banff, respectively."

The two pieces we discuss are “Dada Lama” of 1966 (recorded in 1969) and “A Small Song That Is His” of 1974. “Dada Lama” was published by Cavan McCarthy in an edition of three hundred copies and is available from bpNichol.ca as a PDF. A recording was included in Journeying and the Returns (Coach House Press, 1967). “A Small Song That Is His” has long been part of PennSound’s extensive bpNichol page. It has been segmented from a rare sixty-minute cassette published in 1971 by High Barnet Company in Toronto. “A Small Song” is performed on that tape along with “Love Poem for Gertrude Stein,” “Beast (for Hugo Ball),” and other bpNichol favorites. The text of “A Small Song” later appeared in Love: A Book of Remembances, published by Talonbooks in 1974.

From there, the discussion begins with Beaulieu providing some context for this work: "Derek notes of 'Dada Lama” that it's an early piece in which bpNichol's clearly working through his influences. At that point the sound poem was 'really new to the Canadian conversation.' It echoes Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara. By the time you get to 'A Small Song' there's more confidence in bpNichol’s grasp of the sound poem, such that he can begin to 'come up with a poetics of the letter.'" He continues, "'And poems are not made of feelings,' Derek reminds us. 'Poems are made of letters.'"