Susan Howe and Jonathan Edwards

Susan Howe in front of an image of a Jonathan Edwards manuscript. The event took place at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Photograph by Lawrence Schwartzwald. Lawrence puts up many of his photographs of poets now on his Facebook page.

Bernadette Mayer

Lawrence Schwartzwald took this photograph of Bernadette Mayer at a reading last night at the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church.

Thom Donovan

Thom Donovan at the Bowery Poetry Club yesterday. Thom and Sarah Wintz curated a Segue Reading Series event there. Photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald (for more on Lawrence, click on the tag below).

north of north of invention

After two fabulous days in Philly, the North of Invention troupe moved to New York, where they presented at Poets House. Lawrence Schwartzwald was there and took some great photographs, including this one of Christian Bok and M. NourbeSe Philip. (Photo used by permission of Lawrence Schwartzwald; for more, click on the tag below.)

last night at KGB Bar

Alan Gilbert, at left, and Rosemarie Waldrop, at right, at KGB Bar last night. The occasion was Rosemarie's reading--with Monica Youn. Photograph by Lawrence Schwartzwald (for more about Lawrence, click the tag below).

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder last night at Poets House in New York. The film, The Practice of the Wild: A Conversation with Gary Snyder and Jim Harrison opens tonight at the Quad Cinema in New York. Photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald. More about the film:

A portrait of legendary Beat poet Gary Snyder. His poetry embraces and celebrates the rhythms of nature and the written word. Occupying a hallowed yet humble position within the realms of poetry, academia, ecological activism and spiritual practice, Snyder distinguished himself among peers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac by becoming both a countercultural hero and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Here, we follow Snyder’s journey through nature and across the page with his cantankerous compadre and fellow scribe Jim Harrison. Together, these two old friends roam the hills of the central California coast, musing on Bay Area bohemia, Zen Buddhism and the morally charged interdependence of all living things. (Running time 0:53)

Rothenberg and Joris in the stacks

Jerry Rothenberg and Pierre Joris at Poets House yesterday (11/6/10), where Jerry read from and analyzed Romantic and post-Romantic verse, not just Blake and Shelley, in other words, but Dickinson and Rimbaud as well as several contemporary poets, including writers of sound poetry, visual poetry, etc. Pierre was Jerry's co-editor for two earlier volumes of Poems for the Millenium. Photograph by Lawrence Schwartzwald.

he's no alien

Nope, he's about as terrestrial a person and poet as there is. This is a new and better version of a photograph taken by Lawrence Schwartzwald, and I'm happy to feature it today.

howl festival

The Howl! Festival 2010 kicked off in Tompkins Square Park yesterday evening (5-7 PM). Three days of events to follow. Meantime, our best and favorite photographer of poets, Lawrence Schwartzwald, was there and snapped some great shots, these two among them. From left to right: John Giorno, Anne Waldman and Bob Holman. Bob was MC. Take a look at the East Village Howler blog for various commentaries and Howl! Festival news.

poetry on rooftops

Last night Dorothea Lasky, Matt Hart and Catie Rosemurgy presented "Poetry from the Rooftops" in association with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, sponsored by The Academy of American Poets atop The Arsenal Building in Central Park. Lawrence Schwartzwald, fabulous photographer of poets, was there and, among many good shots, took this photo of Matt Hart during his reading.

summer poetry showcase

Tan Lin read at Poets House in Manhattan the other night. He read with Rachel Levitsky, Ken Chen and Joanna Furhman as part of the Summer Poetry Showcase. Photographs by Lawrence Schwartzwald.

Giorno's first one-person show

John Giorno at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery at 526 W. 26th St. Giorno presented his exhibition, "Black Painting and Drawings." He performed "Lorca, please help me!" and other poems. The show runs from until June 12. ArtSlant says:

For his first one-person show in New York, John Giorno will exhibit paintings and drawings that reveal the evolution of the poem painting. Filling the walls of the gallery are twelve stenciled poems; over these hang black paintings at close proximity. The installation echoes the artist’s statement in a recent Artforum interview: “From emptiness, form arises.” Giorno’s poem paintings serve as one more aspect of his role as a poet and artist—connecting words and images in unexpected yet elegant ways. A video of Giorno performing the poem THANX 4 NOTHING will be on display in the gallery’s project room.

The Black Paintings and Drawings represent the visual aspect of John Giorno’s commitment to confronting audiences with poetry in different contexts—inviting us to rethink how we perceive words and images. As with many downtown artists in the 1960s rebelling against Abstract Impressionism and inspired by Duchamp, Giorno sought alternative ways of writing and presenting his poetry: using the telephone (Dial-A-Poem), recordings (Giorno Poetry Systems) and multiples (poem prints). As he said in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, given the influence of Warhol, Rauschenberg and Johns, he began to see “the possibilities of found images through words. The way I found and used the material, . . . became a poetic form.” The first Poem Prints were part of a Dial-A-Poem installation in the 1970 exhibition Information at the Museum of Modern Art.

Photographs by Lawrence Schwartzwald. For more about Lawrence's work, click on the tag below.

king of cummings

Yes, there's Larry King at a midtown Manhattan Borders, checking out the Collected Poems of E. E. Cummings. He read them, but did he buy the book? Not sure of that. Our great literary photographer Lawrence Schwartzwald found King with his camera. Always watching out for poetry's unexpected readers. It must be Poetry Month after all.

from but mr can you maybe listen there's

you

be
any
how?
down
to
smoking
found
Butts

a happy 60th

Last night at the Zinc Bar in Manhattan: a celebration of Charles Bernstein's 60th birthday and the publication of his selected poems. Photographs by Lawrence Schwartzwald.

on becoming a character

In 2002, during his visit to the Writers House, I interviewed novelist Michael Cunningham. Just today Jenny Lesser segmented the audio recording of that discussion into topics. You can listen to any of these segments, or all of them, by going here, and here is the list:

* introduction by Al Filreis (6:32)
* on the gap between the ideal and the actual creation (4:35)
* on youth, conventionality, creation and The Hours (3:43)
* on changing circumstances and Cunningham's Clarissa (4:38)
* on pacing ideas in writing (2:53)
* on first reading Virginia Woolf (7:18)
* on being defined as a gay writer (4:00)
* on writing from Virginia Woolf's point of view (3:55)
* on faith, doctors, and Virginia Woolf (6:34)
* on gay boyhoods and the numbness and separateness experienced by outsiders (7:10)
* on personal politics and becoming a character (5:15)
* on Golden States (5:50)
* who Cunningham thanks for The Hours (1:24)
* reading from At Home at the End of the World (3:26)

At some point during our conversation we talked about the making of the film version of The Hours. By the time of Cunningham's visit, the film was in process, or it had been made but not yet released. He spoke admiringly of the film's Clarissa--Meryl Streep--and talked about the thrill of having his own tiny role in the film (a friend Clarissa meets along a Greenwich Village street). Well, our favorite literary photographer, Lawrence Schwartzwald, was there at the moment, yes, and took the photo below of Cunningham and Streep. It was February 1, 2001, and the precise location was Bleecker and Charles.

Michael Heller

Michael Heller at Poets' House today, where he gave a presentation on modern poetry. Photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald. Here's our Michael Heller PennSound page.

Ashbery last night

Last night John Ashbery hosted the Tenth Muse at the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd St. Y, where he introduced Marcella Durand, Robert Elstein and John Gallaher, who read from their works. Photography by Lawrence Schwartzwald.

yesterday's Bernstein convergence

All the president's libretti. Yesterday, journalist Carl Bernstein took some time at a Manhattan restaurant to read the libretti Charles Bernstein wrote for Ben Yarmolinsky's music in Blind Witness. My favorite literary photographer, Lawrence Schwartzwald, happened by and took this photo of the productive Bernstein convergence. (The photo was taken at Barney Greengrass (the Sturgeon King), Upper West Side deli on Amsterdam Avenue.)

Fitterman redux

The other day I mentioned Rob Fitterman's new conceptual poetics project, and got a lot of positive response to it. My favorite literary photographer (as regular readers of this blog already know), Lawrence Schwartzwald, found this wonderful photo of Rob standing in front of the Ear Inn. We think the date was January of 1992.

schticky Poetry?

Robin Williams reads Poetry magazine. Was he getting any good material from its pages? [Photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald.]