praise for PoemTalk

Today we're enjoying a positive review of PoemTalk published at Geekadelphia. Here's more.

PoemTalk #39 is out

PoemTalk episode 39 is out. Have a listen.

PoemTalk 38 just out

Julia Bloch, Linh Dinh and Frank Sherlock talk with me about a poem by Norman Fischer: link.

Gary Barwin comes to PennSound

Gary Barwin traveled from Hamilton, Ontario, to spend the day at the Writers House the other day. Gary is a poet, fiction writer, composer, and performer, whose many books of poetry include The Porcupinity of the Stars (newly published), Outside the Hat and Raising Eyebrows (all from Coach House), and whose music has been performed by, among other groups, The Vancouver Chamber Choir, The Bach-Elgar Choir, and by the Windtunnel Saxaphone Quartet. Along with Danny Snelson and Ammiel Alcalay, we recorded a session of PoemTalk on a poem by John Wieners. Then I induced Gary into an hour-long recording session for PennSound. And now, already, lo and behold, we have a new Gary Barwin author page at PennSound: here. I had first met Gary at Banff a year ago and enjoyed his company a great deal.

Gary is also the Serif of Nottingblog - which is to say, runs a blog going under that title. He blogs on average once every other day. I recommend it as a digital destination.

Gary is Jewish, and the family's path runs like this: Lithuania, South Africa, Ottawa. His Lithuanian family fled the holocaust. His great-uncle Isaak Grazutis is a holocaust survivor, and also, now, a painter. "In 1941, at the age of eleven, Isaak was forced to flee his native village in advance of Nazi occupation. After his parents were taken away by the invading forces, he was brought to live in an orphanage in Ural, and later, Moscow where he spent his formative years." Here is much more from Gary's blog. At right you see one of Isaak's oil paintings.

poem-response to post-9/11 rhetoric

Is there an experimental poetics that can muster a response to this man? Click here for the newest episode of PoemTalk - and find out.

PoemTalk's 36th episode now out

The latest episode of PoemTalk is being released just now - the 36th show in our series. Go here for program notes and a link to the audio.

top 20 PoemTalks in the last month

The most-often listened-to PoemTalk episodes in the last month: 1) Bruce Andrews, 2) Robert Creeley, 3) William Carlos Williams, 4) Wallace Stevens, 6) Charles Olson, 7) Robert Grenier's Williams, 8) Susan Howe's Emily Dickinson, 9) Adrienne Rich, 10) Ezra Pound, 11) Ginsberg sings Blake, 12) Barbara Guest, 13) Sharon Mesmer, 14) Ted Berrigan, 15) Gertrude Stein, 16) Lydia Davis, 17) Cid Corman, 18) Kit Robinson, 19) Rae Armantrout, 20) John Ashbery.

Bruce Andrews

Episode 35 of PoemTalk is being released today: here. Tan Lin, Sarah Dowling and Chris Funkhouser discuss Bruce Andrews's poem from Moebius, "Center."

Charles Olson and the westwardness of everything

Today we are releasing episode 34 of PoemTalk. In this one I and three PoemTalkers talk about one of Charles Olson's Maximus poems, "Maximus to Gloucester, letter 27 (withheld)." Go here for much more about the episode and link to the show itself. Above is a YouTube clip of Olson reading (over-reading?) the poem.

anew

This morning I added to the PoemTalk site a brief excerpt from a transcript of the PoemTalk discussion (episode 22) of Louis Zukofsky's Anew: here.

we talk flarf

Nada Gordon, Kenny Goldsmith and Steve McLaughlin join me for the 33rd episode of PoemTalk, released today.

the 32nd PoemTalk

From left to right: Marcella Durand, Jessica Lowenthal, Jennifer Scappettone. They're in my office at the Writers House, having just finished discussing Susan Howe's reading of Emily Dickinson's "My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun." It's the 32nd episode of the PoemTalk podcast. Please have a listen.

25 minutes talking about sentences

Today we are releasing episode 31 of the PoemTalk series. This one is a discussion of Robert Grenier's Sentences. Jena Osman, Bob Perelman and Joseph Yearous-Algozin joined me. I can't remember a more challenging project: to talk about this box of 500 poem-cards in 25 minutes?

going around on Moebius

Chris Funkhouser, Sarah Dowling and Tan Lin joined me yesterday at the Writers House to talk about a Bruce Andrews poem - "Center" from Moebius. This PoemTalk session will be released a few months from now.

return on word

Today we are releasing PoemTalk #29. In this episode, Linh Dinh, Rae Armantrout and Tom Devaney talk with me about Kit Robinson's 1999 poem, "Return on Word." Click here for a link to the audio and much more.

new PoemTalk on Jack Spicer

Today we've released the newest episode of "PoemTalk"--number 28 in our series. This one is about Jack Spicer's early poem, "Psychoanalysis: An Elegy." Here's your link.

January's favorite PoemTalks

Not including the most recent PoemTalk episode on Robert Duncan, below are the 18 most often listened-to episodes in the last month. Creeley seems to be in the lead every month lately. The Duncan show had by far the most listenings this month, but that's mostly because we widely announced its availability during this period; and it's still prominently featured on the front page of the Poetry Foundation site. We'll see where it fits next month. Is this of real interest? value? Not really. Such stats are subject to the vagaries of web site and blog cross-linking.

1. Robert Creeley
2. Adrienne Rich
3. William Carlos Williams
4. Wallace Stevens
5. Ezra Pound
6. Vachel Lindsay
7. Allen Ginsberg sings William Blake
8. Barbara Guest
9. Louis Zukofsky
10. Amiri Baraka
11. Alice Notley
12. John Ashbery
13. Ted Berrigan
14. Jaap Blonk
15. Gertrude Stein
16. George Oppen
17. Charles Bernstein
18. Lyn Hejinian

Duncan's made place

These three discuss Robert Duncan's prologue-poem to The Opening of the Field with me in episode 27 of PoemTalk, just released today. Please have a listen. And let me know what you think: afilreis [at] gmail [dot] com.

PoemTalk update

Who's counting? Well, but... Here are the most often listened-to PoemTalk episodes in the last two weeks: 1) W. C. Williams, 2) Robert Creeley, 3) Wallace Stevens, 4) Jaap Blonk, 5) Cid Corman, 6) Allen Ginsberg singing Blake, 7) Amiri Baraka, 8) Ezra Pound, 9) Barbara Guest. I'm not counting the new Vachel Lindsay show; it received the largest number of hits but was just released, so its traffic resulted in folks responding to a widespread announcement. We'll see next month if people are still listening to the Lindsay. I certainly hope so.

Vachel Lindsay podcast

From left to right, Aldon Nielsen, Michelle Taransky, Charles Bernstein in my office recently for the recording of the 26th episode of PoemTalk. This is one is about Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo." Go to the PoemTalk page for much more and a link to the podcast audio.