Pennsound Podcasts

The 35th episode of PennSound podcasts presents an anthology of introductions to readings given by John Ashbery: Kenneth Koch in 1963, Susan Schultz in 1996, David Lehman in 2008, and Richard Howard in 1967. Nick DeFina selected and edited the introductions from Ashbery's PennSound page; Allison Harris hosts and introduces the podcast.

In Episode 34 of PennSound podcasts, the Literature faculty and the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT invited Harry Mathews to present on Oulipo in 1999. The audio has been segmented - making available separate links to audio recordings of his introduction, his remarks on the Oulipo group, a brief Q and A session, and several readings of lipograms and N+7 writing. As a service particularly to those who don't know much about Oulipo, Nick DeFina at PennSound has created an edited 15-minute excerpt of Mathews's general overview.

In Episode 33 of PennSound podcasts, on November 18, 2013, Steve McLaughlin hosted a celebration of PennSound's 10th anniversary. After introductory remarks offered by Al Filreis, there were short talks each by Charles Bernstein, Michael Hennessey, Danny Snelson, Katie Price, Steve McLaughlin himself, and Benjamin Behrend. In this PennSound podcast, Hennessey's retrospective is featured (along with clips he prepared from various bits from the archive).

For Episode 32 of PennSound podcasts, Nick DeFina and Amaris Cuchanski collaborated to present an anthology of seven recordings from among those produced in association with Alcheringa magazine by Dennis Tedlock and Jerome Rothenberg. For Jacket2's "Reissues" department, Danny Snelson has prepared a digital edition of the EP audio inserts that appeared with the magazine in each issue. Here are the seven recordings chosen for our podcast anthology: Jerome Rothenberg, "The Tenth Horse-Song of Frank Mitchell" (1971); Andrew Peynesta, "Once Long Ago," in the original Zuni language (1973); Jaime de Angulo, "Story of the Gilak Monster" (1975); Son House, "Conversion Experience Narrative" (1976); Awawo, Ogiepo, Asegieme, "Nigerian Songs of Ritual License" (1976); Reverend W.T. Goodwin, "Easter Sunrise Sermon" (1971); Hotoke-Oroshi, "Manifestations of the Dead" (1953).

In Episode 31 of PennSound podcasts, John Tranter visited the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia. He participated in the recording of an episode of PoemTalk (about a poem by Ray DiPalma), and then took time to record a conversation with Al Filreis about the founding of Jacket and various related topics. This recording is episode #31 in the PennSound podcast series. During the discussion Filreis asked Tranter to read a few recent poems; three poems can be heard in the whole recording, but have also been segmented, as follows: "After Hölderlin, " "At the Tomb of Napoleon," and "Goats and Monkeys".

Anselm Hollo, the widely admired Finnish poet and translator, died on January 29, 2013. Hollo translated poetry and belles-lettres from Finnish, German, Swedish and French into English and was one of the early translators of Allen Ginsberg into German and Finnish. Hollo taught creative writing in eighteen different institutions, among them SUNY Buffalo, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the University of Colorado at Boulder; and starting in 1985, he taught in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. For the 30th episode of the PennSound podcasts series, Nick DeFina and Amaris Cuchanski have put together an anthology of Hollo recordings.

In Episode 29 of PennSound podcasts, on the occasion of the publication by the Library of America of Hart Crane: Complete Poems and Selected Letters (edited by Langdon Hammer), Samuel R. Delany, Brian Reed and Charles Bernstein gathered at the Kelly Writers House to talk about Hart Crane's life and poetry on January 24, 2007. The event was co-sponsored by the Writers House, Penn's Creative Writing Program, Temple-Penn Poetics, The Poetry Society of America, and Penn's Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing. The full recording is available at PennSound.

In Episode 28 of PennSound podcasts, from the excitingly varied PennSound page hosting recordings from the Belladonna* reading series from 1999 to the present, PennSound podcasts now presents, for its twenty-eighth episode, an anthology of seven Belladonna* performances. The seven are: erica kaufman, "A Conventional Hero" and "PS 54"; Rae Armantrout, "Seconds"; Lydia Davis, "City People"; Rachel Levitsky, "In the Wee Hours"; Sharon Mesmer, "Gait Signatures"; Tim Trace Peterson, "Bricky"; Jennifer Moxley, "Taking My Own Advice After Skylar."

Episode 27 of PennSound podcasts features an anthology of eight introductions to Robert Creeley, culled from PennSound's many recordings of Creeley's readings over the years. The introductions are, in order: by Paul Carroll (Chicago, May 15, 1961), at the Berkeley Poetry Conference (Berkeley, July 22, 1965), by Ed Sanders (New York, October 24, 1966), in the Woodberry Poetry Room of Harvard (Cambridge, October 27, 1966), at MoCA Los Angeles in 1983, by Reed Bye at Naropa (Boulder, July 1984), by Diane Wakoski (Washington, DC, 1984), and by Susan Howe (Buffalo, October 11, 1996).

In Episode 26 of PennSound podcasts and as part of the LINEbreak series, co-editors of RIF/t, Loss Pequeño Glazier and Kenneth Sherwood, talk with Charles Bernstein visited the studios of WBAI in New York and were interviewed by Susan Howe, host then of the Pacifica Radio Poetry Show. This installment in the PennSound podcast series, introduced again by Amaris Cuchanski and based on editing done by Nick DeFina, features an excerpt from that interview focusing on a discussion of opaque as distinct from transparent language and of language's materiality.

For Episode 25 of PennSound podcasts, Nick DeFina created this 20-minute audio selection from the five-volume set of recordings made at Brown University at the May 2001 celebration of (then) forty years of Burning Deck Press publishing of books, chapbooks and pamphlets, by, of course, Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop. We hope this excerpt entices you to listen to the whole, itself an aptly remarkable testimony to the range, longevity and generous persistence of the Waldrops in Providence. The Waldrops, of course, are no stranger to Jacket: we've published reviews, video clips, and (among many other items) Anne Dewey's essay on Olsonian poetics in Rosmarie's work.

In Episode 24 of PennSound podcasts, Jerome Rothenberg on May 7, 2010, presenting at the Threads Talk Series (curated by Steve Clay and Kyle Schlesinger), mapped branches of book culture that are typically kept apart. Rothenberg reviews the differences between — and the need to bring together — speech and writing and printing, and he uses this summary as a way of freshly re-defining ethnopoetics. The title of the talk from which this podcast-length (18 mins.) excerpt is taken: "From the Voice to the Book, from the Book to the Voice: a Dialectic." The Threads Talk Series page at PennSound includes, of course, the full audio recording of the talk, the introduction by Steve Clay, and the 38 minutes of discussion that followed the talk.

In Episode 23 of PennSound podcasts, on March 14, 1979, Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein visited the studios of WBAI in New York and were interviewed by Susan Howe, host then of the Pacifica Radio Poetry Show. This installment in the PennSound podcast series, introduced again by Amaris Cuchanski and based on editing done by Nick DeFina, features an excerpt from that interview focusing on a discussion of opaque as distinct from transparent language and of language's materiality.

Hosted by Amaris Cuchanski, Episode 22 of Pennsound podcasts includes a brief introduction, followed by a 21-minute excerpt from the conversation between P. Inman and Dan Farrell that took place at the Kelly Writers House on November 29, 1999, the 14th PhillyTalks event curated by Louis Cabri and technically produced by Aaron Levy. The entire recording includes links to audio segmented by poem and a link to a PDF copy of the program that had been distributed by Cabri before the event.

Hosted by Amaris Cuchanski, Episode 21 of PennSound podcasts features a 17-minute excerpt from a one-hour-and-23-minute recording of a conversation among Greg Hewlett, Robert Creeley, and Joanne Kyger in June of 1972. The whole discussion — and links to segments by topic — are available on PennSound's Joanne Kyger page.

In Episode 20 of PennSound podcasts, Charles Alexander, founder of Chax Press, joins Al Filreis at the Kelly Writers House for a discussion of his introduction to letterpress printing and his experience with small press.

In Episode 19 of PennSound podcasts, a PennSound Thanksgiving special, Al Filreis introduces recordings from the PennSound archive of poems giving thanks. The recorded readings include Amiri Baraka's "I Love Music (For John Coltrane)," Ted Berrigan's "Lovely," Robert Creeley's poem dedicated to Eddie Linden, Jerome Rothenberg's "A Letter to Paul Celan in Memory," Louis Zukofsky's "Glad they were there," and William Carlos Williams' "Light Hearted William."

Rare it is that John Ashbery explains one of his poems. But, in a radio interview in 1966, he did that just. He read "These Lacustrine Cities" and then went line by line offering various sorts of explanations - paraphrase, sources for phrases and words, a sense of the process of composition. Here is a PennSound podcast, the 18th in our series, featuring this recording, which aired on WKCR.

Episode 17 of PennSound podcasts features a twenty-three-minute edited excerpt of a celebration at the Kelly Writers House on October 27, 2001, honoring Gil Ott and the release of The Form of Our Uncertainty, edited by Kristen Gallagher and published by Chax Press.

Episode 16 of PennSound podcasts features an excerpt from the 100th birthday celebration organized by Thomas Devaney to honor George Oppen at the Kelly Writers House on April 7, 2008. The event included short presentations, talks, readings, and remembrances by Michael Heller, Tom Mandel, Ann Lauterbach, George Economou, Stephen Cope, Al Filreis, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Ron Silliman, Bob Perelman, and Thomas Devaney.