In Memoriam: Jean Valentine (1934–2020)

Perhaps it's fitting that this year that's been so thoroughly shaped by loss ends with us remembering poet Jean Valentine, who passed away yesterday at the age of 86. Valentine's life in poetry was auspicious from beginning to end, starting with her 1964 debut, Dream Barker, which was chosen by Dudley Fitts for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Her 2004 volume Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003 won the National Book Award for Poetry, she served as New York State's poet laureate from 2008–2010, and was awarded Yale's Bollingen Prize for American Poetry in 2017.

While we don't have a PennSound author page for Valentine, we do have one recording from her in our Singles database. Recorded on April 6, 2010, when Valentine read with Cindy Savett at our own Kelly Writers House. Bob Perelman provided introductions for the evening; here's what he had to say about Valentine:

I think her poems have at their core a tenderness toward existence and attention to the rhythms of our life on earth, of birth and death and renewal, of time sometimes standing still for a time and allowing us to be attuned to everything happening in the always-present. The poems seem to me to be like beautiful translucent doors swinging easily in the wind without trying to keep anything in or out. The sound of the swinging like the sound of the lightness we wish to feel — the wind's lightness perhaps — and as if the body could open all its own doors, letting the world pass through it to become the world, to become everyone in it.

I think it is most boundaries that separate us from each other — one condition of being we think entirely different from another — though Jean Valentine's poems in a sense are poems celebrating an erasure of all that keeps us separate from each other, and from one life, and the next, and the next after. Perhaps that's why her poetry is also as fluid as it is, something like a clear lake on which we may float for a time, as if we were little boats gliding across it, buoyed by the generous force of its uplifting.

Valentine's half-hour set was mostly comprised of new poems that would appear in Break the Glass, published that fall by Copper Canyon. She finished the reading with a few favorite poems from her previous collection, Little Boat (Wesleyan, 2007). You can listen in by clicking here. We send our condolences to Valentines family, friends, and her many fans throughout the world.

PoemTalk #155: on Lorenzo Thomas' "Souvenir of the Manassah Ball"

Last week we released the newest episode in the PoemTalk Podcast series — its 155th program in total — which addresses Lorenzo Thomas' poem "Souvenir of the Manassah Ball," a poem written in 1990 or 1991, which the author read at SUNY-Buffalo on November 13, 1991. For this show, host Al Filreis brought together a stellar panel that included (from left to right) Erica Hunt, Bob Perelman, and Tonya Foster in "a virtual version of the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House" to discuss Thomas' poem.

After some introductory information Filreis' PoemTalk blog post announcing the new episode confesses that "We think this PoemTalk conversation will be especially helpful to those who are reading this poem for the first time: we collaboratively identify all or most of the cultural and historical references (Lochinvar of Walter Scott, the fashion for 'Pantomime Quiz' as another name for Charades, Lear's Cordelia, etc.) and we are able to figure out why so many pairs of dancers appear, despite this couple's pariah status (it is because they themselves reflect a thousand times in the chandelier above them)." He continues, "the group identifies the racist hatred that animates some or likely all the couple's detractors," before asking, "the poem of course counters such violent hatred, but can it (or the speaker) be said to be ideological?"

You can read more about this latest show, read Thomas' poem, and listen to the podcast here. The full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, can be found here.

John Richetti reads Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas"

As we close out the year, we have one more gift to pass along to our listeners from our friend John Richetti: a recording of Clement Clarke Moore's beloved Christmas poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," made specially this month to be added to his growing anthology, "114 Favorite Poems, Good for Memorizing."

More frequently known by its opening phrase, "'Twas the night before Christmas ...," "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was first published in Troy, New York's Sentinel on this day in 1823 with no attribution. It became wildly popular, reprinted far and wide, and its author — a professor of literature and divinity at New York City's General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, who initially sought to downplay his connection to the poem — would finally be credited in 1837, with Moore including it in a collection of his verse in 1844.

Click here to listen to Richetti's performance of the poem. You can read along on the Poetry Foundation's copy of the poem here. Many more recordings made by Richetti form the backbone of our PennSound Classics page, which is organized by author name. To start browsing, click here.

Spending Midwinter Day with Bernadette Mayer

At 5:02AM EST, we officially made the transition from autumn into winter, and the day that lies ahead of us will be the year's darkest. The winter solstice has long been a source of cultural inspiration and poetic inspiration as well, with one of the most notable recent manifestations being Bernadette Mayer's iconic Midwinter Day, which celebrates its forty-first birthday this year. While not published until 1982, Mayer famously wrote the book — hailed by Alice Notley as "an epic poem about a daily routine ... sedate, mundane, yet marvelous" — in its entirety while marking the the winter solstice at 100 Main Street in Lennox, Massachusetts on December 22, 1978. 

While celebrating Mayer and Midwinter Day today is an annual PennSound tradition, it takes on special significance after this very trying year. As Megan Burns notes in her Jacket Magazine essay on the book: "A long held tradition on Midwinter's Day was to let the hearth fire burn all night, literally keeping a light alive through the longest night of winter as a source of both heat and a symbol of inspiration to come out the other side of the long night closer to spring and rebirth. It is fitting that a poem about surviving death and the intimacy of the family would be centered around this particular day that traditionally has focused on both. The hearth is the center of the home where the family gathers, where the food is cooked and where warmth is provided. Metaphorically, the poem Midwinter Day stands in for the hearth gathering the family into its folds, detailing the preparation of food and sleep and taking care of the family's memories and dreams."

Mayer read a lengthy excerpt from the book at a Segue Series reading at the Ear Inn on May 26th of the following year, which you can listen to on her PennSound author page along with a wide array of audio and video recordings from the late 1960s to the present. 

Phill Niblock on PennSound

We are honored that PennSound has been able to host work by composer and Experimental Intermedia Foundation director Phill Niblock very close to our project's inception. We close out this week by highlighting the three films by Niblock available on his PennSound author page, which were upgraded to higher-resolution videos when we created the page in 2013.

The most recent addition is Evidence, starring Erica Hunt. Shot in 1983, the eighteen-minute relishes negative space, beginning with stark white Helvetica lettering on a black background that persists for more than a minute before fading in the film's sole visual: the poet's face, silhouetted to near-featurelessness by a white television screen. Seen in profile, Hunt's speaking gestures are heightened — subtle shudders and nods, along with the frenetic moiré of her mouth — serving as an apt accompaniment to the narrative.

This one-third/two-third profile motif also appears in Niblock's mid-70s portrait of Hannah Weiner, where the poet's speedy delivery of her clairvoyant writings weaves in and out of live reading segments juxtaposed with domestic scenes. Meanwhile, in Niblock's 1973 portrait of Armand Schwerner, the poet contends with the wind as he reads (or more accurately, preaches) from his Tablets pacing back and forth in a bright orange jacket on a hilltop, the Verrazano-Narrows bridge behind him.

You'll find all three of these marvelous poetic portraits on our Phill Niblock page, and don't forget to check out PennSound Cinema, home to a stunning array of essential filmic materials.

New at PennSound: the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive Reading Series

The latest series to join the PennSound archives is the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive's reading series, which is curated by Cole Solinger. We're proud to be able to present three recordings from the fall of 2019 before the series was interrupted by the pandemic, with each event featuring three readers.

First up, from September 8th, we have a reading by Trisha Low, Elaine Kahn, and Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta. That's followed on September 29th by Ocean Escalanti, Vasiliki Kitsigianis Ioannou, and Jheyda McGarrell, and finally, from October 13th, we have the trio of Eric Dolan, Tongo Eisen-Martin, and Fego Navarro to close out the series.

We're grateful to Solinger for sharing these recordings with us, and look forward to future events in the series. For now, you can enjoy the three readings mentioned above by clicking here.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis Reads from 'Late Work' and 'Around the Day in 80 Worlds'

There's no reason whatsoever to break our recent string of birthday greetings here on PennSound Daily, especially when December 14th is the birthday of poet Rachel Blau DuPlessis and we've got a recent addition to the site to announce as we celebrate her today. 

Recorded in October, as part of a Zoom reading series curated by Don Yorty, this video showcases poetry from two of DuPlessis' recent books, starting with selections from Late Work (Black Square Editions, 2020) and Around the Day in 80 Worlds (BlazeVOX [books], 2018). The first two titles read here — "Late Work" and "Mackle, Shard, and Trace" — come from the former, followed by section 69 of the latter. 

Of course, this is just one of many, many wonderful recordings you'll find on PennSound's Rachel Blau DuPlessis author page, which hosts nearly forty years' worth of readings, lectures, interviews, panels, class discussions, and much more, including the vast majority of her magnum opus, Drafts, written between 1986 and 2012, and the projects that came before and after it. Indeed, there's something about being able to take in the complex grandeur of the Drafts project in this manner that gives you a different sense of its architecture — especially when a number of the longer poems in the series have been segmented into their individual sections — and while Rachel's verbal playfulness and charm is well evident on the page, they truly shine in performance. Beyond a greater appreciation of her own poetry, one really gets a sense of what a marvelous commentator and teacher DuPlessis is, and not just through formal talks on her own diverse scholarly interests, but also via more spontaneous recordings like her countless appearances on PoemTalk and special events at our Kelly Writers House. Taken as a whole, these recordings show just how vital a force DuPlessis has been over the past four decades, and what a valuable member of Philadelphia's poetry scene she's been as well. Therefore we send her birthday greetings today with great admiration and hopes for many happy returns.

Happy 89th Birthday to Jerome Rothenberg!

In our last post, we shared birthday greetings for a legendary poet, Emily Dickinson. Today, we'll do one better and salute a living legend: the one and only Jerry Rothenberg, who turns 89 on December 11th.

Our PennSound author page for Rothenberg, collecting recordings from 1969 to the present, is a wonderful way to interact with the Rothenberg's considerable legacy. There's a comprehensive survey of his own diverse poetic modes, spread across numerous recordings, from album releases via S Press and Optic Nerve's Rockdrill series to myriad readings and even some of his musical collaborations. There are a number of recordings related to his editorial and translation projects, including launch readings celebrating several different volumes in the Poems for the Millennium series and milestone events for Technicians of the Sacred (both its 40th and 50th anniversaries). There are lectures, class recordings, and interviews with Rothenberg, as well as commentaries on his own work, including several PoemTalk episodes. With nearly 300 MP3s alone — counting individual tracks and complete recordings — not to mention videos, it's a fittingly encyclopedic tribute to Rothenberg's influence, as well as a useful resource for all sorts of classroom settings. Listeners will also enjoy Rothenberg's ongoing Jacket2 commentary series, "Poems and Poetics," which we've been honored to host for the past eight years.

Pick any recording at random and you'll understand instantly why Rothenberg is so universally beloved: for someone who's published output might fill several shelves, he's truly at his best in a live environment. Having worked at PennSound for so long, I've been to a lot of poetry readings and have listened to many more beyond that, and for my money, there's no one as captivating, no voice as powerful, no poet who entertains as well as he moves us and teaches us. I cherish the three times I've seen Jerry read in person — at our own Kelly Writers House in 2008, at Xavier University here in Cincinnati in 2011, and at the University of Michigan in 2013 (all of which are available on PennSound) — and as he adds another year to a long and fruitful life, let's all hope there will be many more happy and healthy birthdays to come, because I won't be satisfied until I get to see him read at least one more time.

Happy 190th Birthday to Emily Dickinson!

This December 10th marks 190 years since the birth of one of the United States' most singular voices, Emily Dickinson. For most of PennSound's history a treasure trove of Dickinson materials was scattered throughout our site, but several years ago we pulled together a proper PennSound author page for the poet, gathering selected resources from throughout our archives.

It should come as no surprise that Susan Howe would be prominently featured, and here you'll find complete talks on the poet from 1984 (from the New York Talk series) and 1990 (from SUNY-Buffalo) in addition to several smaller excerpts from larger talks pertaining to the poet. There's also a link to PoemTalk #32, which discusses Howe's interpretation of Dickinson's "My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun."

Full series of lectures on Dickinson are also available from Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley, both at the New College and dating from 1981 and 1985, respectively. Among other substantial contributions, there's also the 1979 Dickinson Birthday Celebration at the St. Mark's Poetry Project (featuring Jan Heller Levi, Charles Bernstein, Susan Leites, Charles Doria, Virginia Terrace, Barbara Guest, Madeleine Keller and Vicki Hudspith, Armand Schwerner, Karen Edwards, Jackson Mac Low, Maureen Owen, and Howe) and Rae Armantrout's 2000 presentation on Dickinson from "Nine Contemporary Poets Read Themselves Through Modernism."

You'll also find performances of individual Dickinson poems from John Richetti and Jeffery Robinson as well as brief excerpts of radio interviews — with John Ashbery, Guest, and Elizabeth Bishop — pertaining to the poet.

Our hope is that this page, which brings together disparate resources already available in our archives, will be a useful tool for teachers, students, and casual readers, as well as serious scholars. Click here to start exploring.

"Teaching Without a Text": Jacob Edmond on Kamau Brathwaite

We're starting off this week with an exciting new essay by Jacob Edmond, the editor of PennSound's Kamau Brathwaite author page. Published in the journal archipelagos, "Teaching without a Text: Close Listening to Kamau Brathwaite’s Digital Audio Archive" begins with a simple, reciprocal proposition: "new media technologies — from the tape recorder to the computer — enabled Kamau Brathwaite's revolutionary poetic approach; digital technologies likewise enable us to study and teach his groundbreaking work in new ways." 

Edmond makes the argument that "that teaching and studying Brathwaite should begin with the audible word not the written text and that digital audio archives and platforms can play a key role in enabling this approach," noting that "digital audio archives such as PennSound and the Poetry Archive allow students and scholars to approach Brathwaite's work by listening closely to a wide range of sound recordings." He concludes: "This essay demonstrates the utility of this close listening approach by taking advantage of the digital platform of archipelagos journal to interweave its text with Brathwaite's recorded voice. It not only demonstrates the value of approaching Brathwaite's work through digital sound recordings but also argues for a larger overturning of critical, pedagogical, and essayistic conventions in literary studies through a methodological turn away from the page."

We're always excited to see PennSound recordings being put to good use, and even more thrilled that the MP3 files are integrated within the body of the essay itself, allowing a seamless reading and listening experience. PennSound co-founder Al Filreis discusses Edmond's essay on his Jacket2 commentary page, highlighting a passage that discusses Brathwaite's poem "Negus," which he and Edmond, along with Amber Rose Johnson and Huda Fakhreddine, discussed in episode #149 of the PoemTalk podcast series. You can listen to that program here, browse our Brathwaite author page here, and read Edmond's essay here.

Tim Dlugos: 30 Years After

December 3rd marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of poet Tim Dlugos, who lived A Fast Life (as the title of his collected poems attests) that was unfairly cut short by AIDS at the age of 40. Dlugos is justifiably celebrated for his bravery and candor in documenting his deteriorating health in iconic poems like "G-9" — named for Roosevelt Hospital's AIDS ward, where he'd been an inpatient on several occasions— from which Dlugos read excerpts on ABC's Good Morning America just weeks before his final admission. Nevertheless, this is but one facet of Dlugos' poetics, where we also find charming pop sensibilities, tender expressions of love, unflinching dispatches from queer culture, an eye for formal experimentations, and a wicked sense of humor.

We've already marked one milestone for Dlugos in 2020 — on what would have been his 70th birthday in August — and after writing that post, I found myself lamenting that we didn't have a lot of recordings to be able to share. Soon thereafter, I reached out to Christopher Wiss and David Trinidad and was ecstatic when David was able to send three recordings our way. While we hope to be able to announce even more additions to our Tim Dlugos author page in time, we will celebrate him today with these three terrific readings.

The earliest of these recordings is a 1974 from Mass Transit Bookstore in Washington, D.C., where he read alongside John Ashbery (Trinidad notes that you can hear Ashbery in the background reacting to Dlugos' poems). Dlugos notes that he's only going to read one poem "from the book" (High There, his debut chapbook published by Some of Us Press in 1973) in this nearly forty-minute set, which includes a number of early favorites like "American Baseball" and "Gilligan's Island," along with "Great Art," "So Far," "Flaming Angel," "Poem for Jeanne," "Dream Series," "President Truman," and "As It Is." This recording also includes a number of unpublished early poems ("Sexual Postures," "Gypsy," and "The Eyes of Our Hearts") as well as a shorter draft version of "Stanzas for Martina" (written for Tina Darragh) than what was eventually published.

An undated home recording made by Dlugos in D.C. appears to be from not long thereafter. Running twenty-six minutes, this set begins with a bold proclamation, "from high above DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C. to your machines, this is Tim Dlugos . . . and this is 'John Tongue,'" before launching into the poem of the same name. He also reads "Poppers," "Great Books of the 1950s," and "Some," along with some titles from the previous recording ("As It Is," "American Baseball," "Stanzas for Martina"). This tape also includes a few unpublished pieces: "Dream With You In It," excerpts from a January 1975 dream journal similar to "Dream Series," and a piece from the series Music (for Maurice Sendak) based on Rachmaninoff's second symphony.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Dlugos' 1984 reading with Dennis Cooper at Venice, CA's beloved Beyond Baroque. This forty-minute set consists of ten poems in total, starting with "Pretty Convincing," and moving on to "Close," "Sonnet ["Stevie Nicks walks into the Parisian weather"]," "The Nineteenth Century is 183 Years Old," "Octavian," "Not Stravinsky," "Green Acres," "Summer, South Brooklyn," and "The Morning," before concluding with the long poem "Cape and Islands." When sending the recordings along, Trinidad reminisced, "I was there; it was a spectacular reading," and I agree with him wholeheartedly. You will too.

These three recordings join those already in the PennSound archives, including his 1977 appearance on Public Access Poetry and a segmented 1978 Segue Series reading from the Ear Inn where Dlugos reads "Sonnet for Eileen Myles," "Je Suis Ein Americano," and "A Day for Don and Vladimir," along with several of the perennial favorites listed above.  

Once more, we thank Christopher Wiss for his kindness in letting us share these recordings, and David Trinidad for sharing them with us. Dlugos' New York Diary — like the indispensable A Fast Life (Nightboat Books), edited by Trinidad — will be released next month by Sibling Rivalry Press. You can listen to the aforementioned recordings by clicking here.

Happy 111th Birthday to Helen Adam!

December 2nd would have been the 111th birthday of Helen Adam, the beloved Scottish eccentric who found a home in San Francisco's thriving midcentury poetry scene. While we don't have an extensive archive of her work, we're nevertheless glad to have a set of essential recordings that give listeners a clear sense of what made Adam so special.

Chief among these is her magnum opus, San Francisco's Burning, a lyric drama co-written with Adam's sister Pat, which was produced by Charles Ruas for the Audio Experimental Theatre and first broadcast on New York City's WBAI FM on July 17th, 1977. In addition to the two Adam sisters, the radio play's cast also included Marilyn Hacker, Robert Hershon, and Barbara Wise in major roles. To give listeners some context for this iconic piece, we're very glad to be able to share Kristin Prevallet's "Notes on San Francisco's Burning" from A Helen Adam Reader (2007), which features some charming anecdotes about the drama's production, including this recollection from musical director Rob Wynne regarding the "structured chaos" of the recording process: "It took a few months to pull it all together, often ending up after a session at Helen & Pat's apartment, surrounded by her collection of agates and stones, in which she saw images and stories. She always served celery filled with peanut butter, a bizarre but oddly delicious combination." 

Aside from San Francisco's Burning, Adam is perhaps best known for her rollicking performance of "Cheerless Junkie's Song" from Ron Mann's 1981 film, Poetry in Motion, which is presented here, along with PoemTalk #93, in which host Al Filreis leads a discussion of the poem with panelists Corina Copp, Laura Sims, and Richard Deming. Finally, we have Adam's late-70s appearance on Susan Howe's Pacifica FM radio show, where she discusses her life and work with Howe and Ruas. This recording has been broken into MP3s for individual poems (including "Ballad of the Hawthorn Bower," "In and Out of the Horn-Beam Maze," "At the Window," "The Fair Young Wife," and "A Walk in the Wind") as well as different thematic segments of the interview (such as "On her childhood in Scotland;" "On Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, Open Space, and the atmosphere of San Francisco;" and "On gothic romances, magic, and the relationship between love and death"). Listeners will also enjoy browsing "A Helen Adam Sampler," Prevallet's brief selection of poems that forms the centerpiece of Adam's EPC author page. You can find links to all of these resources on PennSound's Helen Adam author page.

In Memoriam: Miguel Algarín (1941–2020)

We have sad news to start off this week: Miguel Algarín, poet, professor, editor, and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café has passed away at the age of seventy-nine. The Nuyorican Poets Café confirmed the news with a tweet last night: "With heavy hearts, we bid farewell to poet & visionary Miguel Algarín, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.  Miguel was a brilliant poet, an influential professor and leader, and a supportive mentor who inspired and guided generations of artists." In a follow-up tweet, they added, "The literary world owes Miguel a debt of gratitude. He will be greatly missed."

Remezcla posted a lovely tribute to Algarín earlier today, which, among other things, talks about his formative years and the founding of the Nuyorican Poets Café, along with its lasting influence:

Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico on September 11, 1941, his family moved to New York’s Lower East Side in 1950. Algarín has described his upbringing as very culturally minded which set him for a similar path of his own. He studied English, earning various degrees including a PhD in comparative literature, and later becoming a professor of the language, lecturing in Brooklyn University, NYU, and Rutgers where he became emeritus professor.

By 1975, his home had become a meeting ground for writers to share their works and thoughts. Expanding to a formal space, Algarín — along with Miguel Piñero, Pedro Pietri, and others — founded the Nuyorican Poets Café, becoming ground zero for a literary movement. During its history, the Nuyorican Poets Café has been a haven for poetry, prose, theater, visual arts, and music, as their weekly jam sessions attest. Algarín broadcasted a radio program from the Café and compiled various anthologies of Puerto Rican literature, founding the publishing house Nuyorican Press as well as Arte Public Press.

We only have one recording of Algarín in our collection, but it's a good one: his July 13, 1978 appearance on the St. Mark's Poetry Project-affiliated series Public Access Poetry, where he read alongside Regina Beck. You can watch that episode by clicking here. We send our sincerest condolences to Algarín's family, friends, and his many fans.