"Our discussion takes us to the great Ostashevskyan topics" writes Filreis in his Jacket2 blog post announcing the new episode: "knowledge otherwise somehow alienated; language that embodies or transliterates a kind of violence; the (sound) differences between knowing and saying no (and similarities); his sincere (and doubtless Russian Absurdist-influenced) plea to 'teach us love / teach us love / teach us love / teach us love' even though 'We are wholly unfamiliar with it."" Filreis also offers this contextualization for the recording date of this new episode: "Because the episode was recorded before the February 24, 2022, Russian military invasion into Ukraine, listeners will have to reckon for themselves the many places in our conversation when we would no doubt have commented on the war (continuing at the time of the podcast's release) and on the role of the avant-garde Russian American poet in relation to Russian cultures historical and contemporary."
You can listen to this latest program and read more about the show here. PoemTalk is a joint production of PennSound and the Poetry Foundation, aided by the generous support of Nathan and Elizabeth Leight. You can browse the full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, by clicking here.
