Halloween Poems: A Brief Playlist

Since it's Halloween we thought we'd revisit our brief list of poems celebrating the spookier side of life. With a mix of poets both old and new you're bound to find something to set your nerves on edge.

Lewis Warsh, "Halloween" MP3

Kimberly Lyons, "Halloween Parade" MP3

Aaron Kramer, "Halloween" MP3

Robert Grenier, "Measure's Halloween" MP3

Cecilia Corrigan, "Christmas Halloween is in a body bag..." MP3

Elizabeth Willis, "The Witch" MP3

John Giorno, "The Wisdom of Witches" MP3

Lee Ann Brown, "Witch Alphabet, Mistranslation of Mayakovsky, Pledge & Love" MP3

Robert Duncan, "Witch's Song" MP3

Edgar Allan Poe (read by John Richetti), "Annabel Lee" MP3

Edgar Allan Poe (read by Jerome McGann), "The Raven" MP3

Yuri Andrukhovych, "Werewolf Sutra" MP3

Matthew Rohrer, "Werewolves" MP3

Adrienne Rich, "What Ghosts Can Say" MP3

Michael McClure, "Ghost Tantra #49" MP3

Bernadette Mayer, "Spooky Action from a Distance" MP3

Bob Kaufman (read by Chuck Perrin), "All Hallows, Jack O'Lantern Weather, North of Time" MP3

PennSound Student Staffer Wes Matthews in the Spotlight

We bring this week to a close by highlighting a recent article in Penn Today profiling Wes Matthews, whose time as a UPenn undergrad is focused on "writing, music, research, and service." We're particularly proud to see Wes' achievements recognized because he's an invaluable member of the PennSound team, who's had a hand in processing most of our recent additions to the site.

As the article begins by acknowledging, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree: "His mother, poet Airea D. Matthews, is a Penn alumna and the current Philadelphia Poet Laureate. She’s the first to read his work. He’s the first to read hers." It also showcases his diverse talents: "Matthews shares his poetry as a spoken-word artist, rhythm driving his performances. Which is not surprising, since he is also a musician, self-taught on guitar and piano, and in a band with his childhood friends." That puts him in good stead with the PennSound team, where many of us (Chris Mustazza, Christopher Martin, and yours truly) see the influence of our experience as musicians as a big part of our work as sound editors and archivists. The article continues: "For him, music is inextricably linked to his poetry, academic research and journalistic writing. He has an extensive vinyl collection, heavy on 1960s and '70s Motown, the album covers as artwork on the walls of his West Philadelphia apartment." "“I love records," he says. "I want to hear what people heard back then, and it feels like an authentic music listening experience for me to listen to music of that time as it was intended to be listened to."

The article also discusses Matthews' work at PennSound: 

Arriving at Penn, Matthews says he wanted to be part of the Kelly Writers House and its diverse community. He applied for a job there his first semester and has been an assistant at the Wexler Studio ever since, working with Zach Carduner, coordinator of the recording studio. “Wes has done a great job with us,” says Carduner.

Matthews mixes and edits podcasts and student projects, and creates audio segments for the poetry archive PennSound, and the podcast PoemTalk. He helps video and record the Writers House speakers and programs and take photos at the events.

“I get to hear every word of the authors and writers and artists who come in and give talks,” he says. “I've come across all types of writing that have captured my interest in different ways and I've met people, writers, who I wouldn't have met otherwise.” 

We couldn't be happier to see Wes singled out for all of the things that make him so special. You can read more about him in Penn Today by clicking here. 

Birds of Metal in Flight: An Evening of Poetry with 5+5, 2015

Here's another fascinating group reading from deep within the PennSound archives: "Birds of Metal in Flight: An Evening of Poetry with 5+5."

Recorded at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine on February 25, 2015, this event — presented in partnership with the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University — served as a farewell to Xu Bing's exhibit "Phoenix." Ten poets in total, five from China and five from the US, shared work written in response to Xu's artwork. The roster of readers for the evening consisted of Bei Dao, Ouyang Jianghe, Xi Chuan, Zhai Yongming, Zhou Zan, Charles Bernstein, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Pierre Joris, Afaa Weaver, and Marilyn Nelson (the Cathedral's then-current Poet in Residence). Opening comments were made by The Very Reverend Dr. James A. Kowalski, Dean of the Cathedral, and by event organizer Professor Lydia H. Liu from Columbia University; Xu offered closing remarks.

You can watch video footage of the complete event, along with segmented MP3 audio of individual readers on the special page we've put together for this event. Promotional images for the reading can be found in this Jacket2 commentary post by Bernstein.

Join Us for a Live PoemTalk Taping at KWH on 11/2

You are invited to join us for a special live PoemTalk recording session on November 2nd. Host Al Filreis will be joined by panelists Kate Colby, Jonathan Dick, and Bethan Swann for a discussion of Hoa Nguyen's poem “Long Light” from her book Red Juice. Those in attendance will be welcome to share their thoughts at the end of the program and afterwards will join the panel for a catered lunch.

This event will start promptly at noon on Wednesday, November 2nd at the Kelly Writers House (3805 Locust Walk). Click here to register to attend and please feel free to share this event on Facebook. Can't make in person? Click here to watch live on YouTube.

PoemTalk is a joint production of PennSound and the Poetry Foundation, aided by the generous support of Nathan and Elizabeth Leight. Browse the full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, by clicking here.

In Memoriam: Peter Schjeldahl (1942–2022)

It's shaping up to be a week marked by loss, starting with us acknowledging the passing of Alan Halsey, and ending with news that Peter Schjeldahl, chief art critic for The New Yorker and a member of the New York School's second generation, has died at the age of 80. 

For members of the New York School, arts criticism was practically an intramural sport, with Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Bill Berkson, and Ted Berrigan all practicing the craft, The notable difference between Schjeldahl and his peers lie in the paths their lives took: while he continued to write and publish poetry into the 1980s, the art world became his primary focus with stops at The New York Times, The Village Voice, and ARTnews before arriving at The New Yorker in 1998. Fittingly enough, it was also in the pages of The New Yorker that Schjeldahl shared news of his terminal lung cancer diagnosis in a moving 2019 essay, "The Art of Dying."

While we do not have a proper author page for Schjeldahl, we are happy to draw our listeners' attention to two recordings from the author within our archives. First, in our Singles database, you'll find a November 28, 1973 reading in two parts, running just shy of a half hour. Then on our homepage for Bill Berkson's tape collection, you'll find a brief recording of Schjeldahl reading for the "Town Hall" at the St. Mark's Poetry Project on April 19, 1980. Follow the links above to listen in.

To Schjeldahl's family, friends, and fans — particularly those who aren't as familiar with his time as a poet — we send our deepest condolences.

John Keene: New Author Page

We recently created a new author page for poet John Keene, whose career-spanning collection Punks: New & Selected Poems (The Song Cave) was recently named a finalist for this year's National Book Award for Poetry.

The heart of this new author page is Keene's 2019 visit to UPenn as one of that year's Kelly Writers House Fellows: a reading on the evening of February 11th and his Q&A session with Al Filreis the following morning. Audio and video footage from both events is available. Beyond that, you'll also find another Philadelphia reading for the Housework at Chapterhouse series in 2011, a pair of Segue Series readings at the Bowery Poetry Club in 2009 and 2005, and a 2009 panel from the Belladonna* collective's ADFEMPO conference in which Keene took part.

You can listen to all of the aforementioned recordings by clicking here. We'll be cheering on Keene when the National Book Award finalists are named next month.

In Memoriam: Alan Halsey (1949–2022)

We start this week off on a sad note, marking the recent passing of British poet Alan Halsey at the age of 73. Beyond a prolific career as a poet, which included more than twenty books, Halsey's lifelong service to the genre included the press West House Books (which he co-founded nearly thirty years ago) and Hay-on-Wye's The Poetry Bookshop (which he opened in 1979 and ran until 1997). He is survived by his wife, the poet Geraldine Monk, with whom he frequently performed.

In honor of Halsey, we've assembled a PennSound author page for him, gathering materials previously scattered throughout the site. They include an October 1997 reading with Monk at SUNY-Buffalo, a 2006 appearance on Cross-Cultural Poetics — where he read from his Salt Selected Poems and discussed the modalities of British poetry — and a 2010 reading at Boise State University (also with Monk). In addition you'll find video of a 2011 performance of Carnival, Panel 3 by Steve McCaffery, where he was joined onstage by Halsey, Karen Mac Cormack, and Geraldine Monk.

We send our most sincere condolences to Ms. Monk, along with Halsey's family, friends, and fans. To listen to any of the recordings mentioned above, click here.

Frank Samperi on PennSound

Today we take a look at PennSound's author page for Frank Samperi, which features a rare, career-spanning reading, a latter-day tribute event, and a number of his out-of-print books from the much-esteemed poet.

We'll start with Samperi reading at New York City's historic Ear Inn in 1987. This forty-seven minute reading offers listeners a wide-ranging survey of his poetic output, sharing selections from The Fourth (1973), The Prefiguration (1971), Morning and Evening (1967), Branches (1965) and Of Light (1965), among others. Gil Ott describes this historic event in an interview with CAConrad on the Philly Sound blog: "He gave a once in a lifetime reading at the Ear Inn. It's funny, because sometimes you meet people at the Ear Inn and you expect something from them that they're not. I guess that's true of many things. I expected this guy to look like a monk. And he shows up with his wife, who is wearing a frilly outfit, with fur around the edges. Everything I saw in them bespoke a struggle to maintain a middle class existence. Anyway, he sat down and read, and he read very softly. I have long-sought a recording of that reading, but apparently, due to the Ear Inn's technological failures, no recording is available. But it was beautiful! You really had to listen hard, because his voice was so soft, and the microphones weren't working."

Next up, we have a tribute reading recorded at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA on March 10 2013. This seventy minute video features the poet's daughter, Claudia Samperi Warren, along with Conrad DiDiodato, Harry Northup, Phoebe MacAdams, S.A. Griffin, and Steve Goldman. Finally, you'll find four collections of Samperi's poetry in the PEPC Library: Quadrifariam (1971), The Prefiguration (1971), Lumen Gloriae (1973) and Day (1998), which was posthumously transcribed from 1970 notebook. 

We thank Claudia Samperi Warren, for her generosity in sharing these texts and recordings with us, and encourage our listeners to visit her wonderful blog dedicated to her father's life and work. Aside from the many wonderful resources there, Jamie Townsend's 2008 essay, "Spiritual Man, Modern Man: the Poetics of Frank Samperi, published in Jacket #36, is well worth your time.

James Schuyler at the Dia Art Foundation, 1988

Today we're highlighting a truly historic film from our archives, which will surely delight a great many of our listeners: James Schuyler's November 15, 1988 reading at the Dia Art Foundation. While segmented audio of that reading was available on our site for some time, we are grateful to the diligent work of Schuyler's literary executor, Raymond Foye, who was able to secure this rare footage for PennSound in 2015.

Schuyler materials are very hard to come by, largely due to the the ways in which his mental illness hindered his considerable talents. One oft-cited example: his first major collection of poetry, Freely Espousing, wasn't published until 1969 — long into the careers of his core New York School comrades John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O'Hara, and closer to when second-generation poets like Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, and Anne Waldman released their first books. Likewise, this reading, which took place not long after Schuyler turned 65, was his first ever; he'd die less than two-and-a-half years later.

When we first launched the video, it elicited many excited responses among fans and scholars. One particularly useful commentary came from New York School specialist Andrew Epstein, who offered some very useful contexts for the reading on his blog, Locus Solus: "Reclusive, plagued by intermittent bouts of severe mental illness, painfully shy, Schuyler had never before read his work in public, even though he'd been publishing since the 1950s. That evening, Schuyler's close friend John Ashbery gave a wonderful and incisive introduction (which can also be found in Ashbery's Selected Prose), and throngs of Schuyler's admirers from the literary and art world flocked to the Dia Center on Mercer Street." He continues, quoting David Lehman's The Last Avant-Garde — "For many in the audience it felt like a historic occasion. The line of people waiting to get in, many poets, writers, and artists among them, snaked around the corner" — and offering up Charles North's assessment: "The Dia reading was the most thrilling I think I've ever been to, the loudest applause I've ever heard — thunderous."

His authoritative report continues, observing that "the reading was a very big deal for Schuyler himself and his letters and diaries record the anxious build-up and the exhilarated aftermath of his debut performance," before offering up copious excerpts from those documents, concluding with Schuyler's estimation that "I was a fucking sensation." Epstein can't help but agree, and neither will you once you get a chance to see the venerable poet reading "February," "Empathy and New Year," "December," "Unlike Joubert," or other favorites.

Again, we'd like to thank Raymond Foye and the Dia Art Foundation for allowing us to share this remarkable document with our listeners.

Celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with "North of Invention"

Today our neighbors to the north celebrate their Thanksgiving Day, and we can't think of a better way to mark the occasion than revisiting the marvelous North of Invention: A Canadian Poetry Festival, which was co-organized by Sarah Dowling and Charles Bernstein, at the Kelly Writers House. Extensive audio and video documentation from the multi-day event is available on PennSound's homepage for the event. Here's a description of the festival's aims, taken from its event page on the KWH website:

North of Invention presents 10 Canadian poets working at the cutting edge of contemporary poetic practice, bringing them first to the Kelly Writers House, then to Poets House in New York City for two days of readings, presentations and discussion in each location. Celebrating the breadth and complexity of poetic experimentation in Canada, North of Invention features emerging and established poets working across multiple traditions, and represents nearly fifty years of experimental writing. North of Invention aims to initiate a new dialogue in North American poetics, addressing the hotly debated areas of "innovation" and "conceptual writing," the history of sound poetry and contemporary performance, multilingualism and translation, and connections to activism.

Poets involved in the festival include Lisa Robertson, M. NourbeSe Philip, Stephen Collis, Christian Bök, Nicole Brossard, Adeena Karasick, a.rawlings, Jeff Derksen Fred Wah and Jordan Scott, and the full schedule includes both readings and presentations from all participants. You can start exploring this wonderful resource by clicking here. A companion feature of the same name, edited by Dowling, was published by Jacket2 in 2013, and is likewise well worth your time.

Wuhan Poets at the Kelly Writers House, 2010

Today we're highlighting a very special event held at our own Kelly Writers House on December 9, 2010, which brought together two groups of poets — one from Wuhan, the other from Philadelphia — for a cross-cultural dialogue. This program was co-sponsored by UPenn's Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and the Chinese / American Association for Poetry and Poetics, 

The Chinese delegation included Liang Biwen, Liu Yishan, Chen Ying-Song, Tiang He, Wang Xinmin, Ke Yumin, Hu Xiang and Liu An, while Philadelphia was represented by Bob Perelman, Sarah Dowling, Michelle Taransky, Charles Bernstein, Greg Djanikian and Yanrong (2010's CAAP Scholar-in-Residence). Work from each poet was shared bilingually, with the local poets reading English-language translations, as well as having their own work read in translation by the visiting Chinese poets, and KWH has put together a program with the full texts of everything read.

Writing about the event the following day, Al Filreis noted that "[f]or nearly all of [the Wuhan poets], this was the first visit to the U.S. Getting visas, dealing with protocols, was a major business, as you can imagine — much of it, on our end, handled nobly by Charles Bernstein, who, with Marjorie Perloff, chairs our Chinese/American Association of Poetry and Poetics." Ron Silliman blogged about the event as well, drawing readers' attention to an earlier Writers Without Borders event featuring Zhimin Li (a CAAP board member). You can listen to and watch footage from this groundbreaking event by clicking here. On the same page you'll also find a set of brief Wexler Studio sessions with nine poets recorded in 2017, which serves as a follow-up of sorts to the earlier event.

A Tribute to Paul Dutton (2014)

Today we're highlighting a 2014 tribute event to author Paul Dutton, which brings together numerous friends, collaborators, and fans to honor the venerable Canadian poet.

Recorded on March 4, 2014 at The Supermarket in Toronto, Ontario, this two-hour event was hosted by Gary Barwin, Jenny Sampirisi, and Stuart Ross, and features an impressive all-star roster of Dutton's friends, fans, and collaborators, including Phil Minton; Eric Schmaltz; Jay Millar; Mari-Lou Rowley; Steve Venright; Christian Bök; W. Mark Sutherland and Nobuo Kubota; Donkey Lopez (Ray Dillard, Stuart Ross, and Steven Lederman); a.rawlings; John Kamevaar; Karl Jirgens; Margaret Christakos; Chris Tonelli; Jenny Sampirisi and John Kameel Farah; Dan Waber, Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts, and David Lee; and Shannon McGuire, before concluding with a set from CCMC (Dutton, Kamevaar, John Oswald, and Michael Snow).

Barwin opens the show by highlighting the many hats Dutton has worn — "poet, novelist, musician, improviser, essayist, mentor, collaborator, soundsinger, critic, friend." "Over the past forty years," he continues, "Paul has created an impressive body of great work: sound poems, visual poems, collections of poetry, short fiction, a novel, CDs, countless performances (both as a solo artist and as a part of groups such as the Four Horsemen and CCMC). He has been a significant part of major works by R. Murray Schafer and has performed and collaborated with a wide array of other artists. Paul is a sensitive, exacting, witty, and inventive performer and explorer of language out of the human. As a writer, he has plumbed the musicality of the paragraph, the sentence, and the word. As an oral sound artist, Paul has helped redefined the musical potential of human utterance." You can listen to the rest of his introduction, and view all of these marvelous performances here. We'd also like to thank Laurie Kwasnik and ChromaSonic Pictures for making this footage available to us.

Appropriately enough, Barwin is also the editor of Sonosyntactics: Selected and New Poetry of Paul Dutton, released in late 2015 by Wilfrid Laurier University Press — a collection hailed for "demonstrat[ing] Dutton's willingness to (re)invent and stretch language and to listen for new possibilities while at the same time engaging with his perennial concerns — love, sex, music, time, thought, humour, the materiality of language, and poetry itself." And, of course, don't forget PennSound's Paul Dutton author page, which houses solo recordings from 1979–2001, as well as links to our Four Horsemen page and other collaborations, and a series of useful links to external resources. First created in 2005, our Dutton page was one of our earliest author pages, but its materials continue to surprise us.

Charles Baudelaire: New Author Page

We recently created a new PennSound author page for beloved proto-modernist misanthrope Charles Baudelaire, which brings together resources related to the poet that were previously scattered throughout our archives.

First up, we have Ariana Reines reading and discussing Baudelaire's "My heart laid bare" as part of a 2009 Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club. That's followed by Keith Waldrop reading "To the Reader," "The Bad Glazier," "The Dog and the Flask," and "Invitation to the Voyage" at Harvard University in 2009 as part of a launch event for Poems for the Millenium Vol. III. Waldrop returns to read eleven of his translations in a 2006 recording session engineered by Steve Evans. 

Charles Bernstein also makes two appearances on the Baudelaire page, first presenting a bilingual reading of "Be Drunken" with Pierre Joris at the aforementioned 2009 Harvard event, and also reading "Venereal Muse," his take on "Muse Venale" at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2006. A twenty-seven minute video of Sean Bonney reading Baudelaire in English in London's Abney Park during the winter of 2008 round out our collection, though we've also included a brief bonus clip of Marjorie Perloff discussing Eliot and Baudelaire's concepts of evil, from a 2012 talk on "The Waste Land."

Click here to listen to any and all of the recordings detailed above on PennSound's Charles Baudelaire author page.