In his Jacket2 post announcing the episode, Filreis provides a little background information on the recording under discussion: "in 1965 the poet Paul Blackburn, who loved nothing more than to tape recordings of poets reading and conversing — along with Robert Vas Dias — turned the mic on and interviewed Loy at her home in Aspen, Colorado, and asked her to read poems and offer spontaneous commentary." Framed by Loy's reputation as "the forgotten Futurist," Filreis and the panel find ample evidence but concludes that "this writing postdates Loy's abiding, if she ever did abided it, of Futurism's misogyny." He continues:
The poetry's "art of intuition," its sexuality, its "turning" radical rather than reactionary, its feminist version of modernism's rejection of romanticism, its interest in the fabulous blur and imprecision of the sexual body and its fluid unfixing of figurations of the body's expressions (tears / Are snowdrops or molasses / Or anything), its frank internality — these, in this discussion, move in a revolutionary direction mostly distinct from other modern movements or gatherings.
You can listen to this latest program, read the text of both poems, check out video of Nguyen's Kelly Writers House reading from the same day, and learn 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. Browse the full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, by clicking here.
