In light of last week's cowardice on the part of Columbia University, we thought it might be worthwhile to remember another historic moment when the school's student body needed to serve as a moral compass for a wayward administration: namely the 1968 campus occupation, during which beloved poet David Shapiro — famously pictured at right sitting at the desk of university president Grayson L. Kirk, smoking one of his cigars.
A precocious and prolific polymath, Shapiro first hit the cultural scene as a teenager, working as a professional violinist with several orchestras and publishing his first work in Poetry at the age of sixteen. That infamous photo was taken during the end of the first of three tenures at Columbia: he earned his BA in 1968, returned for a Ph.D. in 1973, and eventually joined the faculty. Beyond his own poetry, Shapiro published both art and literary criticism, along with work as a translator and editor (perhaps most notably, An Anthology of New York Poets with Ron Padgett). His influence was felt widely and he will be missed by many.
We direct listeners to Shapiro's PennSound author page, where you can browse a small collection of more recent recordings, including a pair of Segue Series events and a reading for Dia Art Foundation, and a 1976 ten-year memorial for Frank O'Hara at the Poetry Project, which also featured Joe LeSeuer, Patsy Southgate, Jane Freilicher (reading James Schuyler), Anne Waldman as MC, Kenneth Koch (reading "Awake in Spain"), Carter Ratcliffe, Tony Towle, Patsy Southgate, and Peter Schjedahl. Our most recent addition to the page, sent to us by Peter Gizzi after Shapiro's passing, is a pair of recordings from a 2004 visit to UMass Amherst, which includes both a talk on painters Fairfield Porter and Jasper Johns and a lengthy reading. Click here to start exploring.
