PoemTalk #126: Amiri Baraka's "Something in the Way of Things"

Last July we released the 126th episode in the PoemTalk Podcast Series, which addresses Amiri Baraka's poem, "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)," perhaps best-known for its appearance on The Roots' 2002 LP, Phrenology. For this discussion, host Al Filreis assembled an astounding all-star panel including (from left to right) Aldon Nielsen, Tyrone Williams, and William J. Harris. 

After getting preliminaries out of the way, Filreis' write-up on the PoemTalk blog starts by discussing the connection between Baraka and The Roots, noting, "Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson of The Roots wrote a remembrance of Baraka after the poet's death. It was published on January 12, 2014, in The New York Times. The essay describes Baraka's influence and importance. It identifies poets who had influenced the Amiri Baraka of this particular poem (Olson and Burroughs, for instance) in such a way as to complicate (in a manner the PoemTalk panelists commend) the relationship between experimental black poetics arising out of modernism and the themes taken up by Phrenology — racial profiling, social Darwinism, and 'hip-hop itself.'" He continues, "We at PoemTalk recommend this episode for several reasons, among them this in the middle of the podcast: a fresh, detailed analysis of Baraka's critical yet ultimately unstubborn and nuanced relationship to popular black music in his later years. This leads to a discussion more generally of the special power of Baraka's later poetry." 

You can read more about this episode, read Baraka's poem in full, and explore both audio of the finished podcast and raw video of the recording session here. The full archive of PoemTalk episodes can be found here.

Bernadette Mayer: Kelly Writers House Fellows Program, 2018

This past spring we were very lucky to be joined by the one and only Bernadette Mayer (shown at right with Al Filreis), as the second of this year's three Kelly Writers House Fellows. Her visit consisted of a reading on the evening of March 26th and a brunch conversation with Filreis on the 27th. Video and audio of both sets are available on Mayer's PennSound author page, with the reading segmented into individual MP3 files as well.

Running more than an hour, that reading serves as a useful introduction to Mayer's diverse creative modes, which have sustained for more than five decades. Mayer starts with new poems, including "Myrmidon" and "Dear Sarah," before moving into requests from the audience, some very old ("Failure in Infinitives," "Eve of Easter") and some quite recent ("Chocolate Poetry Sonnet," "Summer Solstice"). To start listening, click here.

"Talking About David Antin," Artists Space, NYC

Antin's "Sky Poem," 1987

Here's a wonderful recent addition to our archives that you don't want to miss: "Talking About David Antin," with with Eleanor Antin, Charles Bernstein, Julien Bismuth, and Ellen Zweig, recorded at New York's Artists Space on March 27th of this year.

Artists Space Director Jay Sanders provided introductory comments for the two-hour event, which featured individual talks by the aforementioned friends and colleagues, followed by a half-hour collaborative Q&A session.  As the venue's blurb for the event notes, "David Antin's influential work as a poet and artist led him to develop the hybridized format of 'talk poems' in the 1970s, whereby he would compose literary texts in an improvised, conversational manner in a public setting." Those assembled offer up "performances and interventions" that pay tribute to his prodigious, "multidimensional literary and artistic output."

You can enjoy video and audio versions of this event on PennSound's David Antin author page, which is home to forty years' worth of recordings highlighting his singular talents, which are sorely missed.

Etel Adnan: New Author Page

Our latest PennSound author page is for Lebanese-American poet and painter Etel Adnan.

The earliest recording you'll find there is Adnan's 2006 appearance on episode #118 of Leonard Schwartz's program, Cross-Cultural Poetics, titled "Forms of Violence." Calling in from Paris, she "reads from her book In the Heart of A Heart Of Another Country (City Lights), and meditates on her mother city of Beirut and American violence, inner and outer."

Jumping forward to 2010, we have a Serpentine Gallery reading showcasing The Arab Apocalypse and a 2012 reading commemorating the release of Homage to Etel Adnan (Post-Apollo), which was held at The Green Arcade Books Ideas Goods and co-sponsored by The Poetry Center and Small Press Traffic. Adnan returned to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London for a conversation with poet Robert Grenier, which we first announced on PennSound Daily in July 2016, just a few weeks after the event took place. This chat between two formidable authors served as the inaugural event for the exhibition, "Etel Adnan: the Weight of the World."

Finally, our most recent addition is a wonderful, lengthy interview with Jennifer Scappettone, which took place on September 23rd and 24th of last year. Seven thematic segments are presented to listeners, including "Home Life and School in Beirut," "Education in Philosophy and Beginnings in Painting," and "English-Language Poetry and US Politics from the Vietnam War through Today." We're grateful to Adnan for the opportunity to share her work with our audience, and to those who've made these recordings available to us. Click here to start browsing.

bpNichol Thirty Years On

bpNichol's grave marker (photo by Derek Beaulieu)

September 25th is the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of legendary Canadian multiform writer and performer bpNichol, and therefore an excellent opportunity to reconnect with his work. We're very proud to have counted Nichol among the very first poets to be featured on PennSound, and in the intervening fifteen years, our bpNichol author page — edited by Lori Emerson — has grown into a fascinating collection of artifacts from throughout his tragically foreshortened creative life.

It's a testament to Nichol's diverse interests that there we find work originally released on flexi-disc, LP, cassette, and even floppy disc. That last piece, 1984's "First Screening: Computer Poems" — initially written in Apple's BASIC programming language and converted into a Quicktime emulation in 2007 by a team of poets and media archivists — is a clear highlight of the collection. Another is a series of lengthy recordings (totaling nearly six hours) from Nichol's unfinished magnum opus, The Martyrology, made in 1983 and 1987. You'll find these and many more recordings by clicking here, and don't forget to check out our separate author page for The Four Horsemen. We'd also be remiss if we didn't point you in the direction of the official bpNichol archive, which is a truly marvelous resource.