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From "Down To Write You This Poem Sat" at the Oakville Gallery

Contemporary
  1. Charles Bernstein, "Phone Poem" (2011) (1:30): MP3
  2. Caroline Bergvall, "Love song: 'The Not Tale (funeral)' from Shorter Caucer Tales (2006): MP3
  3. Christian Bôk, excerpt from Eunoia, from Chapter "I" for Dick Higgins (2009) (1:38):  MP3
  4. Tonya Foster, Nocturne II (0:40) (2010) MP3
  5. Ted Greenwald, "The Pears are the Pears" (2005) (0:29): MP3
  6. Susan Howe, Thorow, III (3:13) (1998):  MP3
  7. Tan Lin, "¼ : 1 foot" (2005) (1:16): MP3
  8. Steve McCaffery, "Cappuccino" (1995) (2:35): MP3
  9. Tracie Morris, From "Slave Sho to Video aka Black but Beautiful" (2002) (3:40): MP3
  10. Julie Patton, "Scribbling thru the Times" (2016) (5:12): MP3
  11. Tom Raworth, "Errory" (c. 1975) (2:08): MP3
  12. Jerome Rothenberg, from "The First Horse Song of Frank Mitchell: 4-Voice Version" (c. 1975) (3:30): MP3
  13. Cecilia Vicuna, "When This Language Disappeared" (2009) (1:30): MP3
Historical
  1. Guillaume Apollinaire, "Le Pont Mirabeau" (1913) (1:14): MP3
  2. Amiri Baraka, "Black Dada Nihilismus" (1964) (4:02):  MP3
  3. Louise Bennett, "Colonization in Reverse" (1983) (1:09): MP3
  4. Sterling Brown, "Old Lem " (c. 1950s) (2:06):  MP3
  5. John Clare, "Vowelless Letter" (1849) performed by Charles Bernstein (2:54): MP3
  6. Velimir Khlebnikov, "Incantation by Laughter" (1910), tr. and performed by Bernstein (:28)  MP3
  7. Harry Partch, from Barstow (part 1), performed by Bernstein (1968) (1:11): MP3
  8. Leslie Scalapino, "Can’t’ is ‘Night’" (2007) (3:19): MP3
  9. Kurt Schwitters, "Ur Sonata: Largo" performed by Ernst Scwhitter (1922-1932) ( (3:12): MP3
  10. Gertrude Stein, If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso (1934-35) (3:42): MP3
  11. William Carlos Willliams, "The Defective Record" (1942) (0:28): MP3
  12. Hannah Weiner, from Clairvoyant Journal, performed by Weiner, Sharon Mattlin & Rochelle Kraut (2001) (6:12): MP3

Selected by Charles Bernstein (read more about his choices here)

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Andrews, Mac Low, Pettet read at PROSPECT Conference, 1996

Posted 7/2/2021

Here are a trio of short recordings that we recently added to the archive from "PROSPECT: The Second Sensational Festival of Russian and American Poetry and Poetics," which was co-curated by Ed Foster and Vadim Mesyats at Hoboken's famed Stevens Institute of Technology in May 1996. In the POETICS List archives, I managed to turn up Foster's original announcement of the event and invitation for participants, which offered this initial list of participants:

Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Vadim Mesyats, Maya Nikulina, Lev Rubenshtein, Elena Shvarts, Ivan Zhdanov — Bruce Andrews, Eileen Myles, Ron Padgett, Leslie Scalapino, Aaron Shurin, John Yau — plus a most stellar assembly of other great poets, critics, academics, surprise guests, and more totally terrific people.

While we don't have documentation of the vast majority of the conference, we're grateful to have these three short (10–15 minute) recordings of the contributions of Bruce Andrews, Jackson Mac Low, and Simon Pettet. Click on each poet's name to be taken directly to the recording on their individual PennSound author page.



Celebrate Canada Day with North of Invention

Posted 7/1/2021

We can't think of a better way to mark Canada  Day 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.


Daphne Marlatt reads "Steveston, BC," May 2021

Posted 6/29/2021

Here's a new addition to our PennSound author page for Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt: a short recording of her reading "Steveston, BC" from her landmark volume Steveston. Captured as part of a virtual reading on May 27th of this year, this single MP3 runs for just over five minutes.

If you'd like to hear more from Steveston — which Douglas Barbour hails as "a carefully documented and deeply personal overview of the town in history" — we recently added the 2008 album Like Light off Water: Passages from Steveston, which presents passages from Marlatt's book with musical embellishments written and performed by Minden and Carla Hallett. 

These recordings and more can be found on our Daphne Marlatt author page, along with a wonderful 2017 Close Listening program with Charles Bernstein and two concurrent Philadelphia readings, and a pair of recordings from the Kootenay School of Writing made in 2007 and 1985. Click here to start listening.


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