PennSound Daily

In the fall of 1978, Ted Greenwald (shown at right) and Charles Bernstein famously founded the Segue Reading Series at the Ear Inn — the first of several home bases for a groundbreaking series that continues to thrive to this day. At the same time, Greenwald was also organizing a second reading series with equally formidable talent, at the Droll/Kolbert Gallery. Today, we're highlighting a new series page housing recordings from those readings.

Altogether, we have nine recordings of events that took place between November 1978 and January 1980, with most sets lasting approximately 30–40 minutes. From earliest to latest, the readers were Lorenzo Thomas, Ron Padgett, Paul Violi, Michael Brownstein, Jim Brodey, Steve Katz, Charles Bernstein, Maureen Owen, and Charles North. You can start exploring this historic series by clicking on the title above.

All of us at PennSound send birthday greetings to John Ashbery, a living legend of American poetry, who turns 87 today.

There's no better way to celebrate than taking a spin through our Ashbery author page and listening to a few tracks amongst the hundreds of recordings that you'll find there, from readings to interviews, radio programs, and plays. Our archives start in February 1951 and run pretty continuously through seven decades up to recordings from last year. One great starting point is with the poet's two visits as Kelly Writers House fellow in 2002 and 2013.

Meanwhile, over at Jacket2, our own Charles Bernstein has posted a birthday tribute of sorts, entitled "87 Words for John Ashbery at 87" that you'll want to check out as well.

As summer chugs along we've got another new episode in the PoemTalk Podcast series for your listening pleasure. Program #79, released today, focuses on Joanne Kyger's poem "It's Been a Long Time: Notes from the Revolution," with a panel of Julia Bloch, Pattie McCarthy, and Stephen Ratcliffe joining host Al Filreis.

In a post on the PoemTalk blog, Filreis gives some context for the poem, which he describes as "part of — and also a collage of voices from — the Bolinas (California) poetic counterculture of the early 1970s." He continues, "Steve Ratcliffe, who spoke at length with Joanne Kyger before traveling east to join us for this conversation, is able to confirm some of those details, as it is apparent that the poet was listening intently to the 'company' or community of — and the very rhythms of — the 'other beats' around her. And so the poem carries forward the ambivalence of this poetic community about the machine and its relation to the making of the poem, and about the efficacy of chanting, and about the importance, or possible irony, of 'the vibe' as a empyrean, communitarian and anti-imperial source of a new music." You can read the rest of his introduction on Jacket2.


PoemTalk is a co-production of PennSound, the Kelly Writers House, Jacket2 and the Poetry Foundation. If you're interested in more information on the series or want to hear our archives of previous episodes, please visit the PoemTalk blog, and don't forget that you can subscribe to the series through the iTunes music store.