PennSound Daily

Thanks to the good graces of Aldon Nielsen, we're able to bring you the latest addition to his Heatstrings archive page: a reading by Rachel Blau DuPlessis at Penn State University on September 9th of this year.

"As many of you know — and those of you who don't know are certainly going to find out — I write long poems," DuPlessis begins, however she sees it as "a kindness to everybody" to start with a few short pieces to warm up the audience. Thus, she begins with the final segment of "Draft 95: Erg" and "Ledger 11" from her first post-Drafts book, Interstices. From there, she moves into "Draft 104: the Book," "Of the Dead" (the first section of "Draft 109: Wall Newspaper," inspired by Eliot's "The Waste Land"), "Draft CX: Primer" (read as the collage poem was displayed for the audience), "Draft 82: Hinge," and finally, several sections from her most recent book, Graphic Novella. Along the way she offers a coughing audience member a lozenge, ends her set with a triumphant mic drop, and then entertains questions from the audience.

It's a marvelous set, not that that should come as a surprise to faithful listeners, and a treat for completists to see a few more titles added to the rather comprehensive collection of recordings from DuPlessis' Draft series, which you'll find scattered throughout nearly thirty years of readings housed on her PennSound author page.

Joseph Massey was in town last week to record an upcoming PoemTalk episode and take part in a ModPo live webcast, and while we had him at the Kelly Writers House we invited him to pop into the Wexler Studio to record some more of his poetry. This time around, he recorded his 2015 Ornithopter Press chapbook, What Follows in its entirety. In total there are fourteen poems: "Scotoma," "Forced Perspective," "Late August," "Blight,"House at Night," "Northeast Regional," "Sentence," "Measures," "What Follows," "Hex," "South Station," "Holy Name," "Two Days," and "Hour to Hour."

You'll recall this past January Massey popped by KWH to record a career-spanning set in the Wexler Studio, which formed the foundation for his PennSound author page. You'll find those two sessions, as well as a 2015 reading at KWH, here.

Amidst a very competitive field — that also included cultural historian Josh Kun, author Lauren Redniss, and art historian Kellie Jones (daughter of Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka) — we were very excited to see PennSound authors Maggie Nelson and Claudia Rankine amongst this year's MacArthur Fellows.

Nelson is hailed as "a writer forging a new mode of nonfiction that transcends the divide between the personal and the intellectual and renders pressing issues of our time into portraits of day-to-day lived experience." The citation continues: "In all of her work, Nelson remains skeptical of truisms and ideologies and continually challenges herself to consider multiple perspectives. Her empathetic and open-ended way of thinking—her willingness to change her mind and even embrace qualities of two seemingly incompatible positions—offers a powerful example for how very different people can think and live together." You can read more here.

Rankine is recognized as "a poet illuminating the emotional and psychic tensions that mark the experiences of many living in twenty-first-century America" by way of "a[n] accessible and pluralistic approach [that] portray[s] how external, public forces in American life can impinge on one's emotional state." In the Los Angeles Times Rankine reflected that "The MacArthur is given to my subject through me. The subject of trying to change the discourse of black people being equated with criminality and murdered inside a culture where white fear has justified the continued incarceration, murder of blacks and other people of color. I do feel like I am just incidental in a certain way to the prize, and that the prize is being given to the subject — that I am completely invested in." Read her complete citation here.

We send our heartiest congratulations to these two very deserving authors, and couldn't be prouder to share their groundbreaking work with our listeners.