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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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Ted Enslin Centenary Reading, 2005

Posted 4/11/2025

We're grateful to Mark Nowak for organizing this event commemorating the 100th birthday of Ted Enslin (1925–2011), the avant-garde poet long associated with Maine's wilderness. The all-star roster for this celebration, which was held over Zoom on March 25th of this year, included John Taggart, Ben Friedlander, Denver Butson, John Phillips, Jonathan Skinner, Margaret Randall, Maria Damon, Mark Nowak, Michael Heller, and Stacy Szymaszek.

You'll find the complete audio from the event on PennSound's Ted Enslin author page along with ten full readings, from a 1985 reading at the venerable Woodland Pattern Book Center to his final reading 2009, held as part of Skinner's Steel Bar Reading Series. In-between, there are recordings from WMCS-AM, Bowling Green State University, Granary Books, and the University of Maine, among others.

You can browse the aforementioned readings by clicking here.


Happy Birthday, Charles Baudelaire

Posted 4/9/2025

Okay, perhaps one doesn't wish a notorious curmudgeon a happy birthday . . . let's just say that we are cognizant of the fact that Charles Baudelaire was born on this day in 1821. We created a Baudelaire author page several years back, which gathers resources related to the groundbreaking poet from across our archives.

First, there's Ariana Reines reading and discussing Baudelaire's "My heart laid bare" as part of a 2009 Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club. That's followed by Keith Waldrop reading "To the Reader," "The Bad Glazier," "The Dog and the Flask," and "Invitation to the Voyage" at Harvard University in 2009 as part of a launch event for Poems for the Millenium Vol. III. Waldrop returns to read eleven of his translations in a 2006 recording session engineered by Steve Evans. 

Charles Bernstein also makes two appearances on the Baudelaire page, first presenting a bilingual reading of "Be Drunken" with Pierre Joris at the aforementioned 2009 Harvard event, and also reading "Venereal Muse," his take on "Muse Venale" at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2006. A twenty-seven minute video of Sean Bonney reading Baudelaire in English in London's Abney Park during the winter of 2008 round out our collection, though we've also included a brief bonus clip of Marjorie Perloff discussing Eliot and Baudelaire's concepts of evil, from a 2012 talk on "The Waste Land."

Click here to listen to any and all of the recordings detailed above on PennSound's Charles Baudelaire author page.


Adonis on PennSound

Posted 4/7/2025

Today we take a look at our author page for Syrian poet, essayist and translator Adonis, for which we owe our gratitude to the late Pierre Joris (shown at left with the poet), who provided the recording to us back in 2013. 

This Poets House-sponsored reading took place on March 7, 2013 as part of that year's AWP conference in Boston. For this event, Adonis was joined by Khaled Mattawa, whose Adonis: Selected Poems was shortlisted for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize, and after the reading, the two engaged in a lively discussion about poetry and contemporary issues.

Unfortunately, in the intervening years, we have not had the opportunity to add more recordings to our Adonis author page, but this modest gem is still well worth sharing with our listeners. 


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