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Featured resources

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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Happy Birthday Bob Kaufman

Posted 4/18/2024

April 18th is the birthday of Bob Kaufman, a quintessential San Francisco poet of the post-war period, who served as a vital bridge between jazz poetry's development during the Harlem Renaissance and its ongoing evolution during the Beat era on both coasts. Kaufman was an innovator in the surrealist tradition, as well as co-founder of the germinal journal Beatitude, and a vital voice that continues to inspire generations of writers. Born in 1925, Kaufman — who died in 1986 — would have turned 98 today.

PennSound's Bob Kaufman author page, curated by Raymond Foye — who co-edited 2019's Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman from City Lights with Neeli Cherkovski and Tate Swindell — is anchored by Bob Kaufman, poet: the life and times of an African-American man, a stunning 1992 audio documentary written and produced by David Henderson, which comes to us courtesy of Naropa University Audio Archive, Henderson, and Cherkovski. Extensive timetables have also been generated for both one-hour installments, providing details on the various speakers, topics discussed, etc. Individual poems read by Kaufman have also been broken out into their own MP3 files.

Additionally, we're proud to be able to share a twenty-one minute recording made by A. L. Nielsen, for which we have no details regarding date or location, and a brief recording of Kaufman reading the poem "Suicide," which comes to us courtesy of Will Combs. Combs' recording forms the basis for PoemTalk #158, in which Christopher Stackhouse, Maria Damon, and Devorah Major join host Al Filreis for a discussion of the poem. Click here to start browsing.



PoemTalk #195: Two by Ron Padgett

Posted 4/18/2024

Today we released the latest episode in the PoemTalk Podcast series (that's #195 for those counting) which addresses a pair of poems by legendary poet, translator, editor, and pedagogue Ron Padgett: "The Austrian Maiden" and "Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo." For this program, host Al Filreis convened a panel that included Yale colleagues James Berger and Richard Deming, along with Sophia DuRose.

Filreis offers some provenance for the two recordings under discussion in his write-up of this new episode on Jacket2. " Published a year earlier in You Never Know, "The Austrian Maiden"  is taken from a February 26, 2003 reading Padgett gave at our own Kelly Writers House, and "had just recently been published in Padgett's book You Never Know (2002)." He continues: "The recording of 'Joe Brainard's Painting Bingo' — a poem published in Great Balls of Fire (1969) — was performed at a November 20, 1979, reading given at a location that is now (sadly) unknown," and notes that "the recording comes to us courtesy of the Maureen Owen Collection of Greenwich Village Poetry, now housed at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library."

You can listen to this latest program, read both poems in their entirety, and learn more about the show here. PoemTalk is a joint production of PennSound and the Poetry Foundation, aided by the generous support of Nathan and Elizabeth Leight. Browse the full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, by clicking here.


Adonis on PennSound

Posted 4/15/2024

We start this week off by highlighting our author page for Syrian poet, essayist and translator Adonis, for which we owe our gratitude to 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. 


Congratulations to the 2024 Guggenheim Foundation Fellows

Posted 4/12/2024

Amidst the shocking losses of so many beloved poets lately, we'll take all the good news we can get! Yesterday we highlighted a number of PennSound poets long-listed for two of PEN America's literary awards, and today we follow that with congratulations to three of our poets that were named today as 2024 Guggenheim Fellows. Poetry was well-represented this year, with nine fellows out of a total of one hundred eighty-eight spanning fifty-two fields. The full roster consists of Kaveh Akbar, Jos Charles, Elaine Equi, Vievee Francis, Airea D. Matthews, Robyn Schiff, Safiya Sinclair, Tracy K. Smith, and Mai Der Vang: a dazzling and diverse array of voices spanning from coast to coast.

As always, we're delighted to be able to allow our listeners to connect with the work of the celebrated authors, and you'll find recordings from three of the nine fellows on our site. On Elaine Equi's PennSound author page, you'll find nearly a dozen recordings from 1984 up to the present, including events from the Segue Series, Belladonna* Reading Series, Philadelphia's Chapter & Verse Series, and the Dia Art Foundations' Readings in Contemporary Poetry Series. Airea D. Matthews' PennSound author page is home to two recordings from the Kelly Writers House: a 2019 reading and her 2021 interview with Rachel Zolf. Finally, you can listen to Tracy K. Smith read from her beloved Life on Mars at a March 2013 Brave Testimony event also held at the Writers House. 

We send our enthusiastic congratulations to these poets, and the rest of this year's fellows class, for this well-deserved achievement.

Congratulations to PEN American Literary Awards Longlist Poets

Posted 4/12/2024

Earlier this week, PEN America announced the longlists for their 2024 literary awards and we were excited to see a number of PennSound poets included.

Poem Bitten by a Man (Nightboat Books) by Brian Teare was listed for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award (given "to a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit, and impact, which has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form and signaling strong potential for lasting influence") as well as the PEN/Voelcker Award (presented to "a poet whose distinguished collection of poetry represents a notable and accomplished literary presence"). We also congratulate Evie Shockley and Eleni Sikelianos who also made the PEN/Voelcker longlist for their latest collections, suddenly we (Wesleyan University Press) and Your Kingdom (Coffee House Press) respectively.

Finalists will be announced in advance of the ceremonies on April 29th. If you'd like to acquaint yourselves with these three very deserving poets, click their names above to start browsing their PennSound author pages.


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