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Charles Bernstein

Portraits 9


Antin in the Sky with Diamonds
("I do the best I can")

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David Antin
David and I met for lunch in SoH0, near Ellie's gallery. Much of our conversation focussed on David's essay collection; there were enough works for two books, so which to leave out? David was never much interested in talking about collecting his essays; his focus was always on what he doing now, what he was doing next. That's partly why it took him so long to gather together the pieces in that book. But I was persistent and brought up the essay collection just about every time we met. After a while, we walked outside and wound our way, slowly, toward Houston, talking all the while. I asked David about his sky-writing poems.
February 18, 2008
(mp4, 28 seconds, 5.4 mb)


Ted's Sublime Echoes

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Ted Greenwald
In the 1970s Ted and I would meet in the afternoons and talk til night. We even did a recording of a couple of dozen hours of our conversations. I owe a tremendous amount to those meetings and to our many conversations since. On this particular afternoon we talked at the bar in the back of the restaurant (I can't remember the name of the place, but it was downtown).
October 22, 2007
(mp4, 1 min. 3 sec., 11.9 mb)


Jerome Rothenberg & the Burning Babe

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Jerome Rothenberg
Jerry and Diane come to our place for dinner. He had Susan had just collaborated on their fabulous Granary Book. The Burning Babe, so I asked Jerry about the central figure in the poem.
February 24, 2008
(mp4, 1 min. 36 sec., 18.2 mb)


Diane Rothenberg: Marshall Parkway & Other Figments of the Imagination

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Diane Rothenberg
Diane grew up around Marshall Parkway in the Bronx. She talks about what's the same, what's different, and what is imagined.
February 24, 2008
(mp4, 2 min. 8 sec., 24.2 mb)



Ron & George

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Ron Silliman
After a PoemTalk recording at CPCW, Rachel, Ron, and I wondered over to a Thai place a few blocks West on Chestnut. We then walked back to Walnut and 38th and stopped for a minute on parking ramp, before getting in Ron's car so he could drive Rachel home and drop me off at Bob and Francie's.
March 5, 2008
(mp4, 29 sec., 11mb)

Joel's Niagara Tours

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Joel Kuszai
We were working on Blind Witness at my place, talking about Joel's job at Queens Community College and the Publishing Club and about Factory  School.
March 7, 2008
(mp4, 27 sec,, 10mb)


video portraits home page

Portraits series 1 : Régis Bonvicino, George Lakoff, Heny Hills, Mimi Gross, Loss Pequeño Glazier, Caroline Bergvall
Portraits series 2 : Pierre Joris, Wystan Curnow, Levhi Lehto, Robert Grenier, James Sherry, Johanna Drucker
Portraits series 3 : Ann Lauterbach, Karen Mac Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Nick Piombino, Richard Tuttle
Portraits series 4 : Rod Smith, Nicole Brossard, Douglas Messerli, Peter Middleton, Norman Fischer, Tina Darragh
Portraits series 5 : Myung Mi Kim, Charles Alexander, Alan Davies, P. Inman, Phong Bui, Bob Perelman
Portraits series 6: Kenneth Goldsmith, John Yau, Peter Gizzi,  Dubravka Djuric,  Elizabeth Willis, Tan Lin
Portraits series 7: John Ashbery, Rae Armantrout, George Kuchar, Emma Bee Bernstein, Susan Howe, Sigmund Laufer
Portraits series 8: Maggie O'Sullivan, Christian Bök, Darren Wershler, Tonya Foster, Marty Ehrlich & Erica Hunt, Lev Rubinstein
Portraits series 9: David Antin, Ted Greenwald, Jerome Rothenberg, Diane Rothenberg, Ron Silliman, Joel Kuszai
Portraits series 10: Peter Gizzi, Elizabeth Willis, John Tranter, Bruce Andrews, Cecilia Vicuña, Tom Raworth
Portraits page 11: Ben Yarmolinsky, Hank Lazer, Marjorie Perloff, Alan Loney, Claude Royet-Journoud, Li Zhimin
Portraits page 12: Arkadii Dragomoschenko

Thanks for Steve McLaughlin for technical and design assistance. These video recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the artist. ©2006-2012 Charles Bernstein. Used with permission of Charles Bernstein. Distributed by PennSound.