Rachel Blau DuPlessis

1. Draft 89: Interrogation (7:42): MP3
2. Draft XC: Excess (4:30): MP3
3. Draft 91: Proverbs (8:43): MP3
4. Draft 92: Translocation (5:21): MP3
5. Draft 93: Romantic Fragment Poem (2:27): MP3
6. Draft 96: Velocity (7:21): MP3
7. Draft 98: Canzone (12:36): : MP3
8. Draft 99: Intransitive (11:02): MP3
9. Draft 104: the Book (5:49): MP3

Studio 111 Session produced by Michael S. Hennessey & Jeffrey Boruszak

Chapter & Verse Series Reading at the Chapterhouse Cafe, PHL, with Pattie McCarthy, January 30, 2010.

• complete recording (31:47): MP3

1. Draft 58: In Situ (8:03): MP3
2. Draft 60: Rebus (7:26): MP3
3. Draft 72: Nanifesto (5:59): MP3
4. Draft 75: Doggerel (14:07): MP3
5. Draft 85: Hard Copy (41:10): MP3
   epigraph (0:26): MP3
   Section 1: 17 May 1986 (0:26): MP3
   Section 2: Things are very bright tonight (0:27): MP3
   Section 3: Emotions wash up and across (1:44): MP3
   Section 4: It's a question of "among" or some (0:53): MP3
   Section 5: You and I had crossed that bridge (1:21): MP3
   Section 6: Civitas uncanny (0:36): MP3
   Section 7: Bewildering what happened (1:02): MP3
   Section 8: It is astonishing (0:55): MP3
   Section 9: And in this space a birth of enigma (1:22): MP3
   Section 10: The watchers are struggling (1:36): MP3
   Section 11: So—what is the normal? (1:04): MP3
   Section 12: Any consolation that the only typo was in "the father"? (0:47): MP3
   Section 13: A postwar lasts far longer than they think (1:27): MP3
   Section 14: She had asked for photocopies (1:22): MP3
   Section 15: I want polyphony (0:58): MP3
   Section 16: I won't quote a word (1:32): MP3
   Section 17: Who registers deep lakes of darkness (0:39): MP3
   Section 18: Stet atrocity (0:17): MP3
   Section 19: Or another answer (0:51): MP3
   Section 20: If we destabilized (1:35): MP3
   Section 21: If one began: it (0:49): MP3
   Section 22: Some topographies and folds (0:48): MP3
   Section 23: Snow blowing from the north plasters the route signs (0:49): MP3
   Section 24: To resuscitate (0:26): MP3
   Section 25: Walking up and down in it (0:59): MP3
   Section 26: Feeling that pulsation as if in vigil (0:59): MP3
   Section 27: It's hard for me to talk about poetry (2:29): MP3
   Section 28: The antics of the waning moon at dawn (0:27): MP3
   Section 29: So she stole her father's teraphim (1:24): MP3
   Section 30: The distant water (1:01): MP3
   Section 31: There is a space beyond (0:51): MP3
   Section 32: What is important and what is not (1:11): MP3
   Section 33: That dazzling blue teardrop (0:27): MP3
   Section 34: To mothers who cannot (1:23): MP3
   Section 35: The terrible political moment, after the demo (0:14): MP3
   Section 36: Rain cloud caught in the valley (0:18): MP3
   Section 37: A little breath, a bird (1:38): MP3
   Section 38: The sofa holds a wrinkled nude (0:26): MP3
   Section 39: Once again a sense of occurrence (0:30): MP3
   Section 40: Can only write hungry (0:57): MP3

See Also: DuPlessis' readings of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats, recorded that same day

Studio 111 Session produced by Michael S. Hennessey

Close Listening recording session at Studio 111, the University of Pennsylvania, April 27, 2005

A Conversation with Rachel Blau DuPlessis, with host Charles Bernstein (36:02)

From Drafts 1-38, Toll (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)

1. Draft 20 - Incipit (5:35): MP3
2. excerpt from Draft 19: Working Conditions (4:16): MP3 (from LIVE KWH/WXPN radio show)
3. Draft 25 - Segno (5:34): MP3 [ALSO, from KWH LIVE Draft Twenty-Five Seigno (4:53): MP3]

From Poker 4 (Summer 2004)

4. 4. Draft 63 - Dialogue of Self & Soul (6:49): MP3

From: Drafts. Drafts 39-57, Pledge with Draft, unnumbered (Salt, Cambridge, England, 2004) & Torques: Drafts 58-76 (Salt, 2007)

5. Draft 46 - Edge (9:18): MP3
6. Draft 64 - Forward Slash (5:05) (unpublished): MP3
7. 4 Sections from Draft 51 - Clay Songs (12:34): MP3
8. Draft 61 - Pyx (5:21): MP3

produced by Charles Bernstein

recording engineer: Chris Mustazza

American Philosophical Society Celebration of Marjorie Perloff, KWH, UPenn, November 10, 2012

I'll Drown My Book Anthology Reading at the Kelly Writers House, October 17, 2012

1. from Draft 98: Canzone (3:34): MP3
2. from Collective Memory by Norma Cole (3:51): MP3

Convergence on Poetics, University of Washington Bothell, North Creek Events Center, September 27-30, 2012

• Rachel Blau DuPlessis (8:28): MP3
• complete recording (2:02:52): MP3


• listen to entire event here

All recordings made in the Audio Studio, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, New Zealand, and engineered by Jeanette McKerchar. Distributed by PennSound and New Zealand EPC.

March 27, 2012

Draft 49: Turns

• Turns 1 (21:13): MP3
• Turns 2 (14:10): MP3

Draft 51: Clay Songs

• Clay Songs 1 (2:04): MP3
• Clay Songs 2 (1:02): MP3
• Clay Songs 3 (0:34): MP3
• Clay Songs 4 (0:50): MP3
• Clay Songs 5 (0:52): MP3
• Clay Songs 6 (0:44): MP3
• Clay Songs 7 (0:39): MP3
• Clay Songs 8 (1:02): MP3
• Clay Songs 9 (1:20): MP3
• Clay Songs 10 (1:40): MP3
• Clay Songs 11 (1:26): MP3
• Clay Songs 12 (2:04): MP3


• Clay Songs, complete recording (14:17): MP3

Draft 53: Eclogue

• Eclogue 1 (1:13): MP3
• Eclogue 2 (0:24): MP3
• Eclogue 3 (0:55): MP3
• Eclogue 4 (0:41): MP3
• Eclogue 5 (1:07): MP3
• Eclogue 6 (1:04): MP3
• Eclogue 7 (1:08): MP3
• Eclogue 8 (0:24): MP3
• Eclogue 9 (0:40): MP3
• Eclogue 10 (0:46): MP3
• Eclogue 11 (0:39): MP3
• Eclogue 12 (0:28): MP3
• Eclogue 13 (0:46): MP3
• Eclogue 14 (0:45): MP3
• Eclogue 15 (0:51): MP3
• Eclogue 16 (0:47): MP3
• Eclogue 17 (1:02): MP3
• Eclogue 18 (1:30): MP3
• Eclogue 19 (2:28): MP3
• Eclogue 20 (0:56): MP3
• Eclogue 21 (1:52): MP3


• Eclogue, complete recording (20:25): MP3

March 16, 2012

Draft 74: Wanderer

• Wanderer 1 (2:08): MP3
• Wanderer 2 (2:22): MP3
• Wanderer 3 (2:04): MP3
• Wanderer 4 (1:45): MP3
• Wanderer 5 (2:32): MP3
• Wanderer 6 (2:50): MP3
• Wanderer 7 (1:19): MP3
• Wanderer 8 (1:05): MP3
• Wanderer 9 (1:30): MP3
• Wanderer 10 (1:40): MP3
• Wanderer 11 (1:49): MP3
• Wanderer 12 (1:07): MP3
• Wanderer 13 (1:38): MP3
• Wanderer 14 (1:27): MP3


• Wanderer, complete recording (25:11): MP3

Draft 87: Trace Elements

• Trace Elements 1 (7:57): MP3
• Trace Elements 2 (9:22): MP3
• Trace Elements 3 (11:17): MP3
• Trace Elements 4 (8:38): MP3
• Trace Elements 5 (8:24): MP3


• Trace Elements, complete recording (45:38): MP3

March 15, 2012

Draft 102: One-on-One

• One-on-One (7:07): MP3

Draft 103: Punctum

• Punctum 1 (2:50): MP3
• Punctum 2 (1:41): MP3
• Punctum 3 (1:29): MP3
• Punctum 4 (1:13): MP3
• Punctum 5 (0:21): MP3
• Punctum 6 (2:13): MP3
• Punctum 7 (0:55): MP3
• Punctum 8 (1:14): MP3
• Punctum 9 (1:21): MP3
• Punctum 10 (0:55): MP3
• Punctum 11 (1:58): MP3


• Punctum, complete recording (16:09): MP3

Draft 109: Wall Newspaper

• Wall Newspaper 1 (10:22): MP3
• Wall Newspaper 2 (9:12): MP3
• Wall Newspaper 3 (9:18): MP3
• Wall Newspaper 4 (1:29): MP3
• Wall Newspaper 5 (9:50): MP3


• Wall Newspaper, complete recording (40:10): MP3

Reading at Jerome Rothenberg's 80th Birthday Tribute, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, December 9, 2011

Rachel Blau DuPlessis Celebration, Temple University, October 21, 2011

• complete reading (43:49): MP3

PoemTalk Podcast #41, discussing Ezra Pound's "Canto III," March 15, 2011

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

Reading at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, March 7, 2011

1. Introduction by Joseph Harrington (2:41): MP3
2. Draft 95: Erg (9:30): MP3
3. Draft 96: Velocity (7:44): MP3
4. Draft 98: Canzone (11:33): MP3
5. Draft 104: The Book (6:30): MP3
6. Draft 105: Pilgrimage (read with Joseph Harrington) (7:28): MP3

Special thanks to Benjamin Cartwright for making this recording available.

Whenever We Feel Like It, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, March 3, 2011

• complete reading (56:32): MP3

Poetry in 1960 - A Symposium at The Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, December 6, 2010

on Second Avenue by Frank O'Hara (6:00): MP3

complete program (2:20:13): MP3

PoemTalk Podcast #34, discussing Charles Olson's Maximus poems, July 26, 2010

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk Podcast #28, discussing Jack Spicer's "Psychoanalysis: An Elegy," February 3, 2010

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

MLA Off-Site Reading at the Rotunda, Philadelphia, December 29, 2009

• complete reading (2:36:46): MP3

Reading from Poems for the Millennium III, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, October 7, 2009

Complete Reading (12:04): MP3

Reading for the Arcade Taberna Reading Series, David Need and Jehanne Gheith's House, Durham N.C., April 24, 2009

• complete reading (41:50): MP3

Reading for the So and So Series, co-curated by Chris Tonelli and Christopher Salerno, Raleigh, N.C., February 21, 2009

• complete recording (7:20): MP3

Statement made for the celebration of Ron Silliman's The Alphabet, February 2009

Complete Recording (10:43): MP3

PoemTalk Podcast #8, discussing Armantrout's "The Way," July 7, 2008

From A Celebration of George Oppen's 100th Birthday at the Kelly Writers House, April 7, 2008

"Section 9: Of Being Numerous" (7:54): MP3

PoemTalk Podcast #4, discussing Ginsberg's "The Garden of Love," March 4, 2008

Reading at the Kelly Writers House, February 5, 2008

1. Introduction (4:52): MP3
2. Draft 64: Forward Slash (8:06): MP3
3. from Draft 74: Wanderer (10:55): MP3
4. Draft 88: X-Posting (a variation on Ingeborg Bachmann's "Keine Delikatessen") (16:25): MP3
5. from Draft 85: Hard Copy (12:47): MP3

Complete Reading (54:17): MP3

Selected portions of this event were recorded:

PoemTalk Podcast #3, discussing Oppen's "Ballad," Kelly Writers House, February 2, 2008

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, January 19, 2008

Complete reading (29:55): MP3

MLA Offsite Series Reading in Philadelphia, December 26, 2006

• reading from Draft 75: Doggerel (3:08): MP3

Poetry and Empire: Post-Invasion Poetics, presented at the ICA, University of Pennsylvania, 2003

• reading Friday, October 17, 2003: from Draft 51: Clay Songs, from Precis (6:27): MP3
• reading Saturday, October 18, 2003 (4:28): MP3

DuPlessis and class in discussion with Alice Notley, Temple University, February 20, 2001

• complete discussion (2:08:11): MP3

on Virginia Woolf, from Nine Contemporary Poets Read Themselves Through Modernism at the Kelly Writers House, October 13, 2000

• Draft 38: Georgics and Shadow (10:28): MP3
• Draft 48: Being Astonished (11:54): MP3

from PhillyTalks Episode #13, November 15, 1999

• from Draft 48: Being Astonished (6:47): MP3
• Draft 41: Of This (18:56): MP3

Reading for LIVE at the Writers House, Episode 10, University of Pennsylvania, September 14, 1998

1. Draft Twenty-Five Seigno (4:52): MP3
2. Excerpt from Draft Nineteen Working C (4:16): MP3

Part 1: Panel on the Objectivist poets (1:42:15): MP3
Part 2: Complete discussion (1:32:50): MP3 (note: recording is of extremely poor quality)

Special thanks to Rachel Blau DuPlessis for making these recordings available.

MLA Offsite Series Reading at the Four Seasons Hotel, Washington D.C., December 27, 1996

1. reading from Draft 29: Intellectual Autobiography (4:22): MP3
2. reading from Draft 23: Findings (3:43): MP3

Segue Series reading at The Ear Inn, New York, April 24, 1993

• complete recording (11:39): MP3

Reading for Wednesday @ Four Plus, University of Buffalo, April 17, 1991

1. from "Acknowledgments" (3:50): MP3
2. The Pink Guitar (48:12): MP3

Reading at Robin's Books, Philadelphia, May 11, 1988

1. Introductory comments (2:54): MP3
2. Attar (from Tabula Rosa) (1:40): MP3
3. Introduction to Drafts (1:48): MP3
4. Draft 2: She (11:54): MP3
5. Draft 3: Of (9:40): MP3
6. Draft 6: Midrush (12:46): MP3
7. Draft 7: Me (6:31): MP3

(this track cuts off prematurely)

complete reading (48:23): MP3

(recording courtesy of the Herschel Baron Collection)

Reading at Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee, WI March 27, 1988

1. Introduction (2:44): MP3
2. From H.D.: The Career of That Struggle (1:06): MP3
3. From Other-how (4:29): MP3
4. Praxilla's Silliness (7:38): MP3
5. Rupturing the History of Poetry by the History of Poetry (4:12): MP3
6. Introduction to Crowbar (3:35): MP3
7. Crowbar (17:52): MP3

Complete Reading (42:23): MP3

8. Discussing Drafts (3:50): MP3
9. Draft 2: She (13:07): MP3
10. Introduction to Draft 6 (5:30): MP3
11. Draft 6 (10:08): MP3

Complete Reading (42:56): MP3

St. Mark's Talks, June 6, 1985

• "The Tradition of Marginality"


• Kathleen Fraser (31:42): MP3
• Rachel Blau DuPlessis (26:47): MP3
• discussion (1:20:30): MP3

Reading at the Tyler School of Art April 10, 1985

1. From Wells (2:29): MP3
2. Writing (7:18): MP3
3. Crowbar (17:14): MP3

Complete Reading (27:33): MP3

Panel Discussion on Image/ Imaging at the Tyler School of Art April 10, 1985. With Clark Coolidge, Michael Palmer, John Yau, and Geoffrey Young

• Part One (32:50): MP3
• Part Two (32:35): MP3

Reading at Intersection in San Francisco May 4, 1982

1. Introduction to Selections from Wells (2:04): MP3
2. From Wells: Euridice (5:24): MP3
3. From Wells: Medusa (6:57): MP3
4. From: A History of Poetry (9:30): MP3
5. Excerpt from Wells: (2:13): MP3
6. Ode in Six Parts (15:20): MP3

Complete Reading (43:41): MP3

Writers Talk with Mary Oppen, Anita Barrows and Frances Jaffer, Produced by Norma Smith at KPFA Berkeley, 1985 or 1986

• Part One (28:00): MP3
• Part Two (26:30): MP3

DuPlessis and class in Discussion with Susan Howe, 1986

• Part One (49:20): MP3
• Part Two (45:45): MP3

See also: The Louis Zukofsky Centennial Conference at Columbia University and Barnard College, September 17-19, 2004 for video footage of Duplessis' presentation.

Also of interest:

• I'll Drown My Book, a celebration of the I'll Drown My Book anthology held at the Kelly Writers House, October 17, 2012

Rachel Blau Duplessis on PennSound Daily

• July 25, 2008: "Coolidge, DuPlessis, Palmer, Yau, Young: Readings and Roundtable at Tyler School of Art, 1985"
• March 17, 2008: "Vintage Rachel Blau Duplessis: Robin's Books, 1988"
• February 22, 2008: "Rachel Blau Duplessis at the Kelly Writers House"
• October 19, 2007: "Rachel Blau Duplessis' Studio 111"

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2005-2008 Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Studio 111 conversation © 2005 Rachel Blau DuPlessis/Charles Bernstein. Used with permission of Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Distributed by PennSound.