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Walter Lowenfels
From the jacket of Walter Lowenfels: Reality Prime, Selected Poems

Walter Lowenfels


Reading at Temple University February 25, 1965

First Part
  1. Found Poem (1:40): MP3
  2. From To An Imaginary Daughter (2:16): MP3
  3. Award (2:37): MP3
  4. Every Poem is a Love Poem (2:52): MP3
  5. To a Hemiplegic (1:42): MP3
  6. My Spectrum Analysis (2:30): MP3
  7. The Weak (2:58): MP3
  8. A Person is Like a Clock; a Child's Poem (0:44): MP3
  9. Vietnam #4 by Clarence Major (0:53): MP3
  10. "I'm Signing in..." (1:06): MP3
  11. From the Power and Industrial Machinery Exhibit (3:10): MP3
  12. Status Symbol by Mari Evans (1:15): MP3
  13. For an Unsuccessful Suicide (cuts off abruptly) (7:42): MP3
    14. Complete Reading (31:58): MP3
Part Two
  1. Introduction and Discussion of the Politics of Poetry (3:21): MP3
  2. American Voices (6:35): MP3
    3. Complete Reading (10:20): MP3

Interviewed by Bob Foney June 24, 1962

Foney and Lowenfels discuss Lowenfels's poetry writing in Paris and why he quit writing poetry and became a journalist.
  • First Part (55:21): MP3
  • Second Part (44:14): MP3


    • Discussion with Lawsen Lipton at Lipton's House in the San Fernando Valley (Date Unknown)

    1. relationship between culture, writing, and politics (8:48): MP3
    2. Lipton on cultural people vs political people (4:29): MP3
    3. periodicals in turmoil (5:07): MP3
    4. poetry reading lesson (7:52): MP3
    5. poetry as a verbal tradition (1:47): MP3
    6. relationship to the audience (6:01): MP3
    7. mass appeal, poetry, and electronic transmission (4:06): MP3
    8. interpenetrating levels of meaning and intermixing poetry and music (4:17): MP3
    9. consideration of the tradition of combining poetry and music (2:13): MP3
    10. a new class of audience (4:55): MP3
    11. the changing audience (3:29): MP3
      Complete Interview (53:55): MP3


    Lowenfels Speaking on the History of his career with Lawsen Lipton and Jack Lawsen (Date and Location Unknown)

    • Part One (1:02:22): MP3
    • Part Two (32:40): MP3


      • Lowenfels Leading a Poetry Reading of Poetry about Vietnam at Hunter College (Date and Unknown)

      • Complete Reading (59:04): MP3


      Lecture on Walt Whitman, May 25, 1969 (Location Unknown)

      1. Whitman's many loves and his relevance (3:02): MP3
      2. Whitman in context (2:03): MP3
      3. Life before Leaves of Grass (1:05): MP3
      4. Leaves of Grass "germinates" (1:42): MP3
      5. An introduction to Whitman's love poems and reading 24 from "Song of Myself" (2:52): MP3
      6. "Nothing Furtive About It" : Whitman's love for men (3:01): MP3
      7. Reading 122 from Leaves of Grass "Vigil strange I kept on the field one night..." (3:06): MP3
      8. Whitman's sexuality and love affairs (3:27): MP3
      9. Refusal to edit love poems (1:04): MP3
      10. Reading 20 from Leaves of Grass "A woman waits for me.." (0:57): MP3
      11. Sexual encounters and the mysterious #164 (2:50): MP3
      12. The identity of "Frenchie" (3:31): MP3
      13. Women who loved Whitman (2:09): MP3
      14. Whitman's great secret: living one life in his books, and one outside them (2:22): MP3
      15. Explanation of Whitman's sexuality (2:38): MP3
      16. Whitman's great capacity for Love (5:56): MP3
      17. Whitman's "cosmic liberalism" : Whitman and the worker (4:13): MP3
      18. Whitman as a writer: his relationships with people and with words (5:07): MP3
      19. Whitman's vision (1:56): MP3
        20. Complete Lecture (52:59): MP3


      Reading from Sonnets of Love and Liberty and Other Poems(Date and Location Unknown)

      Featured Poems: Albert Einstein, The Audience, To Lillian Lowenfels
      1. Introduction (0:59): MP3
      2. Sonnet Dedicated to Albert Einstein (1:04): MP3
      3. Sonnet Dedicated to the Audience "I confided my hope to more than trees..."(0:55): MP3
      4. Sonnet Dedicated to Walter Lowenfels's wife, Lillian Lowenfels "Say now as we move closer..." (0:55): MP3
      5. Sonnet "Tear out the spring..." (1:05): MP3
      6. Sonnet Dedicated to Lillian Lowenfels "The festive board groans..." (0:55): MP3
      7. Sonnet Dedicated to Lillian Lowenfels "The act of you in my mind is sculptural..." (0:58): MP3
      8. Sonnet Dedicated to the Audience "Extract your hydrogen softly from the sun..." (0:58): MP3
      9. Sonnet Dedicated to Lillian Lowenfels "When eyes cry no no no..." (0:58): MP3
      10. Sonnet Dedicated to Lillian Lowenfels "If on some beachet of times..." (0:40): MP3
      11. Sonnet Dedicated to Lillian Lowenfels "The instant that we touch..." (0:52): MP3
      12. Sea Scape (0:40): MP3
      13. Spring Song (0:32): MP3
      14. Poem for a Six Year Old Girl (1:35): MP3
      15. From the Exposition of Power and Industrial Machinery (1:42): MP3
      16. Excerpts from The Suicide, For Hart Crane (5:02): MP3
      17. Elegie to Appolinaire (6:45): MP3
      18. To Giordano Bruno (2:32): MP3

        Complete Reading (29:37): MP3


      Discussion of Paris in the 20's and 30's (Date and Location Unknown)

      • Complete Discussion (1:02:42): MP3


      Lowenfels Talking and Answering Questions about His Writing with Audience Members (Date and Location Unknown)

      Complete Discussion (18:52): MP3


      Reading Poetry Against War and Other Poems (Date and Location Unknown)

      1. Mr. President (12:23): MP3
      2. Goodbye Jargon: Elegie for the Small Press (2:53): MP3
      3. Lines for Giordano Bruno (4:04): MP3
      4. Comments on Poetry (7:20): MP3
      5. For a Hemiplegic (2:26): MP3

        6. Complete Reading (29:16): MP3


      Reading Poems into the Record at the Recording Studios at the Library of Congress (Date Unknown)

      1. The Suicide (14:36): MP3
      2. From the Exposition of Power and Industrial Machinery (1:41): MP3
      3. For an Imaginary Daughter (8:40): MP3
      4. Sonnet for Lillian Lowenfels "The festive board groans..." (1:58): MP3
      5. Letter to the President (4:23): MP3
        Complete Reading (31:38): MP3


      Reading and talk about poetry, including introduction by Alan DeLoach (Date unknown)

      At University of Buffalo
      Complete recording (1:06:25): MP3


      On Walt Whitman and the American Marxist approach to Whitman

      Discussion with Peter Horn (then of University of Wisconsin), April 11, 1966, recorded in Mays Landing, NJ
      Complete recording (1:19:08): MP3


      Eulogy for Michael Fraenkel (Date unknown)

      Complete recording (18:33): MP3
      Michael Fraenkel (1896-1957) was born in Lithuania, raised in New York City, and worked in the book trade before going to Paris in 1926 to write. Over the next 12 years he spent most of his time in France, where his circle of friends included Henry Miller, Walter Lowenfels and Anais Nin. Lowenfels and Fraenkel became close in 1929, by which time Fraenkel had drafted Werther's Younger Brother (published 1930), the first formulation of his ideas about death, and Lowenfels had completed USA with Music (1930), a play inspired by the killing of several striking minors in Herrin, Illinois. Together the two writesr formed a publishing venture called "Carrefour." The first Carrefour publication was Anonymous: the Need for Anonymity, a joint manifesto. In 1970 Lowenfels and Howard McCord published The Life of Fraenkel's Death: A Biographical Inquest.


      Discussion with Alan DeLoach, March 24, 1969

      With John Wieners and Lillian Lowenfels
      Complete recording (53:01): MP3


      Reading at New York University, New York, November 13, 1969

      Complete recording (23:54): MP3



      For more information on Lowenfels' manuscripts and papers, please visit Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library


      Walter Lowenfels on PennSound Daily



      These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only.
      © 2008 Judy Jacobs and the estate of Walter Lowenfels. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Distributed by PennSound.