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John Yau


photo © 2007 Charles Bernstein/PennSound

Appearing on Close Listening with Charles Bernstein, May 30, 2007

WPS1, Clocktower Studio, New York

Program One: Reading

    from Borrowed Love Poems

  1. Russian Letters (0:30): MP3
  2. 830 Fireplace Road (1:06): MP3
  3. Domestic Bliss (1:19): MP3
  4. Borrowed Love Poems (3:53): MP3
  5. from Ing Grish

  6. Untitled Portrait #1 (1:10): MP3
  7. English for You #10 (1:09): MP3
  8. Ing Grish (5:18): MP3 text
  9. from Paradiso Diaspora

  10. Conversation After Midnight (3:06): MP3
  11. Sotto Voce (7:45): MP3

Complete program (28:00): MP3

Program Two: Conversation

  • Complete conversation (29:02): MP3

Studio Engineer: Lucy Simanjuntak


Reading at Pioneer Works, Red Hook, Brooklyn, December 8, 2015

John Ashbery celebration featuring readings by Geoffery G. O’Brien, Mónica de la Torre, and John Yau, with opening remarks for John Ashbery by Ben Lerner. Further information on this event can be found at the Pioneer Works programs archive, here.

Complete recording (1:17:07): MP3

Reading at the Kelly Writers House, April 21, 2015

Watch on Media.sas

Complete recording (1:01:14): MP3

Conversation with Students in Charles Bernstein's ENG 288 class, University of Pennsylvania, April 21, 2015

Complete recording (1:17:29): MP3

Reading for the Readings in Contemporary Poetry series at Dia Art Foundation, New York:Chelsea, May 13, 2013

with Arlo Quint

  1. Ing Grish (6:17): MP3
  2. Egyptian Sonnet 2 (1:44): MP3
  3. Egyptian Sonnet 5 (0:49): MP3
  4. Ventriloquist (4:22): MP3
  5. Confessions from a Recycled Shopping Bag (1:37): MP3
  6. Genghis Chan: Private Eye XXVII (1:26): MP3
  7. Genghis Chan: Private Eye LXIII (1:21): MP3
  8. From "My Latest Adventures in Monochrome" (4:06): MP3
  9. My Latest Adventures in Monochrome 4 (5:59): MP3
  10. Why I Resigned from the Delmore Schwartz Fan Club (5:31): MP3
  11. Alphabetical Insults (1:08): MP3
  12. The Blackest Black Forest (2:19): MP3
  13. Three Not Four Seasons (2:44): MP3
  • Complete reading (39:49): MP3


Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, April 24, 2010

  1. introduction (2:51): MP3
  2. Variation on Tristan Tzara's Recipe To Make A Dadaist Poem (6:44): MP3
  3. Bungler Draped in Bangles Does Not a Burglar Make (4:56): MP3
  4. 100 Poems (10:34): MP3
  5. On the Way to Mount Rushmore (2:11): MP3
  6. Chinese Nightingales (2:06): MP3
Complete reading (30:28): MP3

From Charles Bernstein's Portraits Series: John Yau, May 30, 2007

Watch on Media.sas

The Language of Bears
Even the literal is metaphoric. My claws have grown into fingers.
(mp4, 40 sec., 9.2 mb)


Reading at George Mason University, September 29, 2006

Reading for the Segue Series at Double Happiness, New York, December 1, 2001

  1. introduction (2:06): MP3
  2. Do You Speak Flemish? (2:39): MP3
  3. Conversation After Midnight (3:26): MP3
  4. Ingrish (5:53): MP3
  5. Samarkand (2:22): MP3
  6. What Takes Place at the Bus Station (1:48): MP3
  7. The List (1:14): MP3
  8. Cadmium Deposits (2:46): MP3
  9. Film Adapatations of Five of America's Best Loved Poems (4:53): MP3
  10. I Was a Poet in the House of Frankenstein (10:54): MP3
  11. Another Late Tale (7:01): MP3
  • Complete recording (45:02): MP3

Reading for the Segue Series at Double Happiness, New York, February 12, 2000

  1. Introduction (5:31): MP3
  2. A Poem for the Chinese New Year (5:31): MP3
  3. Film Adaptations of Five of America's Favorite Poems (11:10): MP3
  4. Peter Lorre Reminisces about Being a Sidekick (5:22): MP3
  5. 100 Views of the Port of Baltimore (1:47): MP3
  6. Life on a Loading Dock (1:33): MP3
  7. Movies as a Form of Reincarnation (3:27): MP3
  8. 1001 Nights (3:44): MP3
  9. Final Poem (1:33): MP3

Complete reading (40:15): MP3

Alumni Writers Series with John Yau and Jeremy Sigler, Kelly Writers House, April 7, 1999

Complete recording (1:35:08): MP3

Wednesdays at 4Plus, University at Buffalo, February 4, 1998

  1. introduction (7:11): MP3
  2. Variations on a Sentence by Laura (Riding) Jackson (2:42): MP3
  3. Third Metabolic Isthmus Sestina (2:37): MP3
  4. First Self-Portrait with Rilke (0:32): MP3
  5. Second Self-Portrait with Rilke (0:31): MP3
  6. Third Self-Portrait with Rilke (0:28): MP3
  7. Fourth Self-Portrait with Rilke (0:29): MP3
  8. Fifth Self-Portrait with Rilke (0:31): MP3
  9. Drinking Song for Trakl 1 (1:39): MP3
  10. Drinking Song for Trakl 2 (0:44): MP3
  11. Drinking Song for Trakl 3 (0:30): MP3
  12. Drinking Song for Trakl 4 (0:51): MP3
  13. Lounge Wizard (0:42): MP3
  14. Post-Positive (2:00: MP3
  15. Architecture Inc. (2:32): MP3
  16. Peter Lorre Dreams He Is the Third Reincarnation of a Geisha (5:17): MP3
  17. Peter Lorre Wonders Which Artist Should Paint His Portrait (4:39): MP3
  18. Angel Atrapado XXII (2:52): MP3
  19. Angel Atrapado XXIV (2:53): MP3
  20. Dear Reader (2:09): MP3
  21. Correlation (2:43): MP3
  22. Green Angel (10:21): MP3
Complete reading (48:08): MP3

Reading at Tyler School of Art

  1. Corpse and Mirror III (3:14): MP3
  2. Late Night Movies (2:50): MP3
  3. Shanhai Shenanigans (0:43): MP3
  4. 6 Poems Based on The Fallacies of Enoch by Malcolm Morley (3:58): MP3

Panel Discussion at the Tyler School of Art on Image/ Imaging April 10, 1985

With Clark Coolidge, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Michael Palmer, and Geoffrey Young.

  1. Introduction by David Hannah (6:58): MP3
  2. Part One (32:50): MP3
  3. Part Two (32:35): MP3

(Recording courtesy of Rachel Blau DuPlessis)

  1. tenets of Imagism (2:40): MP3
  2. Clark Coolidge on logopeia and the movement of language (4:01): MP3
  3. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on the rejection of "poetic material" and imaging as a site of struggle (3:28): MP3
  4. Michael Palmer on the economy of the poem, the diffusing of Imagism, vorticism and objectification in the body of the poem (11:51): MP3
  5. John Yau on stereotypes of the writer and the structure of images one is allowed to produce (3:45): MP3
  6. on T.S. Eliot and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (4:23): MP3
  7. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on the politics of prosody, the hierarchy of the text and destroying language while using language (3:09): MP3
  8. on the totality of the image (2:55): MP3
  9. on the visual aspect of words on a pagge (6:05): MP3
  10. Michael Palmer on the apparition of visual images in his work (1:40): MP3
  11. John Yau on field verse, the source of images, and cues in language (4:03): MP3
  12. on the source of dreams and the harmony of the work (3:32): MP3
  13. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on being a woman writer, rupturing the images of a culture, and stealing other people's images (5:20): MP3
  14. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on deconstructing socially mandated discourses (3:08): MP3
  15. Michael Palmer on the analytic-lyric (1:02): MP3
  16. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on the place of woman as constructed site and the difference between a feminine and a female poetry (3:46): MP3

Appearing on Public Access Poetry with Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, July 21, 1977

John Yau on PennSound Daily

Also of interest on PennSound:

  • Al Filreis reading John Yau's "830 Fireplace Road" (2:39): MP3

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2015 John Yau. Used with permission of John Yau. Distributed by PennSound.