Featured resources
From "Down To Write You This Poem Sat" at the Oakville Gallery
- Charles Bernstein, "Phone Poem" (2011) (1:30): MP3
- Caroline Bergvall, "Love song: 'The Not Tale (funeral)' from Shorter Caucer Tales (2006): MP3
- Christian Bôk, excerpt from Eunoia, from Chapter "I" for Dick Higgins (2009) (1:38): MP3
- Tonya Foster, Nocturne II (0:40) (2010) MP3
- Ted Greenwald, "The Pears are the Pears" (2005) (0:29): MP3
- Susan Howe, Thorow, III (3:13) (1998): MP3
- Tan Lin, "¼ : 1 foot" (2005) (1:16): MP3
- Steve McCaffery, "Cappuccino" (1995) (2:35): MP3
- Tracie Morris, From "Slave Sho to Video aka Black but Beautiful" (2002) (3:40): MP3
- Julie Patton, "Scribbling thru the Times" (2016) (5:12): MP3
- Tom Raworth, "Errory" (c. 1975) (2:08): MP3
- Jerome Rothenberg, from "The First Horse Song of Frank Mitchell: 4-Voice Version" (c. 1975) (3:30): MP3
- Cecilia Vicuna, "When This Language Disappeared" (2009) (1:30): MP3
- Guillaume Apollinaire, "Le Pont Mirabeau" (1913) (1:14):
MP3
- Amiri Baraka, "Black Dada Nihilismus" (1964) (4:02): MP3
- Louise Bennett, "Colonization in Reverse" (1983) (1:09): MP3
- Sterling Brown, "Old Lem " (c. 1950s) (2:06): MP3
- John Clare, "Vowelless Letter" (1849) performed by Charles Bernstein (2:54): MP3
- Velimir Khlebnikov, "Incantation by Laughter" (1910), tr. and performed by Bernstein (:28) MP3
- Harry Partch, from Barstow (part 1), performed by Bernstein (1968) (1:11): MP3
- Leslie Scalapino, "Can’t’ is ‘Night’" (2007) (3:19): MP3
- Kurt Schwitters, "Ur Sonata: Largo" performed by Ernst Scwhitter (1922-1932) ( (3:12): MP3
- Gertrude Stein, If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso (1934-35) (3:42): MP3
- William Carlos Willliams, "The Defective Record" (1942) (0:28): MP3
- 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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Posted 3/15/2024
As part of my work to excavate, digitize, and contextualize one of the first poetry audio archives in US, The Speech Lab Recordings, I'm thrilled to announce a significant addition to the collection: new digitizations of previously unreleased Robert Frost recordings, made in the Speech Lab in 1933 and 1934.
These recordings, which may be the first recordings ever made of Frost, in one sense mark a departure from the aesthetic circumscription of the collection. Many of the poets who were recorded in Professors W. Cabell Greet and George W. Hibbitt's Columbia University lab built for the study of American dialects operated in a modernist tradition of formal innovation. From the collection's founding with the performance-forward, Dada-esque incantations of Vachel Lindsay through James Weldon Johnson's Afro-Modernist scoring of speech sounds and Gertrude Stein's proto-Language poetics, it's clear that the editors favored a particular strain of modernism.
But while Frost is known for his use of and variation upon traditional forms and rhyme schemes, his poetics do bear affinities to those of the more formally innovative poets recorded in the series, most especially his interest in the aural properties of the poem.
You can read more of his detailed intro here. The two sessions archived here were made in 1933 and 1934 and include iconic poems like "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Mending Wall," and "The Road Not Taken" along with "Dust of Snow," "Once by the Pacific," "Mowing," "Spring Pools," "Birches," "The Grindstone," "The Runaway," and "An Old Man's Winter Night," along with two takes of "The Code," which Mustazza singles out in his notes.
Posted 3/12/2024
We at PennSound regretfully share the news that beloved poet and critic Tyrone Williams passed away on March 11th at the age of 70. The author of numerous books, including c.c. (2002), On Spec (2008), "the Hero Project of the Century" (2009), Adventures of Pi (2011), Howell (2011), As Iz (2018) and washpark (with Pat Clifford, 2021), Williams had recently joined the SUNY-Buffalo faculty as David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters after a long teaching career at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Our own Charles Bernstein, shown with Williams at right, noted that both "had the honor" of leading the Buffalo Poetics Program as the David Gray Professor and offered this lament: "The pleasure of his company now so painfully the pleasure of his memory."
That's just one of many PoemTalk programs you'll find on PennSound's Tyrone Williams author page, along with a wide array of recordings from 2006 to the present. One of my favorites is Tyrone's brief intro set to a reading by Sueyeun Juliette Lee, whom he'd invited to Xavier University. It was early evening at the end of the semester, with an enthusiastic audience crowded into a classroom on a high floor, the sunset seeping in through the windows. As tired as I was that late in the semester, the experience was sublime. Not knowing about his illness, I had just reached out to Tyrone recently, with hopes that he'd be involved in a PennSound project that I was putting together, and had hoped I would see him at the upcoming Louisville Conference. Certainly, our city was already lessened by Tyrone's departure, but now the whole world knows that feeling just as well.
Posted 3/11/2024
Today we celebrate endlessly influential author and artist Joe Brainard, born on this day in 1942. Our Joe Brainard author page is anchored by four readings from the St. Mark's Poetry Project recorded between 1971 and 1981. They include copious excerpts from his magnum opus, I Remember, along with selections from his journals and numerous other pieces such as "Thanksgiving," "Insomnia," "Worry Wart," "The Zucchini Problem," "Today (Monday, February 23rd, 1981)," and "Sick Art." Additionally, you'll find excerpts from Train Ride read at SFSU in the mid-1970s and a stellar reading with Bill Berkson at Intersection for the Arts in 1971, plus more I Remember selections taken from a 1974 Giorno Poetry Systems session and a recording session at home in Calais, VT in 1970.
Filmmaker Matt Wolf (who directed the much-lauded Wild Combination, a documentary on the life of avant-pop cellist Arthur Russell) is back with an exciting new project — I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard — a haunting and gorgeous meditation that deftly intertwines both imagery and audio to create a compelling tribute to the artist and author. We're very glad to see Brainard commemorated in such grand fashion, and happier still that Wolf was was kind enough to share an exclusive clip with PennSound. In it, longtime friend, collaborator and confidante Ron Padgett discusses Brainard's early development as a visual artist and his ability to work confidently in a wide variety of media and forms, never becoming complacent in one style.
You'll find all of the recordings mentioned above by clicking here. It's also worth checking out Andrew Epstein's 2014 Brainard birthday post on his New York School-focused blog, Locus Solus, which features excerpts from a tribute poem by James Schuyler, excerpts from I Remember "thinking about birthdays, and our frustrating efforts to understand 'time,'" and a few examples of his artwork. Brainard's birthday is also a wonderful reason to revisit the Make Your Own Brainard site, where you can make your own collages using fragments from his visual work.
Want to read more? Visit the PennSound Daily archive.
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New at PennSound
- Richard Foreman at Segue / Artist Space, New York City, March 16, 2024
- Belladonna* GIST Event Reading featuring Peter Myers and Jameson Fitzpatrick, Brooklyn Central Library, February 24, 2024
- Six Poems by Giovanni Fontana
- Barbara Henning reading with Jaime Manrique, St. Mark's Poetry Project, January 27, 1993
- George Quasha reading crossroads angelics, Barrytown, NY, December 30, 2023
- Charles North reading for the William Corbett Poetry Series, MIT Virtual Event, April 21, 2022
- VOX Audio Collection, 2005–2011
- Fall 2023 readings at Boise State University's Hemingway Center: Peter Gizzi,
Dan Beachy-Quick, Srikanth Reddy, and Alice Notley
- New author page: Davide Balula
- Hugh Seidman: New Author Page
- Paul Dutton's Oralizations, actuellecd, 2005
- Richard Foreman's production of John Zorn's Astronome,
2010, film by Henry Hills
- Jena Osman and Adam Pendleton reading for the launch of A Very Large Array, Artbook @ MoMA PS1 Bookstore, October 21, 2023
- George Quasha reading mirroring by alterity, Barrytown, NY, September 29, 2023
- The Swan 20: Dorota Czerner, September 2, 2023
- Tracie Morris and Tongo Eisen-Martin performing for the Flow Chart Foundation, Hudson, NY, September 22, 2023
- Harryette Mullen on Morton Marcus's "The Poetry Show," KUSP, March 18, 1987
- Ann Lauterbach reading at 'T' Space, Rhinebeck, NY, July 8, 2017 and July 16, 2023
- George Quasha reading non binding horizon, Barrytown, NY, September 1, 2023
- Ron Padgett reading for the Yale Literary Magazine, November 1, 2022
- A reading with Chris Martin and Adam Wolfond, February 15, 2023
- Julia Bloch reading Valley Oak for PoemADay, August 12, 2023
- Clark Coolidge, The Painter's Poet: a talk on Philip Guston, Poets House, April 4, 2013
- Philip Whalen reading at National Poetry Festival, Allendale, MI, July, 1971
- Lew Welch reading The Song Mt. Tamalpais Sings, Planning and Conservation League, date unknown
- Philip Whalen reading at the Unicorn Bookshop, Santa Barbara, February 6, 1967
- Performance of Louis Zukofsky's "A"-24 Act I at UCSD New Writing Series, April 11, 1986.
- Leslie Scalapino reading in the USCD New Poetry Series, May 9, 1979
- Jerome Rothenberg and Bertram Turetzky Performing For Poet's Voice and Contrabass, 1984
- Hoa Nguyen reading at Kelly Writers House, February 28, 2023
- Joan Retallack reading and conversation for Kelly Writers House Fellows Program, February 20–21, 2023
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- Barbara Henning and Maureen Owen reading from Poets on the Road, May 27, 2023
- Ron Silliman and Lyn Hejinian reading, November 6, 1995
- Robert Creeley reading for Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles, April 16, 1990
- Thin Air Lectures with Ron Silliman, Alice Notley, Bernadette Mayer, and Ron Padgett, St. Marks Church, May 1988
- Kass Fleisher interview on The Bear River and the Making of History, Access Utah, Utah Public Radio, June 25, 2004
- Cliff Fyman reading, San Francisco, CA, June 11, 2023
- Charles Olson reads from Maximus Poems IV, V, VI, c. 1969
- The Marginalization of Poetry, Segue Series at Double Happiness, NYC, March 22, 1997
- Adam Fieled reading from Equations: The Thesis Episodes, Carriage Hill, Plymouth Township, 2023
- New videos for Aaron Kramer
- Thomas Devaney reading at Wexler Studio, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, May 30, 2023
- New video of Joan Retallack for Alternative Poetries and Alternative Pedagogies Reading and Discussion at the Kelly Writers House, February 28, 2001
- George Quasha reading waking from myself, Barrytown, NY, May 20, 2023
- Clark Coolidge reading from A Book
Beginning What and Ending Away for 80 Langton Street Writers In Residence Readings,
October 15–21, 1979
- Vincent Katz reading at Green Arcade, SF, November 18, 2022
- George Quasha reading flayed flaws & other finagled opacities, Barrytown, NY, May 5, 2023
- Joel Newberger's The Swan reading series, nos. 2 & 25
- William Fuller Wexler Studio Recording Session, March 16, 2023
- Newly Segmented: Charles Borkhuis Segue Reading, November 18, 2006
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