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From "Down To Write You This Poem Sat" at the Oakville Gallery

Contemporary
  1. Charles Bernstein, "Phone Poem" (2011) (1:30): MP3
  2. Caroline Bergvall, "Love song: 'The Not Tale (funeral)' from Shorter Caucer Tales (2006): MP3
  3. Christian Bôk, excerpt from Eunoia, from Chapter "I" for Dick Higgins (2009) (1:38):  MP3
  4. Tonya Foster, Nocturne II (0:40) (2010) MP3
  5. Ted Greenwald, "The Pears are the Pears" (2005) (0:29): MP3
  6. Susan Howe, Thorow, III (3:13) (1998):  MP3
  7. Tan Lin, "¼ : 1 foot" (2005) (1:16): MP3
  8. Steve McCaffery, "Cappuccino" (1995) (2:35): MP3
  9. Tracie Morris, From "Slave Sho to Video aka Black but Beautiful" (2002) (3:40): MP3
  10. Julie Patton, "Scribbling thru the Times" (2016) (5:12): MP3
  11. Tom Raworth, "Errory" (c. 1975) (2:08): MP3
  12. Jerome Rothenberg, from "The First Horse Song of Frank Mitchell: 4-Voice Version" (c. 1975) (3:30): MP3
  13. Cecilia Vicuna, "When This Language Disappeared" (2009) (1:30): MP3
Historical
  1. Guillaume Apollinaire, "Le Pont Mirabeau" (1913) (1:14): MP3
  2. Amiri Baraka, "Black Dada Nihilismus" (1964) (4:02):  MP3
  3. Louise Bennett, "Colonization in Reverse" (1983) (1:09): MP3
  4. Sterling Brown, "Old Lem " (c. 1950s) (2:06):  MP3
  5. John Clare, "Vowelless Letter" (1849) performed by Charles Bernstein (2:54): MP3
  6. Velimir Khlebnikov, "Incantation by Laughter" (1910), tr. and performed by Bernstein (:28)  MP3
  7. Harry Partch, from Barstow (part 1), performed by Bernstein (1968) (1:11): MP3
  8. Leslie Scalapino, "Can’t’ is ‘Night’" (2007) (3:19): MP3
  9. Kurt Schwitters, "Ur Sonata: Largo" performed by Ernst Scwhitter (1922-1932) ( (3:12): MP3
  10. Gertrude Stein, If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso (1934-35) (3:42): MP3
  11. William Carlos Willliams, "The Defective Record" (1942) (0:28): MP3
  12. 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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Bob Holman Discusses 'Language Matters,' 2015

Posted 4/25/2025

Today we revisit a 2015 conversation between Al Filreis and Bob Holman, the host of Language Matters, David Grubin's documentary series that premiered on PBS stations earlier that year. "There are over 6000 languages in the whole world," the film's synopsis begins, "We lose one every two weeks. Hundreds will be lost within the next generation. By the end of this century, half of the world's languages will have vanished. What do we lose when a language dies? What does it take to save a language?"

This thirty-six minute recording was made on February 19, 2015 at the Kelly Writers House after a special screening of Language Matters, which brought out a very diverse audience of Philadelphians, from literary scholars to historians to language specialists, who offer their comments on the film and pose questions to Holman. What's perhaps most fascinating here is how balanced the dialogue is here, with audience members making considerable contributions to the discussion from their own experience and disciplines, alongside Holman's "language activist" perspective and Filreis' guidance.

You can watch this video on PennSound's Bob Holman author page, along with numerous recordings going back  as far as two Public Access Poetry programs from the late 70s. Other highlights include several appearances on Cross Cultural Poetics, and Holman's album In With the Out Crowd, produced by the legendary Hal Willner.


'Living and Seeing Charles Reznikoff' (2024)

Posted 4/23/2025

Today we proudly announce the addition of Living and Seeing Charles Reznikoff to our site. The 2024 documentary, directed by Xavier Kalck, Naomi Toth, and Fiona McMahon, features contributions from Mark Scroggins, Norman Finkelstein, Stephen Fredman, Jena Osman, Dara Barnat, Sarug Serano, Carlos Soto Román, Ranen Omer-Sherman, and Ariel Resnikoff. Here is how the filmmakers introduce the documentary:
Born in a Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn at the end of the 19th century, the poet Charles Reznikoff addressed the human experience in all its forms. Pioneering the appropriation of court records, Reznikoff's documentary poetry draws up a searing portrait of the United States, while his plain verse work eschews lyricism and teases out threads of Jewish history and diasporic identity. Through the words of nine contemporary poets and scholars from the United States and Latin America, archival material of Reznikoff's New York and extracts from his 1974 poetry reading at the Poetry Center, San Francisco, this film is an invitation to live and see with Charles Reznikoff.
We've posted two versions of the film on our Charles Reznikoff author page: the original release as well as a version with French subtitles. There you'll also find the aforementioned Poetry Center reading (where he was famously introduced by his Objectivist compatriot, George Oppen), his 1975 appearance on Susan Howe's Pacifica Radio program, Poetry Today, film from the 1973 National Poetry Festival, and Abraham Ravett's 1975 session of Reznikoff reading Holocaust in his NYC apartment, among others. Click here to start exploring.


Kenneth Rexroth on PennSound

Posted 4/21/2025

Today we survey the modest collection of recordings by groundbreaking San Francisco poet, translator, and editor Kenneth Rexroth that you'll find on his PennSound author page

Among many notable achievements, it's easily forgotten that Rexroth was a pioneer of poetry on the phonograph, as evidenced by "Thou Shalt Not Kill," his paean to the late Dylan Thomas, which served as the A side to the 1957 Fantasy LP Poetry Readings in the Cellar, with Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the B side, and accompaniment by The Cellar Jazz Quintet throughout. That twenty-two minute track is joined by a one-and-a-half minute recordings of "Climbing Milestone Mountain, August 22, 1937," for which we have no information regarding its date or location. 

In time, we hope to be able to make more recordings from this pioneering figure in the fields of both poetry-in-performance and poetry on record available. We're grateful to Bradford Morrow, who oversees the Rexroth estate, for granting us permission to share what we have, and also to Ken Knabb, who initially contacted us about the absence of a Rexroth PennSound author page, which started the process leading to the creation of one. You can listen in to the aforementioned recordings by clicking here.


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