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Hank Lazer


Photo ©2008 Charles Bernstein/PennSound

PoemTalk #21, discussing Charles Bernstein's "In A Restless World Like This," August 24, 2009

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

Close Listening: a conversation with Charles Bernstein, March 18, 2009

Program One: Full Reading: MP3 (27:38)
  1. From Lyric & Spirit, p. 324 – on poetry and entering a space (01:00): MP3

    2. From Portions
  2. Portal (00:31): MP3
  3. Fluorescence (00:38): MP3
  4. Surge (00:30): MP3
  5. Robert Duncan (00:53): MP3
  6. Container (00:33): MP3
  7. Horizon (00:44): MP3
  8. Sense (00:40): MP3
  9. Location (00:35): MP3
  10. Figure (for Louis Zukofsky) (0:56): MP3
  11. Thud (00:40): MP3
  12. Shem (00:39): MP3
  13. Adjust (00:39): MP3
  14. Breath (for Norman Fischer) (00:42): MP3
  15. Way (0:30): MP3
  16. From Lyric & Spirit, p. 302-303 – on Jabès, Derrida, a-theism, and a relation to the divine (01:58): MP3
  17. From The New Spirit: Leaning Toward (the final poem) (07:18): MP3
  18. Brief intro to The Notebooks (of Being & Time) (00:35): MP3
  19. The funnel poem  (“you/ mean like/ this …”  2/3/07 – NotebookII, p. 29) – 2 voice piece, with Charles Bernstein (02:50): MP3
  20. “we pray to pray/ to be able to” (1/7/07 – Notebook II, p. 21) (01:14): MP3
  21. “hacking kaballah” (6/13/07-6/14/07 – Notebook IV, pages 21-24) (01:22): MP3

Program Two at Close Listening

Conversation with Charles Bernstein: MP3 (27:20)
Hank Lazer talks to me about the confluences of his identities; about Southern poetry; about the poetics of jazz and transition; about the forms of his work; about the purported conflict between creativity and critical thinking; and about his poem "Figure."

Chinese American Association for Poetry and Poetics Conference, Central China Normal University - Wuhan, China. June 8, 2013.

  • 8 (In Transit) (08:29): MP3

Jazz Poetry, Harrison Galleries, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, July 2, 2009

Featuring Tom Wolfe on Guitar, and Chris Kozak on Bass

Reading at Kelly Writers House, March 17, 2009

  1. Introduction by Jessica Lowenthal (01:59): MP3
  2. Introduction by Charles Bernstein (04:37): MP3
  3. Introduction by Hank Lazer (02:47): MP3
  4. Opening Prose (01:11): MP3

    5. from Days

  5. Days 5 (00:16): MP3
  6. Days 10 (00:31): MP3
  7. Days 14 (00:12): MP3
  8. Days 18 (00:12): MP3
  9. Days 44 (00:16): MP3
  10. Days 56 (00:13): MP3
  11. Days 59 (00:28): MP3
  12. Days 61 (00:16): MP3
  13. Days 71 (00:22): MP3
  14. Days 74 (00:18): MP3
  15. Days 76 (00:42): MP3
  16. Days 99 (00:15): MP3
  17. Days 106 (00:32): MP3
  18. Days 129 (00:19): MP3
  19. Days 138 (00:18): MP3
  20. Days 160 (00:17): MP3

  21. discussion of Spirit (00:50): MP3
  22. The New Spirit 3 (01:43): MP3
  23. The New Spirit, 7: Teshuvah Heading South (06:11): MP3
  24. The New Spirit, 8 (01:37): MP3
  25. discussion of invented forms (02:17): MP3
  26. First (00:30): MP3
  27. Sentence (00:30): MP3
  28. Falls (00:32): MP3
  29. Architecture in Bodies (01:09): MP3
  30. Script (00:30): MP3
  31. Dream (00:31): MP3
  32. You for Robert Creeley (00:46): MP3
  33. Peninsula for Donald Revell (00:44): MP3
  34. Avant (00:39): MP3
  35. Discussion of the Notebook project (05:05): MP3
  36. from Notebooks (01:21): MP3
  37. Coda (02:43): MP3
  38. Discussion of Portions (01:06) MP3
  39. Book (00:30): MP3
  40. House (00:48): MP3

Complete reading (50:19): MP3   MOV

From Charles Bernstein's Portraits Series: Hank Eats the Shell ("The Shrimp is a poem in itself"), September 20, 2008, Mobile

Watch on Media.sas

Hank Lazer
Before our reading at the University of Southern Alabama, we went to a restaurant in middle of a long dock. I though I could see Galvaston, like in the Apollinaire's "Annie" ("Sur la côte du Texas / Entre Mobile et Galveston il y a / Un grand jardin tout plein de roses.")
(mp4, 24 sec., 4.9 mb)


Appearing on Cross-Cultural Poetics #162, "Spirit," hosted by Leonard Schwartz, March 2, 2008

Complete program (45:50): MP3

"Religious vs. Religion: Innovative Poetry and Spiritual Experience," University of Alabama, November 9, 2005

Complete lecture (1:06:38): MP3

Segue Series reading at Double Happiness, NYC, March 3, 2001

  • note: this is one of the first public readings of "The New Spirit"

  • introduction by Charles Borkhuis (3:14): MP3
  • introduction by Hank Lazer (0:58): MP3
  • "The New Spirit" I-X (30:57): MP3

Days: Poesis All the Way Through 233

  1. Days: Poesis (0:24): MP3
  2. Days 18 (0:17): MP3
  3. Days 54 (0:20): MP3
  4. Days 71 (0:15): MP3
  5. Days 72 (0:20): MP3
  6. Days 74 (0:24): MP3
  7. Days 84 (0:26): MP3
  8. Days 114 (0:21): MP3
  9. Days 120 (0:14): MP3
  10. Days 129 (0:21): MP3
  11. Days 138 (0:17): MP3
  12. Days 172 (0:14): MP3
  13. Days 173 (0:17): MP3
  14. Days 175 (0:11): MP3
  15. Days 229 (0:23): MP3
  16. Days 233 (0:28): MP3
  17. Days 5 (with the Alabama Poetry Ensemble) (0:34): MP3
  18. Days 72 (with the Alabama Poetry Ensemble) (0:53): MP3
  19. Days 55 (with the Alabama Poetry Ensemble) (0:39): MP3
Tracks 1-16 recorded July 15, 1999 at the University of Alabama School of Music
Engineer: Donald Given.
Tracks 17-19 recorded December 30, 2000 with the Alabama Poetry Ensemble in Florence, Alabama at Ninth Street Laboratories
Engineer: Jon Berry

The Alabama Poetry Ensemble: Hank Lazer (voice/words); Jake Berry (guitar); Wayne Sides (percussion)


Lazer reads a passage from The Notebooks and also the "Coda."

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

  1. Reading from 3 of 10 (1:02): MP3
  2. Reading from Days (3:07): MP3

Hank Lazer on PennSound Daily

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2009 Hank Lazer. Close Listening © 2009 Lazer and Charles Bernstein. Used with permission of Hank Lazer. Distributed by PennSound.