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Marjorie Perloff

Close Listening: Reading and conversation at Art International Radio, Clocktower Studio, New York, November 11, 2009

  1. Program One:Vienna Paradox reading
    Perloff  reads from her memoir Vienna Paradox (New Directions, 2004) about growing up in Vienna, and her subsequent move, just before the holocaust, to Riverdale. 

    Complete Program (26:49): MP3

  2. Program Two: Conversation with Charles Bernstein
    Perloff talks about Vienna Paradox, the influence of her experience as a refugee on her literary criticism, her perspective on being a second-language writer of English, the unknown 1950s, her graduate school days with the Christian Brothers at Catholic University of America, irony and Jewish identity, the importance of Karl Kraus and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the pernicious influence of Martin Heidegger on postwar thought. 

    Complete Program (27:21): MP3

  3. Program Three: Conversation with Charles Bernstein
    Perloff talks about a set of schisms that seem to divide 20th century poetry: Yeats versus Futurism; Robert Lowell versus Frank O’Hara; and Wallace Stevens versus Ezra Pound. She reflects on the ongoing legacies of radical modernism for contemporary poetry.

    1. introduction (1:12): MP3
    2. Wallace Stevens and Ezra Pound (2:37): MP3
    3. Gertrude Stein, the cult of Marianne Moore, and the great European Modernist poets (6:17): MP3
    4. the Italian and Russian Futurists, Stein's connection to Futurism, and the relation of poets to visual artists (6:25): MP3
    5. Yeats, sound patterning, and the divergent poetics of Robert Lowell and Frank O'Hara (7:37): MP3
    6. innovation and the avant-garde (2:36): MP3
    7. elitism in relation to poetry (2:40): MP3

    Complete Program (29:27): MP3

  4. Close Listening produced by Charles Bernstein for Art International Radio
    Studio Engineer: Jeannie Hooper
    © 2009 Marjorie Perloff and Charles Bernstein

CAAP Oct. 2023, Wuhan, China, via video

Marjorie Perloff welcome MP4, Bernstein welcome & "Lie of Art" MP4, Bernstein kerynote on Infrathin MP4, Perloff keynote on Infrathin MP4

PoemTalk #185, Discussing Frank O'Hara's "Song (Is it dirty)" and "Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)," feat. Robert von Hallberg, and Charles Altieri

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

PoemTalk #142, Discussing Charles Bernstein's "As If the Trees by Their Very Roots Had Hold Of Us," feat. Tracie Morris, Danny Snelson, and Marjorie Perloff

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

PoemTalk #135, Disucssing John Cage's "Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake," feat. Marjorie Perloff, Danny Snelson, and Nancy Perloff

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

PoemTalk #127, Discussing John Ashbery's "The Short Answer," August 20, 2018

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

PoemTalk #50, discussing Tom Raworth's "Errory," February 28, 2012

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


Wiener Vorlesung - Die verschwundene Austromoderne nach 1938, Vienna, Austria, June 11, 2021

Full Recording (1:32:05): External Link

Award Ceremony for Marjorie Perloff, Leopold Museum, Vienna, June 10, 2021


Media.SAS URL link: MP4

Reading and translation of Paul Celan's "DEINE AUGEN IM ARM," Nov. 23, 2020

Jacket2 post, direct mp4 link.

American Philosophical Society Celebration of Marjorie Perloff, KWH, UPenn, November 10, 2012

  1. opening remarks by Al Filreis (3:06): MP3
  2. Stuart Curran (6:53): MP3
  3. Charles Bernstein (8:26): MP3
  4. Wang Zhuo reading a letter from Nie Zhenzhao (4:31): MP3
  5. Al Filreis (10:34): MP3
  6. Joe Wittreich (6:58): MP3
  7. Joe Perloff (2:45): MP3
  8. Jean-Michel Rabate (4:18): MP3
  9. Rachel Blau DuPlessis (5:30): MP3
  10. Bob Perelman (7:49): MP3
  11. brief comments from friends (8:16): MP3
  12. Marjorie Perloff (16:08): MP3
Complete Recording (1:26:44): MP3

Watch on Media.sas

Talk on "The Waste Land," Audiatur Conference, Bergen, Norway, July 23, 2012

  1. introduction (8:44): MP3
  2. the relevance of Eliot, the use of citation in poetry, and Pound's role in editing "The Waste Land" (3:55): MP3
  3. Edgell Rickword's negative review of "The Waste Land" (2:44): MP3
  4. the last part of "The Waste Land" and Eliot's use of quotations (5:34): MP3
  5. early drafts and the theme of death in life in "The Waste Land" (7:59): MP3
  6. Eliot's family, his relationship with Jean Jules Verdenal, and his move to England (5:55): MP3
  7. Eliot's marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood and impotence and Eliot's attitude toward women in "The Waste Land" (3:24): MP3
  8. Eliot reinventing himself as a British poet and his editorship at The Criterion (5:20): MP3
  9. the publishing of "The Waste Land," early v. late Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and Eliot's sound structures (5:04): MP3
  10. Eliot's relationship with Pound, collage as technique, and differences between "The Cantos" and "The Waste Land" (4:29): MP3
  11. Eliot after 1923 (2:57): MP3
  12. the Lil section of "The Waste Land" (7:50): MP3
  13. changes in tone, despair and evil, and Part III of "The Waste Land" (3:12): MP3
  14. "The Tempest" passages and the precision of proper names in "The Waste Land" (3:23): MP3
  15. Eliot and Baudelaire on evil (1:39): MP3
  • Complete recording (1:12:38): MP3

To Change Your Life: Wittgenstein on Christianity, University of Bergen, Norway, July 18, 2012

  • Complete reading (55:08): MP3

Lecture as a Kelly Writers House Fellow, Philadelphia, April 25, 2011

  1. introduction by Al Filreis (7:26): MP3
  2. introduction by Marjorie Perloff (2:11): MP3
  3. complete lecture on Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" (1:01:22): MP3
  4. Q & A (16:35): MP3
  • Complete recording (1:31:02): MP3

Interview/Discussion as a Kelly Writers House Fellow, Philadelphia, April 26, 2011

  • Complete recording (1:14:42): MP3