Keith Waldrop

Close Listening
Art International Radio, operating at ARTonAIR.org, November 5, 2009

1. Introduction (0:59): MP3
2. on his earliest experiences with poetry (2:46): MP3
3. on how Christianity figures into his work (3:47): MP3
4. on going into the army (1:20): MP3
5. on the fictional memoir (1:27): MP3
6. on his literary affiliations and affinities (6:52): MP3
7. on The Locality Principle (2:36): MP3
8. on his interest in collage (7:51): MP3
9. on his translations (2:02): MP3

Transcript of conversation at Jacket2

Light While There is Light, for Keith Waldrop, Brown University, October 31–November 1, 2023

Over the course of two days, an extended community of admirers and friends celebrated Keith Waldrop’s contributions to world literature. For details and video recordings of the five sessions honoring Keith Waldrop, visit: Brown Univeristy's Writers Online [external link].

The Late Recordings, 2021–2022

Recorded by Rosmarie Waldrop, for Brown University's Writers Online.

1. Poem from Memory (20:55): MP3
2. The Chances of Magic (32:00): MP3
3. Elegy (22:45): MP3
4. A Windmill Near Cavalry (1:21:59): MP3
5. The Garden of Effort (1:03:43): MP3
6. Windfall Losses (1:03:03): MP3
7. The Ruins of Providence p.11–44 (38:21): MP3
8. The Ruins of Providence p.44–end (36:00): MP3
9. A Ceremony Somewhere Else p.1–52 (40:41): MP3
10. A Ceremony Somewhere Else (25:03): p.52–end MP3
11. Hegel's Family p.1–13 (35:11): MP3
12. Hegel's Family p.13–33 (49:34): MP3
13. Hegel's Family p.33–45 (37:45): MP3
14. Hegel's Family p.45–55 (27:35): MP3
15. Hegel's Family p.55–end (45:47): MP3
16. The Locality Principle p.1–85 (1:11:09): MP3
17. The Locality Principle p.85–end (17:20): MP3
18. Analogies of Escape (52:30): MP3
19. The Silhouette of the Bridge I & II (30:48): MP3
20. The Silhouette of the Bridge III & IV (57:50): MP3
21. Haunt I: Indication (36:18): MP3
22. Haunt II: Between the Straits (11:27): MP3
23. Haunt III: Potential Random (38:27): MP3
24. Semiramis if I Remember p.1–51 (32:47): MP3
25. Semiramis if I Remember p.51–78 (26:49): MP3
26. Semiramis if I Remember p.81–end (27:56): MP3
27. The House Seen from Nowhere p.13–93 (1:07:49): MP3
28. The House Seen from Nowhere p.93–166 (53:55): MP3
29. The House Seen from Nowhere p.167–end (35:15): MP3
30. Transcendental Studies: Shipwreck in Haven (37:00): MP3
31. Transcendental Studies: Falling in Love (1:07:23): MP3
32. Transcendental Studies: The Plummet of Vitruvius pt. 1 (18:10): MP3
33. Transcendental Studies: The Plummet of Vitruvius pt. 2 (49:39): MP3
34. Transcendental Studies: Stone Angels (10:18): MP3
35. The Real Subject p.1–36 (54:39): MP3
36. The Real Subject p.37–end (35:04): MP3

Reading with Rosmarie Waldrop at the Kelly Writers House, November 4, 2009

1. Introduction by Jessica Lowenthal (3:48): MP3
2. Sarah Dowling Introduces Rosmarie Waldrop (2:58): MP3
3. Rosmarie Waldrop: Lawn of Excluded Middle (from Curves to the Apple) (7:57): MP3
4. Rosmarie Waldrop: Time Ravel (7:54): MP3
5. Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop read "Light Travels" (4:22): MP3
6. Sarah Dowling Introduces Keith Waldrop (1:35): MP3
7. Keith Waldrop Reads from The Real Subject: Queries and Conjectures of Jacob Delafon, with Sample Poems (23:58): MP3, YouTube [excerpt]

Complete reading (52:42): MP3

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, October 17, 2009

Reading for Poems for the Millennium Vol. III, Harvard University, March 30, 2009

1. from John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale (5:58): MP3
2. from Charles Baudelaire, To the Reader (3:35): MP3
3. from Charles Baudelaire, The Bad Glazier (7:17): MP3
4. from Charles Baudelaire, The Dog and the Flask (1:26): MP3
5. from Charles Baudelaire, Invitation to the Voyage (7:38): MP3

Complete reading (1:59:24): MP3, MOV

Reading from his translations of Charles Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil (Wesleyan), November 23, 2006

1. Benediction (4:49): MP3
2. The Life Before (1:02): MP3
3. Don Juan in Hell (1:35): MP3
4. Giantess (1:11): MP3
5. Carrion (2:45): MP3
6. Posthumous Remorse (1:10): MP3
7. Invitation to the Voyage (2:09): MP3
8. Spleen (1:23): MP3
9. Danse Macabre (4:35): MP3
10. A Voyage to Cythera (4:16): MP3
11. To Her Too Merry (1:47): MP3

Recorded and edited by Steve Evans.

Reading for the Burning Deck 40th Anniversary Celebration, Providence, May 2001

1. Introduction (1:37): MP3
2. Island Fire by John Hawkes (2:13): MP3
3. introduction to Elegy (0:59): MP3
4. Elegy I (1:47): MP3
5. Elegy II (2:01): MP3
6. Elegy III (3:24): MP3
7. Elegy IV (2:02): MP3
8. Elegy V (1:41): MP3
9. Elegy VI (1:23): MP3
10. Elegy VII (2:24): MP3
11. Elegy VIII (2:32): MP3

Reading with Rosmarie Waldrop

12. Light Travels (3:47): MP3

71 Elmgrove Ave, 2000

Directed by Robert Arellano.

71 Elmgrove Avenue (filmed in 2000) premiered January 2001 at Myopic Books on Wayland Square, where Keith read the soundtrack live, and was never screened again until October 31, 2023 at the memorial for Keith, Light While There is Light.

That's book-collector/seller Kristin Sollenberger playing herself outside the store, along with George Monteiro. Keith wrote: "George is briefly in my Structure of the World, the man who comes out of what seems to be a doctor's or dentist's office with his hands over his face. I'm not absolutely sure I remember this correctly, so it may be someone else, but I think I'm right."

Several Brown graduate students, along with faculty Sylvie Toux and Bob Arellano, the film's director, play the bookworms, but the real star is the Burning Deck printing press. Keith wrote: "The press is a Chandler & Price (made in Ohio) from around 1900. We started Burning Deck with a Chandler & Price, but not this one. This one we bought from Turkey Press when it moved from Providence to California. This kind of press, by the way, is a revised version of an earlier model called the Franklin Press—because Benjamin F himself appeared in a dream (posthumously) to the inventor and told him how to make a printing press. Unfortunately, the Franklin press, though it printed well, tended to smash printers' fingers, so was revised (perhaps more than once), and ended as the Chandler & Price platen press."

Nothing but Mush, 1996

Directed by Robert Arellano.

from havanarama on YouTube:
Keith and I wanted to make another film together, and the first thought that came up while we were rooting around for a premise was something a friend had told Keith: "The funniest thing in the world is a man with a beard eating spaghetti." Marcin Gizycki makes a cameo in the opening tracking-shot, along with Irene & Ray Jordan and several MFA students, plus keep an eye out for Paol Keineg coddling Mrs. Butterworth.

Segue Series Reading at the Ear Inn, New York, December 12, 1992

• Complete recording (25:51): MP3

1. Introduction (0:41): MP3
2. Waldrop talking about the first section of "A House Seen from Nowhere" (0:37): MP3
3. The palmer worm (1:12): MP3
4. Transparent like the air (1:27): MP3
5. The idle wheel (0:49): MP3
6. A slightly arched form (0:35): MP3
7. A higher spin (0:50): MP3
8. A turning road (2:30): MP3
9. Cues to distance (1:03): MP3
10. Waldrop talking about the second section of "A House Seen from Nowhere" (0:31): MP3
11. "A bank of cloud across the sky..." (0:39): MP3
12. "Ghastly misprint..." (0:50): MP3
13. "Her hair is combed back..." (1:13): MP3
14. "I am not tired..." (0:30): MP3
15. "imagine this as the Chinese have imagined it..." (0:40): MP3
16. "I need to know..." (0:38): MP3
17. "The moment I saw her..." (0:17): MP3
18. "The second death..." (0:09): MP3
19. "There is a kind of lizard..." (0:30): MP3
20. "The unknown quantity..." (0:08): MP3
21. "The web of cracks in the sidewalk..." (0:07): MP3
22. "What the spirit says..." (0:10): MP3
23. Waldrop talking about the third section of "A House Seen from Nowhere" (0:45): MP3
24. Epigraph from "The Tale of Genji" (0:11): MP3
25. A House Seen from Nowhere: Part 3 (7:16): MP3

Victim of Providence, 1992

Directed by Robert Arellano.

from havanarama on YouTube:
On the Beast Side, a bus tunnel is the nose, a train tunnel is the stomach, and the Ladd Observatory is the monster's all-seeing eye. In front of the Burnside House and Blistein House, the poet Keith Waldrop reads parts of his story "The Master of the Providence Crucifixion," while in Swann Point Cemetery Sean Sullivan brings to life Lovecraft's letters, and Bob walks through a dyspeptic dream borne out of Louis' Family Restaurant. This vintage 1992 flick was created by Bob Arellano & Friends in Leslie Thornton's filmmaking workshop at Brown University's Department of MCM.

• Complete reading (41:02): MP3

1. Introduction (3:47): MP3
2. Conversion (2:19): MP3
3. To Rosemary in Bad Kissingen (2:49): MP3
4. Around the block (2:00): MP3
5. Progressing (1:40): MP3
6. Intervals (5:27): MP3
7. Water Marks (8:01): MP3
8. A fantasy upon the last days of summer (3:49): MP3
9. The quest for Mount Misery #10 (3:16): MP3
10. Shipwreck in Haven: the sixth transcendental study (6:34): MP3

Segue Series Reading with Claude Royet-Journoud at the Ear Inn, New York, November 3, 1984

1. La Notion d'Obstacle (Gallimard, 1978) (31:38): MP3
   Keith Waldrop reads from his translation, The Notion of Obstacle (Windsor: Awede Press, 1978).
   Note: Royet-Journoud placed a ticking clock on the podium, which can be heard in the recording.
2. Les Objets Contiennent l'Infini (Gallimard, 1983), Book 3 (prose section) (2:54): MP3
   Waldrop reads from his translation, Objects Contain the Infinite (Windsor VT: Awede, 1995).

Segue Series Reading at the Ear Inn, New York. May 5, 1979

Complete recording (17:46): MP3

Keith Waldrop recordings at Brown

External page: LINK

The Logical Structure of the World, Part 1

The Logical Structure of the World, Part I: My Experiences (1970's) takes its title from Rudolf Carnap, an astute and somewhat pompous philosopher of the Vienna School. Logic and the world both begin with 'my experiences.' Each sequence of this short film seems part of a narrative which never comes clear. Shot in the early seventies, mainly in Providence, it ends with a dance around Lovecraft's grave. So much for logic. So much for world. The soundscape that accompanies the film is a recording by Robert Ashley and Paul de Marinis of Ashley's composition set to a poem by John Barton Wolgamot — "In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women."

Keith Waldrop on PennSound Daily

• November 19, 2009: "PennSound Congratulates Keith Waldrop"
• November 18, 2009: "Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop: Kelly Writers House Reading and New Close Listening Programs"

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2022 Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop. Used with permission of Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop. Distributed by PennSound.