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PennSound Rewind

An archive is a story that unfolds in real time, and with over 50,000 recordings in our collection, there are many tales to tell. As PennSound enters its third decade, the site's longtime editor Michael Hennessey is taking the opportunity to look back and pinpoint some of the people, recordings, and moments — both big and small — that made PennSound what it is today.

Episode 8: In Memory of Radio

Black Authors on the Air 1967–2018

In this program we celebrate Black voices on the airwaves, from a 1967 radio-play staging of Samuel R. Delaney’s The Star-Pit to Douglas Kearney’s 2018 appearance on Charles Bernstein’s Close Listening. The stations represented here include college and community broadcasters, flagship stations for the venerable Pacifica Radio network, modern internet radio, and even the BBC. Other authors featured include Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Yusef Komunyakaa, Claudia Rankine, Tyehimba Jess, Erica Hunt, and Tracie Morris.


Episode 7: Ten Years Gone

We remember the PennSound poets and performers that died in 2016

As the 10th anniversary of David Bowie’s death approached, I started thinking about all of the other important folks that we lost during that pivotal year of 2016, and the ways in which their absences continue to shape our world. The recordings we’ll listen to in their honor — which include poetry, fiction, live performance, film, and ethnographic documentation — serve as a great measure of the diversity of materials you’ll find on PennSound.


Episode 6: Midwinter Without Mayer

The winter solstice will take place this year at 10:03 on the morning of December 21st. It’s an astronomical event thoroughly woven into the fabric of our culture, especially the holidays and festivals that we celebrate at this time of year, which seek light in the midst of our darkest days. For many lovers of contemporary poetry, the solstice also brings bittersweet memories of the late Bernadette Mayer, whose beloved Midwinter Day was written in its entirety on December 22, 1978.


Episode 5: (Almost) All the Trimmings

In this episode we present a composite version of Harryette Mullen’s germinal collection Trimmings (1991) — woven together from recordings made in 1987, 1991, and 1992 — and learn more about the book's inspirations, composition, and preoccupations via a lengthy interview on Morton Marcus' The Poetry Show.


Episode 4: All-Stars

PennSound poets celebrate the national pastime

As the Blue Jays and Dodgers face one another in the Fall Classic, we go into extra innings with a full lineup of PennSound poets that sing baseball’s praises.


Episode 3: Coast to Coast

New recordings from New York and San Francisco, plus a recovered tribute

In this episode, we revisit the first full week of July 2010 via the PennSound Daily posts our listeners would have seen on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It was a time of expansion for the site, as evidenced by posts highlighting newly-added recordings from New York and the Bay Area, and the week started with a notable remembrance that’s been lost in the archives for the last fifteen years.


Episode 2: Two of a Kind

A lesson in grieving and acceptance from Allen and Louis Ginsberg

Two decades after memorializing his mother Naomi in “Kaddish,” we find Ginsberg working in a very different mode as he actively documents the death of his father Louis in one, or eventually, two poems with the same name. The first “Don’t Grow Old,” written around the time of Louis’ death, appeared in the collection Mind Breaths in 1978; the latter can be found in 1982’s Plutonian Ode. However the two works were envisioned by Ginsberg as one complete poem, as evidenced by a number of recordings made by Robert Creeley at the time of the second poem’s composition and the broader recorded history contained on Ginsberg’s PennSound author page. As we explore “Don’t Grow Old” (and “‘Don’t Grow Old’”), we’ll witness Ginsberg come to terms with his father through his decline, then see how latter poem reframes that experience through Louis’ reciprocal acceptance of his son’s queer identity, offering up potent lessons in mourning, as well as an important statement regarding homodomesticity and intergenerational reconciliation.


Episode 1: Ashbery week, 2007

How one poet’s generosity set the stage for PennSound’s early growth

In October 2007, PennSound had only just started to resemble the site it is today. The PoemTalk team was preparing their first episodes in anticipation of launching that December and PennSound Daily had just started as well. In our first full week of posts we had something well worth celebrating: the addition of John Ashbery to our roster of poets.