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Joan Retallack

28th Annual Subterranean Poetry Festival, September 8th, 2018

    Joan Retallack (10:37): MP3

Appearing on Close Listening hosted by Charles Bernstein, Bard College, February 26, 2011

Program One: Reading

  1. Preface to "The Woman in the Chinese Room" (4:30): MP3
  2. "The Woman in the Chinese Room" from How To Do Things With Words (Sun & Moon Classics, 1998) (9:26): MP3
  3. from The Bosch Bookshelf, 1-6, (published in Qui Parle [At the Intersections of Ecocriticism], Vol.19, No.2, Spring 2011) (7:50): MP3
  4. from "Coimbra Poem of Poetry & Violence: Grief's Rubies," from Procedural Elegies / Western Civ Cont'd / (Roof Books, 2010) (5:15): MP3
  • Complete program (27:04): MP3

Program Two: Conversation with Charles Bernstein & Al Filreis

  • Complete program (32:19): MP3

PoemTalk #53, discussing Joan Retallack's "Not a Cage," May 20, 2012

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

PoemTalk #46, discussing Jackson Mac Low's "Words nd Ends from Ez," October 13, 2011

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

EPC@20 Celebration, September 11-12, 2014

  • Reading/Performance (26:54): MP3
  • "Gertrude Stein & Modernist Visual Art: What is the Question?" Talk (Intro by Jack Krick)

    Watch on Media.sas

    Audio Recording (60:07): MP3

Segue Series Reading at the Zinc Bar, New York City, October 26, 2013

  1. Genji Amino's introduction (02:50): MP3
  2. Procedural Elegies/Western Civ Cont'd., Preface (2:06): MP3
  3. 28 (01:29): MP3, PDF
  4. 29 (01:43): MP3
  5. 30 (01:36): MP3
  6. 31 (02:13): MP3
  7. 33: Breakdance Lecture Continued (01:16): MP3
  8. Breakdance Lecture Continued (01:01): MP3
  9. Bosch studies (02:31): MP3
  10. Logical Universe Of Five Minutes (02:19): MP3
  11. None Too Soon (00:50): MP3
  12. The Women (02:21): MP3
  13. The Patriarchs (02:39): MP3
  14. A Confession (02:31): MP3
  15. Untitled (01:17): MP3

University of Louisville, Feb. 22, 2013

Intro: Alan Golding; Recorded by A.L. Nielsen for Heatstrings
(1:02:59): MP3

Leslie Scalapino Lecture in Innovative Poetics Series, Boulder, Colorado

Small Press Traffic Presents: The Leslie Scalapino Memorial Lecture in Innovative Poetics, Recorded by Cloud House Poetry Archives, San Francisco, May 27, 2011

Complete video (1:00:08): MOV

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, October 9, 2010

  1. Kareen Estefan's introduction (01:42): MP3
  2. On Procedural Elegies/Western Civ Cont'd (01:54): MP3
  3. Epigraph to Procedural Elegies/Western Civ Cont'd (01:08): MP3
  4. Western Civ Cont'd (04:27): MP3
  5. Breakdance Lecture (00:19): MP3
  6. The Dining Philosopher's Problem (01:13): MP3
  7. Breakdance Lecture Continued (03:13): MP3
  8. Three Ring Circa Continued (01:43): MP3
  9. By Now (07:26): MP3
  10. Happiness (01:21): MP3
  11. Profound Realization (01:21): MP3
  12. As Luck Would Have It (01:01): MP3
  • Complete reading (29:54): MP3

Appearing at Advancing Feminist Poetics and Activism, sponsored by the Belladonna* Reading Series, New York, September 25, 2009

Complete recording (44:16): MP3

Complete video (44:16): MOV

Reading at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, April 23, 2009

  1. Introduction by Prof. Lynn Keller (7:19): MP3
  2. Joan's Introductory Remarks (4:47): MP3
  3. Present Tensed (3:11): MP3
  4. The Woman in the Chinese Room (8:49): MP3
  5. Introduction to The Reinvention of Truth (1:32): MP3
  6. The Reinvention of Truth (8:57): MP3
  7. A Boy and Her Dog (5:24): MP3
  8. Introduction to "The Bosch Bookshelf" (1:16): MP3
  9. The Bosch Bookshelf (10:40): MP3
  10. Post-reading Q&A (12:00): MP3

Full Reading (68:40): MP3

This project was made possible with generous funding provided by the Brittingham Foundation, the University Lectures Committee, and the Department of English.

Lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, April 22, 2009

"John Cage's Anarchic Harmony: A Poethical Wager" (55:16): MP3

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, May 9, 2009

  1. Introduction (2:37): MP3
  2. The Bosch Bookshelf (23:14): MP3

Complete Reading (28:14): MP3

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, December 9, 2006

  1. Introduction (3:40): MP3
  2. Ex Post Animo (3:18): MP3
  3. Here's Looking at You, Francis Bacon (4:57): MP3, PDF
  4. The Reinvention of Truth (8:20): MP3
  5. A to Z (17:05): MP3

Complete reading (39:07): MP3

MLA Offsite Reading at the Four Seasons Hotel, Washington D.C., December 28, 2005

  • Sections from The Reinvention of Truth (4:14): MP3

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, February 5, 2005

  1. Introduction (4:20): MP3
  2. To Find the Light (12:25): MP3
  3. A Box, from Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons (1:08): MP3
  4. A to Z (8:18): MP3
  5. #25, from Jackson Mac Low's The Twenties (2:40): MP3
  6. Poem composed from the phonemes in "Jackson Mac Low" (3:27): MP3

Alternative Poetries and Alternative Pedagogies Reading and Discussion at the Kelly Writers House, February 28, 2001

  1. Introduction by Al Filreis (4:36): MP3
  2. reading "What is This?" from Gertrude Stein's "Useful Knowledge" (1:50): MP3
  3. reading "Memnoir" (12:43): MP3
  4. reading errata 5uite (10:41): MP3, PDF
  5. reading "Here's Looking at You, Francis Bacon" (5:55): MP3, PDF
  6. Kerry Sherin discusses the Bard conference on poetry and pedagogy (4:34): MP3
  7. On the importance of contextualizing experimental writing texts (4:54): MP3
  8. On what makes reading experimental writing difficult (5:09): MP3
  9. On techniques to teach experimental poetry (12:06): MP3
  10. On writing into texts (13:50): MP3
  11. The student's perspective on dialogues with text (1:45): MP3
  12. On interesting non-humanities students in humanities (2:25): MP3
  13. Bob Perelman on experimental poetics as a pedagogy (3:27): MP3
  14. On the necessity of "reconfiguring the geography of our attention" (7:59): MP3
  15. On the aftermath of the Bard conference on poetry and pedagogy (4:40): MP3
  16. On teaching criticism (4:41): MP3
  17. On taking cues from the text (5:08): MP3
  18. On the interaction of the contemporary poet with the contemporary world (7:02): MP3
  19. On experiential learning (9:52): MP3
  20. On experiencing Tender Buttons, and closing remarks (2:58): MP3

Complete reading and discussion (2:05:00): MP3 RealVideo (streaming file) rm

Reading for the Belladonna* Reading Series, NYC, September 3, 2004

  1. Introduction (03:05): MP3
  2. Lost Briefcase Conjecture (02:46): MP3
  3. The Reinvention of Truth (09:29): MP3
  4. From Memnoir (12:25): MP3

    Complete reading (29:15): MP3

Reading as part of the Kelly Writers House program "9 Poets Read Themselves through Modernism," October 12, 2000

  1. Introduction (2:16): MP3
  2. from Tractacus Logico Philosophicus (3:21): MP3
  3. Woman in a Chinese Room (2:09): MP3
  4. Various pieces by Gertrude Stein (4:19): MP3
  5. from Gertrude Stein's "Stanzas in Meditation," first stanza (*see text below) (1:17): MP3
  6. SteinZas in Meditation (6:10): MP3
  7. Art is Either a Complaint or Something Else (2:53): MP3
  8. Mem-noir (3:58): MP3

Complete reading MP3

Reading for the Segue Series at Double Happiness, New York, January 5, 2002

  1. Introduction (01:40): MP3
  2. Prologue to Mongrelisme (02:40): MP3
  3. First section of Mongrelism (03:21): MP3
  4. Memnoir (27:12): MP3
  • Complete recording (35:38): MP3

C. S. Giscombe and Joan Retallack reading, St. Mark's Church, NY, May 13, 1998

Recorded on audiocassette. Recording hosted by the Library of Congress.

  1. Side A (47:46): link
  2. Side B (48:05): link

Segue Series reading at The Ear Inn, May 6, 1995

  1. Introduction (incomplete) (00:28): MP3
  2. From Afterrimages, epigraphs (01:05): MP3
  3. Afterrimages part 1 (05:30): MP3
  4. Afterrimages part 2 (00:57): MP3
  5. Journal Of A Lunar Eclipse (05:03): MP3
  6. Amerrata: (02:05): MP3
  7. Autobiographialitterarias I (03:27): MP3
  8. Autobiographialitterarias II (06:19): MP3
  • Complete recording (27:01): MP3

At SUNY-Buffalo, September 22, 1993

  1. Existence is an Attribute (5:28): MP3
  2. Not a Cage (3:33): MP3 [text-audio alignment]
  3. Strange Attractors (7:55): MP3
  4. Here's Looking At You, Francis Bacon (3:22): MP3, PDF
  5. Autobiographia Literaria II (11:55): MP3
  6. from errata 5uite (7:29): MP3, PDF

Complete Reading (40:20): MP3

"Not a Cage" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 53.

Reading recorded by A.L. Nielsen for the Incognito Lounge, July 1991

  1. Not a Cage, for John Cage (2:47): MP3
  2. ditto Marcel Duchamp? ditto ditto Gertrude Stein? (8:42): MP3
  3. How to Do Things With Words: Homage to the Austens, Jane and JL (5:33): MP3, PDF
  4. A Brief Experiment in Linguistics (10:20): MP3
  5. Here's Looking at You, Francis Bacon (2:41): MP3, PDF

Complete reading (45:15): MP3

"Not a Cage" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 53.

Segue Series Reading at the Ear Inn, New York, Feburary 15, 1987

Complete Recording note: incomplete (32:23): MP3

also of interest:

  • "Theorizing" presentation at the Kelly Writers House (October 6, 2004)

  • A Celebration of Jackson Mac Low's Thing of Beauty: New and Selected Works, CUE Arts Foundation, January 18, 2008 featuring Anne Tardos, Charles Bernstein, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Joan Retallack, Drew Gardner, and others.
    • I caught a bird which made a ball
    • And they thought better of it.
    • But it is all of which they taught
    • That they were in a hurry yet
    • In a kind of a way they meant it best
    • That they should change in and on account
    • But they must not stare when they manage
    • Whatever they are occasionally liable to do
    • It is often easy to pursue them once in a while
    • And in a way there is no repose
    • They like it as well as they ever did
    • But it is very often just by the time
    • That they are able to separate
    • In which case in effect they could
    • Not only be very often present perfectly
    • In each way whichever they chose.

    These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to Joan Retallack. © 2014 Joan Retallack. Used with permission of Joan Retallack. Distributed by PennSound.