Kelly Writers House

When Laurie Anderson spent two days with us at the Writers House in 2003, I interviewed her and moderated her discussion with others. This morning we release the segmented edition of the audio recording of that session, dividing the whole into topical parts. Here is the list of topical segments, and here is the link to our Anderson Writers House Fellows page, where you can also find links to video recordings of Laurie's performance and also of the discussion session (in RealVideo format).

1. introduction by Al Filreis (3:19)
2. on the Nerve Bible and the body (4:06)
3. on the autobiographical nature of the Nerve Bible (1:57)
4. on time and responsibility (4:34)
5. on ending but not concluding performances (2:28)
6. on performing Statue of Liberty at the 2001 Town Hall performance (8:20)
7. on starting out as an artist and being in a commune (7:49)
8. on technology and media (8:57)
9. on Puppet Motel (2:52)
10. Anderson's favorite contemporary poets (6:37)
11. on the impossibility of technology being sensually subtle (6:27)
12. on Melville's bible and Songs and Stories from Moby Dick (8:33)
13. on whether or not people are getting better (3:51)

This morning I interviewed and moderated a discussion with Susan Howe, and last night Susan read her work, including the opening pages of Melville's Marginalia, sections of The Midnight, and the poems in a series called "118 Westerly Terrace" (the address of Wallace Stevens's home). Click here for links to audio and video recordings of both events.

In 2002, during his visit to the Writers House, I interviewed novelist Michael Cunningham. Just today Jenny Lesser segmented the audio recording of that discussion into topics. You can listen to any of these segments, or all of them, by going here, and here is the list:

* introduction by Al Filreis (6:32)

Here at Banff last night: immediately after Charles Bernstein's stunning performance of his poetry there was a bit of a group hug among the Penn/Kelly Writers House-affiliated people at the conference. From left to right they are: Julia Bloch, Al Filreis, Rebekah Caton, Charles Bernstein, Kimberly Eisler, Sarah Dowling, Nick Montfort, and Kenny Goldsmith. (Thanks to Erin Moure for taking the shot.)

The video recording of our annual January "Mind of Winter" event--which always begins with a reading of "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens--is now available: here.

I'm pleased to see that our ArtsEdge program is mentioned in an I'm pleased to see that our ArtsEdge program is mentioned in an article in today's Daily Pennsylvanian. We subsidize rent for emergent artists - one writer per year who is associated with the Kelly Writers House (and, often, will teach a course). The project is a collaboration with the Fine Arts department of Penn's School of Design and the Real Estate and Facilities division.

The newest event in the EDIT series, created by Danny Snelson for the Writers House, will feature Adachi Tomomi and Tianna Kennedy on The newest event in the EDIT series, created by Danny Snelson for the Writers House, will feature Adachi Tomomi and Tianna Kennedy on February 18. EDIT is a roving events series pairing innovative performances with focused critical responses toward an exploration of editorial strategies in contemporary writing and the arts. For more, listen to this announcement. In the photo: Tiana Kennedy.

Tonight John Tranter and I are sending out the following announcement:

Dear friends:

We are writing with news of a transition we both deem very exciting.

By the end of 2010, John Tranter and Pam Brown will have put out 40 issues of Jacket (jacketmagazine.com). It began in what John recalls as "a rash moment" in 1997 - an early all-online magazine, one of the earliest in the world of poetry and poetics, and quite rare for its consistency over the years. "The design is beautiful, the contents awesomely voluminous, the slant international modernist and experimental." (So said _The Guardian_.)

After issue 40, John will retire from thirteen years of intense every-single-day involvement with Jacket, and the entire archive of thousands of web pages will move intact to servers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where it will of course be available on the internet to everyone, for free, as always. But the magazine is not ceasing publication: quite the opposite.

Starting with the first issue in 2011, Jacket will have a new home, extra staff and a vigorous future as Jacket2. Jacket and its continuation, Jacket2, will be hosted by the Kelly Writers House and PennSound at the University of Pennsylvania.

The connection with PennSound, a vast and growing archive of audio recordings of poetry performance, discussion and criticism, is seen as a valuable additional facet of the new magazine, as is the relationship with busy Kelly Writers House, a lively venue for day-to-day poetic interchange of all kinds. The synergy in this three-way relationship has great potential.

Al will become Publisher and Jessica Lowenthal, Director of the Writers House, will be Associate Publisher. The new Editors will be Michael S. Hennessey (currently Managing Editor of PennSound) and Julia Bloch. John will be available as Founding Editor, and Pam will continue as Associate Editor.More news about Jacket2 in the weeks and months to come. Meantime, the Jacket2 folks extend gratitude -- as many in the world of poetics do -- to John and to Pam Brown for the extraordinary work they've done. And John, for his part, is mightily pleased that Jacket will be preserved and will continue and grow in a somewhat new mode but with a continuous mission and approach.

Here is a reminder that we at the Kelly Writers House offer a live video stream of nearly every reading, seminar, workshop, talk and performance that takes pHere is a reminder that we at the Kelly Writers House offer a live video stream of nearly every reading, seminar, workshop, talk and performance that takes place at the House. Any time there's a program scheduled for our Arts Cafe (most weeknights and several lunch hours per week) you can go here

http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/

--click the link "view live video," and watch what's going on at KWH as if on TV. That's why we call it "KWH-TV." Our event schedule is always the top link on our home page: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/ . Enjoy watching!