Ron Padgett, "Joe Brainard's Painting Bingo" & "The Austrian Maiden"
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Al Filreis brought together James Berger and Richard Deming (who traveled together from Yale) and Sophia DuRose to talk about two poems by Ron Padgett. The poems are “The Austrian Maiden” and “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo.” Our recording of “The Austrian Maiden” comes from a February 26, 2003, reading Padgett gave at the Kelly Writers House; the poem had just recently been published in Padgett’s book You Never Know (2002). The recording of “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo” — a poem published in Great Balls of Fire (1969) — was performed at a November 20, 1979, reading given at a location that is now (sadly) unknown. That reading in its entirety is available at Padgett’s PennSound page; the recording comes to us courtesy of the Maureen Owen Collection of Greenwich Village Poetry, now housed at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
April 17, 2024
Coolitude: Theoretical underpinnings
The term Coolitude is derived from “coolie,” a word originating in Tamil that means “laborer” with the implication that the labor provided is physical in nature. The British started taking Indians into their colonies in 1838, a trade that lasted until 1917, created to provide labor needed in sugar plantations after slavery was abolished. Its roots are in labor and works to reclaim an identity that acknowledges histories of labor and the British labor trade in the colonies. This type of movement that faces Asia from spaces where overseas Indians live counters common wisdom that holds that fictions of “race” create identity.
kuli nam dharaya
Natalwa me ai ke
bhajan karo bhaya
hath me cambu
kandh me kudari
pardesita ghare jai
They’ve given you the name “coolie”