Commentaries - February 2016

Field notes of a rooted cosmopolitan

A couple years back I was attending a reading at the Zinc bar in Greenwich Village. After the reading, I went up to one of young poets on the bill to introduce myself and tell her that I enjoyed her work.  Jacqueline Waters, the poet in question, thanked me and then looked at me very intently, then inquired: “Joel Lewis. FROM NEW JERSEY?”

Introduction to « ANTHOLOGIE POÉSIE INTERNATIONALE »

Thinking back on my last post here (Dada to Daesh) I realized that the sense of poetry I was proposing (defending?) has been with me for a long time. So, here a short piece that expands on my sense of what poetry can / should be today if it is to be of use. I wrote this back in 1987 as introduction for an international anthology following a poetry festival I had organized with poet Jean Portante in Luxembourg, just a few months before I left Europe & moved back to the U.S.

Julie Patton on Close Listening

© 2016 Charles Bernstein / PennSound

Program one, reading (39:57): MP3
Program two, conversation with Charles Bernstein (45:29): MP3

On Program one, Julie Patton reads, performs and rips  "Car Tune," "Using Blue to Get Black," "Scribbling thru the Times,"  and "Notes for Sum (Nominally) Awake."

From 'Technicians of the Sacred (expanded)': Papa Susso, with Bob Holman, 'How Kora Was Born'

This story begins long long long long ago
So long ago that it was a place not a time
There was a man
He was so alone
The only person he could talk to was Africa
Luckily there was a tree nearby
Even more luckily behind that tree
That’s where his partner was hiding
All the sun and all the water were condensed
Into a single tiny block
Which the man planted in the sandy soil
He blew and he blew on that spot
Each time he blew he thought he heard something
What he was hearing was of course his partner singing

Put some there there. Imagine the body.

Eileen Myles amidst the Poets & Critics

Eileen Myles and Olivier Brossard at galerie éof.

Three times a year Abigail Lang, Olivier Brossard and Vincent Broqua organize a two-day "Poets & Critics" symposium in Paris – during which they welcome a multinational and multilingual group of writers, scholars and artists to discuss the work of one English-language poet. The terrifying but exhilarating condition: the poet will also be there. The poet will talk back to you. You will talk back to the poet. Hopefully you will begin talking together.