Commentaries - May 2019

George Economou's 'Ananios of Kleitor'

A review by Tim Whitmarsh

[Following the death this month of George Economou, I am posting again this definitive review of his masterwork Ananios of Kleitor, which appeared earlier in the blogger edition of Poems and Poetics, before I was simultaneously posting on Jacket2. The review itself, originally published in The Times Literary Supplement, July 24, 2009, is available in its original format here. (J.R.)]

New at PennSound: Edwin Torres and Will Alexander reading and conversation

Edwin Torres and Will Alexander at the Kelly Writers House, October 25, 2016.

On October 25, 2016, Edwin Torres and Will Alexander gave a double reading at the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, and then joined together in conversation. The program, organized by Edwin Torres in collaboration with the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania, was titled “Paradigm Shifting.” The event was recorded and is available in both audio and video. Details of the event are archived at the Kelly Writers House web calendar here. Now, thanks to the efforts of PennSound staff editor Luisa Healey, the recordings have been completely segmented; one can listen to individual poems read by each poet, and the conversation has also been segmented by topic. This new addition can be found on both Alexander’s and Torres’s PennSound author pages. 

Imaging the voice

Notating poetic vocalization

Back cover image for 'Open Letter' (Sixth Series, no. 1: Spring 1985)

In the mid-1980s, Open Letter — Canada’s defunct and dearly missed journal of theory and poetics — dedicated five issues of the journal to notation for poetry and language. Each installment of this series contains a range of texts that intersect with the idea of notation to explore topics including reading, rhythm, composition, documentation, and performance. 

“Notation is a set

of instructions for

reading (in) the

future” (Robert Kroetsch)

 

These ladies are not afraid to rage against the machines: part two

Kiwi Asian women poets have strong opinions. [Part two]

Kiwi Asian Woman by Pauline Canlas Wu.

Kia ora ano.

In part two of this commentary post, I will include several poems by the poets featured in part one, furher emphasizing their frankness and willingness to speak their minds about cultural connections and disconnections as Kiwi Asian poets, as well as about how they see Aotearoa New Zealand per se.

I will also feature Shasha Ali and her own comments with regard to the questions I asked other poets, in part one.

Sade LaNay

Seven Poems from 'Härte' with a brief accounting by Maria G. Baker

[What follows is an extraordinary example of experimental translingual writing, the movement in this instance between English and German, while encompassing, if I read it correctly, an underlying narrative of rape and nonbinary gender realities embedded in a series of questions that continue to build/bild from start to finish.