Commentaries

small boxes

Back on September 26 Tom Devaney was celebrated at the Writers House on the occasion of his new book, A Series of Small Boxes. The reading was recorded for PennSound. Here is an mp3 of the whole reading. The final poem in the new book is one Tom wrote for my 50th birthday. Oh man, I'm hitting clean-up. MORE...

Below: Randall Couch happily chatting with Jessica Lowenthal at the party after the reading.

as if some family breach were healed

Adrienne Cecile Rich was the Phi Beta Kappa poet at the College of William & Mary in December 1960. She read her poem "Readings in History." Above is the poster that was printed by the PBK chapter and posted around campus that month (courtesy William & Mary Archives). MORE...

the Confucian side of Disney

Q.: Do you think that the modern world has changed the ways in which poetry can be written? A.: There is a lot of competition that never was there before. Take the serious side of Disney, the Confucian side of Disney. MORE...

you're a commuter in a station of the Metro

Wordsalad features a short entry on PennSound and in particular points out as useful my podcast called "PennSound pedagogy", "which discusses the reasons for setting up this audio archive and how educators can use it. For example, how can a teacher help students make a connection between Emily Dickinson and a contemporary poet like Rae Armantrout?"

But Wordsalad is not primarily a blog. It's "a weekly radio program on WSUM featuring recordings of contemporary authors reading from their own works. Imagine you’re a commuter in a station of the Metro, hearing bits and snatches of conversation as you pass by Modernist, experimental, performance poets, and Language writers. Wordsalad streams live on Thursdays from 1 to 2 pm Central at www.wsum.org and airs at 91.7 FM in Madison, Wisconsin."

www.wsum.org is Madison Student Radio - and naturally you can listening to a live stream. I'm listening as I write this: The Weakerthans are singing a song from their album Left & Leaving: extremely quiet punk (that possible?). Try this one.

Of course for the most interesting radio internet stream, there's FMU, independent freeform radio. FMU gives you ten or more options for internet listening.