Commentaries

In Memoriam: Marjorie Perloff (1931–2024)

Photo by Emma Bee Bernstein.

This year's overwhelming procession of deaths within the poetry community continues with news that critic Marjorie Perloff passed away on March 24 at the age of 92.

Pataquerical Ballad, with Runa Bandyopadhyay

image by Susan Bee

Pataquerical Ballad by Runa Bandyopadhyay and Charles Bernstein. A two-volume set, one in English and one in Bengali. The English consists of Bandyopadhyay's performative commentary and set of inventive "fits" responding from and extending Bernstein's "The Pataquerical Imagination: Midrashic Antinomianism and the Promise of Bent Studies" in Pitch of Poetry, along with the original essay. The Bengali volume also includes Bandyopadhyay's essay  and a translation of the "The Pataquerical Imagination.

Richard Foreman at Segue / Artists Space

Richard Foreman read from an onoing new work as part of the Segue series at Artists Space in New York. The reading was recorded in his SoHo loft about a week before the event, Marh 16, 2024. Jay Sanders, Executive Director & Chief Curator of Artists Space, gave the intoduction:

In Memoriam: Tyrone Williams (1954–2024)

We at Jacket2 regretfully share the news that beloved poet and critic Tyrone Williams passed away on Monday, March 11, at the age of 70. The author of numerous books, including c.c. (2002), On Spec (2008), The Hero Project of the Century (2009), Adventures of Pi (2011), Howell (2011), As Iz (2018), and washpark (with Pat Clifford, 2021), Williams had recently joined the SUNY-Buffalo faculty as David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters after a long teaching career at Xavier University in Cincinnati. 

We at Jacket2 regretfully share the news that beloved poet and critic Tyrone Williams passed away on Monday, March 11, at the age of 70.

Remembering Lyn Hejinian

Photo by Blake Martin.

The loss of the wonderful, talented, groundbreaking, generous poet and literary citizen Lyn Hejinian has rocked the poetry world. Those who knew her personally — as many of us at the Writers House did — and those who have read and discussed her work (e.g. the experimental coming-of-age book-length prose poem, My Life), are already feeling the impact of the loss: we won’t be able to read new poems and new books by Lyn. It remains for us to read and re-read the astonishing writings she left us.

We start this week off with unwelcome news that resonates widely: Lyn Hejinian has passed away suddenly at the age of 82. Our own Al Filreis shared the following message this morning, reflecting the feelings of many of us at  Jacket2KWH, and PennSound:

The loss of the wonderful, talented, groundbreaking, generous poet and literary citizen Lyn Hejinian has rocked the poetry world. Those who knew her personally — as many of us at the Writers House did — and those who have read and discussed her work (e.g. the experimental coming-of-age book-length prose poem, My Life), are already feeling the impact of the loss: we won’t be able to read new poems and new books by Lyn. It remains for us to read and re-read the astonishing writings she left us.