Ted interviewed me for the Poetry Project Newsletter, part of a series of interviews he did when he was the editor. It was published in the April/May 1998 issue.
Ted Greenwald: What does it feel like to be a poet in the “postmodern” era?
Régis Bonvicino is to twenty-first-century São Paulo what Charles Baudelaire was to nineteenth-century Paris: the poet as flaneur wandering through the cultural detritus of our time with mordant gaze and dark wit. Bonvicino’s ebullient poems are replete with philosophically searing perceptions and social conscious lament. Not yet elegy, Bonvicino’s unrelenting acknowledgments center on the parasitic relation between those mangled by society and those doin’ the manglin.’
You can get a hard copy of this new book for $12.95 (or $5 for a PDF) at Green Integer.
Régis Bonvicino is to twenty-first century São Paulo what Charles Baudelaire was to nineteenth-century Paris: the poet as flaneur wandering through the cultural detritus of our time with mordant gaze and dark wit. Bonvicino’s ebullient poems are replete with philosophically searing perceptions and socially conscious lament. Not yet elegy, Bonvicino’s unrelenting acknowledgments center on the parasitic relation between those mangled by society and those doin’ the manglin.’
Tyrone Williams talks to me about growing up working-class in Detroit; bookishness and the role of education and his early teachers; assimilation versus resistance and formal innovation in American poetry in relation to his dissertation on “Open and Closed Forms In 20th Century American Poetics”; his practice of “eshuneutics” (after Yoruba spirit Eshu); the use of appropriation in his poetry and the necessity of research and reading beyond one’s immediate knowledge context; and the politics and history of English for African Americans.
Tyrone Williams talks to me about growing up working-class in Detroit; bookishness and the role of education and his early teachers; assimilation versus resistance and formal innovation in American poetry in relation to his dissertation on “Open and Closed Forms In 20th Century American Poetics”; his practice of “eshuneutics” (after Yoruba spirit Eshu); the use of appropriation in his poetry and the necessity of research and reading beyond one’s immediate knowledge context; and the politics and history of English for African-Americans.
In this episode of Clocktower Radio’s Close Listening, ko ko thett talks to me about his decision to write in English; his nineteen years in exile and the experience of returning home; the political situation in Burma at the time of his exile compared to the present; his sense of the futility of the student protests; and the international context of the poets he anthologized in Bones Will Crow. In the course of the show ko ko thett reads a recent poem in Burmese and offers a spontaneous translation. Recorded before a live audience at the Kelly Writers House on January 23, 2017, ko ko thett’s reading immediately preceded the Close Listening show.
ko ko thett is a poet, editor, and translator from Burma/Myanmar. He writes in English and his first book The Burden of Being Burmese was published in 2015 by Zephyr Press. It was hailed by John Ashbery as “brilliantly off-kilter.”
ko ko thett’s Kelly Writers House poetry reading (29:18): mp3 ko ko thett in conversation with Charles Bernstein on Close Listening (38:36): mp3
Eleanor Antin sitting at edge of stage before picture of Jerome and Diane Rothernberg and David and Ellie
David Antin was one of the great American poets of the postwar period, transforming the practice of poetry, art criticism, and the essay. His “talk poems” are chock full of startlingly philosophical insights, weaving narratives on the fly and making poems that are as engaging as they are wise. I came to the event not knowing what I would say. Among the first speakers was Barbara T. Smith, who asked each of us to cut a lock of hair, which she collected. This reminded me of the Jewish ritual of cutting a piece of clothing at a funeral, usual a tie. So I ended my talk with a reading of “Rivulets of the Dead Jew,” which makes a reference to this ritual.
