Podcasts

That's right (PoemTalk #151)

Eileen Myles, 'Writing' and 'Mount St. Helens'

Photo credit: Roberto Ricciuti

Al Filreis convened Stephen Metcalf, June Thomas, and Jess Shollenberger to talk about two poems by Eileen Myles: “Writing” and “Mount St. Helens.” They appeared in Myles’s book of 2001, Skies, and were included by Myles in their volume of selected poems I Must Be Living Twice. Myles’s PennSound page includes several performances of these poems, including a powerful although understated reading of “Writing” here at the Writers House when they were visiting as a Kelly Writers House Fellow in 2016. The recordings we used for the purposes of our PoemTalk conversation were made during an episode of Charles Bernstein’s interview series “Close Listening” in March of 2009.

August 25, 2020

Ominous pre-tingling (PoemTalk #150)

Terrance Hayes, 'MJ Fan Letter' and 'RSVP'

PoemTalk

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Simone White, Dixon Li, and Jo Park joined Al Filreis in the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House to discuss two poems by Terrance Hayes from his book Wind in a Box (2006). The poems are “MJ Fan Letter” and “RSVP,” and the texts are connected. The first begins with an address to Michael Jackson (“Dear K.O.P,” or King of Pop) and the second begins “Dear Michael,” although the opening of that versified fan letter is crossed out — single-line excising that makes it easy nonetheless to see and read what is meant to be excluded or second-guessed. And when the cross-outs finish in that passage of the second poem, the writing starts again with “Dear K.O.P.” We hear layerings of speaker, addressed figure, voices, subjective imaginings, and fantastic substitutions.

July 24, 2020

Find me the rage (PoemTalk #149)

Kamau Brathwaite, 'Negus'

PoemTalk

Kamau Brathwaite in the early 1990s. Credit: New York University archive.

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Al Filreis convened a conversation with Amber Rose Johnson, Jacob Edmond, and Huda Fakhreddine about Kamau Brathwaite’s “Negus.” The poem was included in the book Islands, published by Oxford in 1969. “Negus” appears as part six of a section of the book titled “Rebellion” within Islands, and Islands, in turn, is part two of The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy, which includes Rights of Passage and Masks as the first and third volumes. Brathwaite’s PennSound page — which has been curated by one of our PoemTalkers, Jacob Edmond — features just one recording of Brathwaite performing this poem. On May 1, 2004, in his Segue Series reading at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, the poet chose to read “Negus” as a kind of prefatory piece to the whole forty-three-minute reading. It certainly seems to introduce several of Brathwaite’s major concerns.

June 23, 2020

Episode 6: Bernadette Mayer

Poetry at the Rail Park

Bernadette Mayer smiling at the camera with her hair in braids — Photo of Bernadette Mayer courtesy of Walker Art Center.

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Bernadette Mayer, whose poetry is included in the Rail Park, is the author of over thirty books, including Midwinter Day, The Golden Book of Words, Utopia, Studying Hunger, and Sonnets, to name just a few. Her most recent book is Work and Days.

June 5, 2020

Episode 5: Brent Wahl

Poetry at the Rail Park

Photo of Brent Wahl with ladders and color block wall art behind him

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Brent Wahl is a visual artist. In the summer of 2018, he completed a major public artwork for the Philadelphia Rail Park. Wahl’s photography, installation, and time-based work has been exhibited in a variety of venues and institutions in the US and Europe.

June 5, 2020