Ray DiPalma, 'It makes / of nonsense'
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Aaron Shurin (then just in from the Bay Area), John Tranter (visiting from Australia), and Charles Bernstein (coming in from New York) joined Al Filreis for this episode of PoemTalk to discuss a poem by Ray DiPalma, “It makes of nonsense.” The poem was written in 1976, and first performed, we think, in 1977. Our text of the poem comes from the poet, and is reproduced below. Our PennSound recording of the poem was segmented from a longer tape of a reading DiPalma gave, along with Michael Lally and Bruce Andrews (quite a threesome in those years), at the Ear Inn in New York City on November 10, 1977; the tape-recording itself was made by the aforementioned Charles Bernstein, one of this episode’s interlocutors.
June 19, 2013
On N. H. Pritchard, from 'Dark Horses: Poets on Lost Poems' (2004)
My note on N. H. Pritchard was originally published in Dark Horses: Poets on Lost Poems, ed. Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer (University of Illinois Press, 2004), along with a poem by Pritchard. Eclipse has now added to its full-text versions of both of Pritchard’s books a selection of his periodical and anthology publications. These are also linked at the EPC Digital Library. It is good to see so much more attention to Pritchard’s work than was the case a decade ago. So much of the poetry that captures today’s attention is, to use of phrase of Pritchard, quoted by Ishmael Reed, “tangential to thought.” His is not.
(2014)