John Kinsella

'Graphology' drawing poems, by John Kinsella

Al Filreis

Concurrent with writing Graphology Poems by hand and in type (typewriter and computer fonts), I have “concretized” poems by photographing them “in situ” — i.e. as printed or written out pages set in trees, against flowers, or as scratchings in dirt, as sticks arranged on a firebreak, or photographed by a third party while holding sheets of poems as “protest placards” — and as textual interjections, overlays, and “culture jamming” of preexisting images/texts. I have also, more prevalently, maybe, made “drawings” and “paintings” … in other words, writing as illustration.

I am pleased to present a selection of Graphology drawing poems by John Kinsella. You can view the selection HERE and HERE. Below is a commentary provided by John. — A.F.

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On Graphology Drawing Poems

by John Kinsella

Multicultural sleep

A review of 'Fainting with Freedom' by Ouyang Yu

Bonny Cassidy

Insouciance may be an undervalued poetic quality. In this latest collection by the Chinese Australian poet, novelist, editor, and translator Ouyang Yu, the attitude of insouciance is also a cultural strategy. It reflects Yu’s own movements as a writer and citizen, that is, situated “in Oz or China / Or both.”[1]

Kinsella & Milne collaborate on 'Reactor Red Shoes'

Not the building of a megaphone for bardic harmonics, nor the people’s microphone, but a dance of many feet...

Al Filreis

I'm pleased to present here a statement by John Kinsella and Drew Milne on their forthcoming book-length poem-project, Reactor Red Shoes. The work is being published September, 2013 by Veer: bbk.ac.uk/cprc/publications/veer-books . Below the statement is an excerpt from the poem, reproduced from the typescript.

John Kinsella & Drew Milne, Reactor Red Shoes: A Statement

Here, where two writers sidle up into becoming a third party — a third-party poetics in play and with shared accountability — there is not so much a duet of voices, as a textile of give and take, warp and weft.

John Kinsella

Al Filreis

PennSound’s new John Kinsella page features three recordings. One is a reading he gave at Buffalo in September of 1996, introduced by Susan Schultz (5:11): MP3 .

Here are poems Kinsella read:

Warhol at Wheatlands (2:53): MP3
Bluff Knoll Sublimity (2:54): MP3
Aspects of the Pagan (4:43): MP3
Editing (0:51): MP3
Disclaimers (2:19): MP3
Echidna (2:45): MP3
from “Syzygy” (4:57): MP3
Skeleton weed / generative grammar (3:35): MP3

He also took a moment to comment on the tradition of classical poetry in Australia and the slaughter of aboriginal peoples (1:05): MP3. The complete reading (26:19): MP3 is of course available also, but note that the recording cuts off at 26:19.

Recently in Jacket2

Topsy-Turvy

Charles Bernstein

from University of Chicago Press
176 pages, paper, ebook, and audiobook

Upcoming: boundary 2 launch, moderated by Paul Bové, with Yunte Huang (US), Abigal Lang (France), and Runa Bandyopadhyay (India). 4pm EST, June 15: registration here.

••With Chris Funkhauser at Poet Ray’d Yo, WQXC, radio, archive of April 22 broadcast (60 min)
••SemCoop / By the Book video launch with Craig Dworkin, April 29 (YouTube)
••Rain Taxi video launch with Tonya Foster, orignally broadcast May 18: YouTube
**boundary 2 launch, moderated by Paul Bové, with Yunte Huang (US), Abigal Lang (France), and Runa Bandyopadhyay (India)

•
••Jeremy Sigler, “The Yid and Yang of of Poet Charles Bernstein,” Tablet (April 26, 2021)
••Thomas Fink in conversation with Charles Bernstein on Topsy-Turvy at Dichtung Yammer.
••Jefferson Hanson, “Tribute to the Critic of Tone Jam: Remarks Off Bernstein’s Topsy-Turvy,” Altered States
••Paul Bove on “Echologs” at Harvard Univ. Press blog

The Bookseller: “Not set out to be a book about the pandemic, this rowdy collection of poems, performances and translations nevertheless speaks volumes about the upside-down world we have all found ourselves living in.”

In his most expansive and unruly collection to date, the acclaimed poet Charles Bernstein gathers poems, both tiny and grand, that speak to a world turned upside down. Our time of “covidity,” as Bernstein calls it in one of the book’s most poignantly disarming works, is characterized in equal measure by the turbulence of both the body politic and the individual. Likewise, in Topsy-Turvy, novel and traditional forms jostle against one another: horoscopes, shanties, and elegies rub up against gags, pastorals, and feints; translations, songs, screenplays, and slapstick tangle deftly with commentaries, conundrums, psalms, and prayers.

David Eggleton

Aotearoa New Zealand's Poet Laureate

Vaughan Rapatahana (new)

David Eggleton Poet Laureate — David Eggleton, Poet Laureate. Photo courtesy of Caroline Davies.

David Eggleton is the current Poet Laureate of Aotearoa New Zealand. He was appointed in 2019, and his tenure has been extended until 2022 because COVID has thwarted several of his live appearances.

David Eggleton is of Caucasian and Rotuman Fijian/Tongan heritage. Accordingly, he is a Pasifika poet.

boundary 2 webinair on Topsy-Turvy

Charles Bernstein

On June 15, boundary 2 editor Paul Bové, convened Yunte Huang (from California), Runa Bandyopadhyay (from India), Abigail Lang (from France), and me for b2's webinar on Topsy-Turvy, focussing on non-U.S. perspectives, in anticipation of an issue of boundary 2 coming out in the Fall. In the b2 issue, Runa gives a Vedic and Bengali spin to her reading of my poetics, Yunte writes about our ongoing mishmash of American and Chinese encounters, and Abigail continues her exploration of American/French poetry exchanges in an introduction to her translation of my work.