Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué and Jonathan Dick joined Al Filreis to discuss Hart Crane’s “The Harbor Dawn.” It's the third poem-section of The Bridge, Crane’s 15-canto poem. Crane began composing The Bridge in 1923 and it was published by Black Sun Press in 1930. We don’t alas have a recording of Crane reading this poem; nor do any recordings of Crane survive. But PennSound’s Hart Crane author page includes two of Crane’s poems as performed by Tennessee Williams! So before our discussion began, we listened to Williams's transatlantic/southern American inflection.
Al Filreis convened Bethany Swann, Jonathan Dick, and Kate Colby to talk about a poem by Hoa Nguyen titled “Long Light.” The poem has been collected in Red Juice: Poems, 1998–2008 (150), published by Wave Books. Our recording of the poem comes from Hoa’s PennSound author page. The recording we used is from a reading presented as part of the St. Bonaveture Visiting Poets Series, on March 22, 2016.
Jack Giesking, Jonathan Dick, and erica kaufman joined Al Filreis in the Arts Café of the Kelly Writers House for a discussion of the first poem — doubtless it is intended as a proem — in Myung Mi Kim’s Under Flag (published by Kelsey Street Press in 1991). The poem is “And Sing We,” and the audio recording we use was made by Ross Craig in Berkeley in 2007 and is available, of course, at the poet’s PennSound page.
Al Filreis convened Selena Dyer, Jonathan Dick, and Jerome Rothenberg to talk about three poems in Michael McClure’s Ghost Tantras. The three poems can be found here. One of them is number 49 in the series, and there is a complicated history of performances. At Birkbeck College in London, McClure, performing some tantras, offered a brief commentary on 49 and then played a famous earlier recording in which he performed the poem (in 1964 and again in 1966) at the San Francisco Zoo in the lions’ house. Each time the lions roared in response.
