Ted Pearson, "Catenary Odes"
from left: Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William Fuller, Bruce Andrews
Al Filreis hosted Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William Fuller, and Bruce Andrews in the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House for a conversation about Ted Pearson's book-length poem Catenary Odes. The book was first published by O Books in 1987. The poem, or perhaps it is a series of couplet-length poems, covers 44 pages in print; the PoemTalk group discussed the first 11 pages, approximately 40 lines. Our section ends with “the body electric in a brownout / the western mind in a jar.” The recording we play in this episode comes from Pearson’s PennSound page, from an audiotaping of a reading given in the Segue Series at the Ear Inn in New York on December 4, 1993.
September 26, 2023
From 'Technicians of the Sacred, Expanded': 'The Shaman of the Yellowknives, A Chipewyan Talk-Poem' (by François Mandeville)
[prologue]
There was a man called Sinew Water.
He was a shaman.
This is what they say.
He dreamed about what was good