Al Filreis

On Lydia Davis's 'In the Train Station'

In 2017 I moderated an interview/conversation with Lydia Davis. At one point I asked her to read “In the Train Station,” a prose poem or microstory I have admired and puzzled over. Then she and I discussed it. A video clip of that exchange is here, below. The transcription was done by Regina Salmons. The text of the piece can be read here. Here is a link to a video recording of an 18-minute discussion of this piece with Anna Strong Safford and erica kaufman (the video is inside the ModPo site; one must register to watch). And here is a 35-minute collaborative close reading (with 20 people) of the same piece which I hosted in San Francisco.

New at PennSound: Edwin Torres and Will Alexander reading and conversation

Edwin Torres and Will Alexander at the Kelly Writers House, October 25, 2016.

On October 25, 2016, Edwin Torres and Will Alexander gave a double reading at the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, and then joined together in conversation. The program, organized by Edwin Torres in collaboration with the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania, was titled “Paradigm Shifting.” The event was recorded and is available in both audio and video. Details of the event are archived at the Kelly Writers House web calendar here. Now, thanks to the efforts of PennSound staff editor Luisa Healey, the recordings have been completely segmented; one can listen to individual poems read by each poet, and the conversation has also been segmented by topic. This new addition can be found on both Alexander’s and Torres’s PennSound author pages. 

Fifty poets on fifty poems

A book to be published in 2020

Anna Strong Safford and I are editing a book, to be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2020, in which we present fifty poets writing 1,000 words each in response to fifty poems. Fred Wah on Creeley’s “I Know a Man.” Rachel Blau DuPlessis on H.D's Sea Rose. Tyrone Williams on Barakas Incident. And also Mónica de la Torre on Erica Baums Déjà vu. Reproduced above is Baums piece (from Card Catalogues).

Jonas Mekas at PennSound

Recording of 'A Requiem for a Manual Typewriter' and more

PennSound’s Jonas Mekas page includes two readings, both in the Segue series — one from 2006 and a second from 2015. And a bonus track: Allen Ginsberg performing “Sunflower Sutra,” an audio clip from a 1960 Mekas film. Thanks to the efforts of PennSound staffer Luisa Healey, we now offer segmentations from the two Segue readings. In 2006, he read “End of the Year Letter to Friends” (13:28).

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge: recordings of poems from 'Four Year Old Girl'

From Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s PennSound page, here are audio recordings (from various readings over the years) of poems published in the book Four Year Old Girl:

Irises: MP3
Daughter: MP3 in three parts: 1 | 2 | 3
Health: MP3
Pollen: MP3
Kali: MP3 (part 3 only)