Charles Bernstein

Eduardo Espina's letter for Jose Kozer's eightieth birthday

(translated by Diane Rolnick)

March 30, 2020

Dear José:

LINEbreak is 25

In 1995, Martin Spinelli and I did a series of thirty-minute radio conversations and readings with poets and writers. It was one of the first programs to be distributed nationally by satellite to public radio stations, so a precursor to podcasts. I went on to a make a related series of programs, Close Listening. All are available free to stream or download on PennSound. All in all, there have been conversations and readings by 133 poets, writers, and artists.     

'Reznikoff's Nearness'

Recording of 1989 Royaumont talk, intro Hocquard, tr. Alferi

Bernstein Optic Nerves videos

photo by Colin Still

In November, Colin Still filmed me reading several poems and interviewed me about the poems, as part of his Optic Nerve series on poets, including Amiri Baraka, Robert Creeley, and Jerome Rothenberg.

Lev Rubinstein

photo by Charles Bernstein / PennSound

It was a delight to hear Moscow poet Lev Rubinstein read last night at Hunter College, with translations from the UDP collectionCompleat Catalogue of Comedic Novelties, which includes the complete set of his works composed (in sequence) on small library catalog cards. Matvei Yankelevich read the translations.