Close Listening with Will Alexander

Will Alexander talks with me about his early immersion in the work of John Coltrane and its abiding connection to his own jazz-process/Surrealist poetry and discusses his “constellation” of mythological and scientific sources, the influence of Aimé Césaire on his work, the politics of his poetic form via resistance to colonization, the role of the black poet in America, the necessity of performance, and his aim to bring the reader into a state of “supra-mind.”

Listen to the thirty-minute program, produced for Clocktower Radio in association with PennSound >>>>> MP3

Will Alexander is a poet and lifelong resident of Los Angeles. Vertical Rainbow Climber, his first book, was published in 1987. Sun & Moon Press published Asia & Haiti in 1995. Towards the Primeval Lightning Field was published by O Books in 1998 and republished by Litmus Press in 2015. City Lights published Compression and Purity in 2011. Singing in Magnetic Hoofbeat: Essays, Prose Texts, Interviews and a Lecture 1991–2007 was published by Essay Press in 2012.

 Full set of Close Listening Programs at PennSound

 

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