Also I don’t suffer (PoemTalk #195)

Ron Padgett, “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo” & “The Austrian Maiden”

Al Filreis brought together James Berger and Richard Deming (who traveled together from Yale) and Sophia DuRose to talk about two poems by Ron Padgett. The poems are “The Austrian Maiden” and “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo.” Our recording of “The Austrian Maiden” comes from a February 26, 2003, reading Padgett gave at the Kelly Writers House; the poem had just recently been published in Padgett’s book You Never Know (2002). The recording of “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo” — a poem published in Great Balls of Fire (1969) — was performed at a November 20, 1979, reading given at a location that is now (sadly) unknown. That reading in its entirety is available at Padgett’s PennSound page; the recording comes to us courtesy of the Maureen Owen Collection of Greenwich Village Poetry, now housed at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

We’ve made the texts of the two poems available HERE and HERE. The recordings of the poems can be heard HERE and HERE.

To consult all 195 episodes of PoemTalk, dating back to 2007, please click HERE or click on the word “PoemTalk” at the top of this post. We make available the audio recording of each episode, of course, but also program notes, photographs of the PoemTalkers, relevant links to Pennsound and elsewhere, and sometimes a video of the session. PoemTalk is also available through Spotify and Apple podcasts.

Next time on PoemTalk Al Filreis will be joined by Julia Bloch, Jonathan Dick, and Gabi Ojeda-Segué to talk about Hart Crane’s “The Harbor Dawn” and performed by — ready for it? — Tennesse Williams!

Directing and engineering this episode were Makena Deveraux, Magda Andrews-Hoke, and Zach Carduner. And, as usual, the episode was edited by Zach Carduner.