Al Filreis gathered together Jerome Rothenberg, Charles Bernstein, and Pierre Joris to talk about two poems by Armand Schwerner. The first was written near the end of Schwerner’s life, for his major series titled The Tablets. The poem discussed here is “Tablet XXV” [TEXT; AUDIO] and, along with all the other sections, it can be found in the complete edition published by the National Poetry Foundation in 1999. The second poem is an earlier one, “‘daddy, can you staple these two stars together to make an airplane?’” [TEXT; AUDIO] originally published in Seaweed and available on page 50 of Selected Shorter Poems (Junction Press, 1999).
Jerome Rothenberg gave a reading on Thursday, September 29, 2022, at the Kelly Writers House. The full video recording is available below, along with seven photos taken during and after the event. He read, in part, his short new book, In the Shadow of the Mad King (available from Granary Books).
[The following is a segment of a longer “conversation” between me and Dorota Czerner, to accompany her translations into Polish of poems of mine from Poland/1931 and Khurbn, to be published in the journal Chidusz, in Wroclaw, Poland, later this year. The discussion of translation and reverse translation (into Polish and Yiddish) may be of particular interest here. (J.R.)]
[Originally published in part in Dialectical Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Stanley Diamond, edited by Christine Ward Gailey (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992). Copies of Diane Rothenberg’s book, Mothers of the Nation, in which this essay also appeared, may still be available through Ta’wil Books, pjoris@icloud.com. Another essay, “Corn Soup & Fry Bread,” was posted earlier on December 5, 2008, in Poems and Poetics, and parts one and two of the present essay first appeared there in September 2014.
[The following commentary is taken from the gathering of North and South American poetry (“from origins to present”) that Javier Taboada and I are now preparing and that includes a different poem of Martínez’s, but Sarano’s attempt, as shown here, is the first at a broader range of translation. (J.R.)]
[Himself on the cusp between “outside” and “inside” poetry and art, Chirot, whose work, both verbal and visual, is a great, too-often hidden resource, wrote from an authoritative if barely visible position in contemporary letters. The depth and breadth of his total oeuvre — the rubbings and collages foremost — is outstanding.
Jerome Rothenberg reads from 'Mad King' at Kelly Writers House (photos and links)
Jerome Rothenberg gave a reading on Thursday, September 29, 2022, at the Kelly Writers House. The full video recording is available below, along with seven photos taken during and after the event. He read, in part, his short new book, In the Shadow of the Mad King (available from Granary Books).