Commentaries - January 2010

KWH-TV

Here is a reminder that we at the Kelly Writers House offer a live video stream of nearly every reading, seminar, workshop, talk and performance that takes pHere is a reminder that we at the Kelly Writers House offer a live video stream of nearly every reading, seminar, workshop, talk and performance that takes place at the House. Any time there's a program scheduled for our Arts Cafe (most weeknights and several lunch hours per week) you can go here

http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/

--click the link "view live video," and watch what's going on at KWH as if on TV. That's why we call it "KWH-TV." Our event schedule is always the top link on our home page: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/ . Enjoy watching!

January's favorite PoemTalks

Not including the most recent PoemTalk episode on Robert Duncan, below are the 18 most often listened-to episoNot including the most recent PoemTalk episode on Robert Duncan, below are the 18 most often listened-to episodes in the last month. Creeley seems to be in the lead every month lately. The Duncan show had by far the most listenings this month, but that's mostly because we widely announced its availability during this period; and it's still prominently featured on the front page of the Poetry Foundation site. We'll see where it fits next month. Is this of real interest? value? Not really. Such stats are subject to the vagaries of web site and blog cross-linking.

1. Robert Creeley
2. Adrienne Rich
3. William Carlos Williams
4. Wallace Stevens
5. Ezra Pound
6. Vachel Lindsay
7. Allen Ginsberg sings William Blake
8. Barbara Guest
9. Louis Zukofsky
10. Amiri Baraka
11. Alice Notley
12. John Ashbery
13. Ted Berrigan
14. Jaap Blonk
15. Gertrude Stein
16. George Oppen
17. Charles Bernstein
18. Lyn Hejinian

nothing [was] being done with sound

Marjorie Perloff speaking at a panel discussion in 2000: "[M]y main objection to a lot of the poetry being written today is that nothing is being done with sound and the visual. And even in Stephen [Burt]’s talk just now I didn’t hear him say one word about sound. To me, the sound of a poem is at least as important as the semantics; so is the visual. Both are aspects of poetry, and I had a terrible experience just the other day when we were judging Mellon fellowships, doctoral fellowships, for the West Coast region in San Francisco.