Pierre Joris on Paul Celan's Shoah

New PennSound podcast: 20-minute excerpt of my discussion with Pierre Joris on Paul Celan's experience of the Shoah: https://jacket2.org/podcasts/pierre-joris-celan-and-shoah-20-minutes

Paul Auster recording

Paul Auster at PennSound performs the first two pages from "The Book of Illusions": http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Auster/Auster-Paul_03_1st-2-pgs-Bk-of-Illusions_UPenn_4-11-01.mp3

Goldsmith says Shia LaBeouf isn't a good plagiarist

http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/12/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-performance-art-scandal/#ixzz2tAVkA6Uq - Shia LaBeouf Isn’t a Very Good Plagiarist, Says the Plagiarist He’s Been Plagiarizing. MoMA poet laureate Kenneth Goldsmith: "If he were in my class, he would have gotten a very bad grade."

student responses to Elie Weisel's "Night"

Here are excerpts from two students’ responses to reading Elie Wiesel’s Night in my course called “Representations of the holocaust”:

I guess my frustration comes from my confusion about what my relationship should be towards this book. I feel a little out of sorts as a reader. I think of a memoir as closer in relationship to a novel than a textbook, and so I’ve been expecting of it some of the attention and creativity of form that a novel shows. But is that wrong of me? Is a holocaust memoir addressing something too sacrosanct to employ the same devices that a novel or creative memoir about another topic does? I really don’t know, and I feel disappointed with myself for feeling disappointed by the form of the narrative.

Some events initially seemed too perfectly metaphorical to be reality. But I had to remind myself that such things did happen. In such extreme circumstances, there is no metaphor and there is not the unimaginable—we are forced to accept that it is reality and we are forced to imagine the unimaginable, as terrible as it is, for that is the only way we can attempt to empathize.

experimental radio host/producer featured in new podcast

Benjamen Walker featured in new Kelly Writers House podcast: https://jacket2.org/commentary/benjamen-walker-and-year-sound . Part of the University of Pennsylvania's "year of sound."

PennSound podcasts

PennSound podcasts: http://jacket2.org/podcasts/pennsound-podcasts

PennSound roundtable on Tuesday Feb 11 at noon

PennSound roundtable - noon - Tuesday, Feb 11.  in the Meyerson Conference Center, 2nd floor of Van Pelt Library, Penn.  http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/13-14/dhf_pennsound.shtml

video of Jackson Mac Low's 75th

The Jackson Mac Low 75th Birthday Festschrift, September 20, 1997 - video of the event - has now been added to PennSound's Jackson Mac Low page: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Mac-Low.php

Rachel Blau DuPlessis with her new book

Rachel Blau DuPlessis with her new book, "Interstices": http://www.amazon.com/Interstices-Rachel-Blau-Duplessis/dp/1930068646

Dottie Lasky on Sylvia Plath, a poem

Thanks to the work of Anna Zalokostas, PennSound’s Dorothea Lasky page now includes poem-by-poem segments of several readings Lasky has given in the past few years. One of these readings — a Segue Series reading at the Bowery Poetry Club on October 30, 2010 — included a poem called “Death and Sylvia Plath”: MP3. Here is a link to Lasky's Jacket2 profile, her Columbia University bio, her Poetry Foundation bio page, her Tumblr, and here is one of her blogs.  Here is a review by Sophie Sills of Lasky’s Black Life. And here is her "press kit" for her "tiny tour" reading series.

blog post about ModPo

 

http://jennifercabral.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/we-call-it-modpo/

this holiday season, help me help kids get two weeks at camp next summer

 

My five decades of experiences at Frost Valley have taught me pretty much everything I know how to do – to be a patient parent, to be an attentive citizen, to be a teacher who cares personally about his students, and indeed to do whatever is in my power to preserve what Frost Valley does for kids.

I’ve seen Frost Valley make the lives of kids better in just two weeks. Seriously. I’ve seen it. Many times. Probably you’ve heard me tell these stories. No space for those stories here, but click on this video 

                     http://youtu.be/ivqXQFurfIs

and take a good look at these kids’ expressions – and you’ll easily be able to imagine – or, from your own experience, remind yourself of - the impact of this place on children and families. I’m totally committed to it.

To kids whose families cannot afford two weeks at camp in the summer, we at Frost Valley make $650,000 available annually. It’s our goal never to say no to a family who wants to send their child to camp – no matter the family’s economic status, nor the child’s ability or disability.

We need to raise the funds to make this financial aid – “camperships” – possible. My goal is to raise $10,000 before December 31, 2013. Will you please help me help these kids? Thank you so much for considering it. Just click this link

             http://frostvalley.kintera.org/thegreatestgift/afilreis

and you'll see my Frost Valley web page, my goal, etc. Click on "GIVE NOW" and make a donation.  Thank you so much!

I'm personally very grateful for your help. Please help me help these kids whose families cannot afford to send their children to camp. This kind of support has been no less than life-changing and indeed life-saving for some.

- Al

photos taken in 2013 of Oskar Schindler's factory

diorama of "In a Station of the Metro"

Madeleine Wattenbarger, an intern at Poets House, has created a diorama of Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," which will be used, in part, to teach that poem to children. Here are two views.

praise for PennSound

Happily received by email today:

"I'd like to take a moment to thank you & everyone else involved for PennSound & all related to it; I'm a performer & composer working in contemporary music in the UK, & I discovered PennSound while I was researching Olson, Niedecker, Cage & others during my Composition PhD. I think it's fair to say that it has changed my life, both in that it introduced me to poets who now are essential to me, & in that their work has been & continues as a constant inspiration for my own work, pushing me to think much harder & more creatively about form, score space & a host of other elements in the music I write. I also learnt to sing Jerry Rothenberg's Horse Songs (with his encouragement), which was fun."

Fall 2013 ModPo webcast schedule