Poetry in the democracy machine

Review
Jeffrey Grunthaner
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Teetering in a liminal space between a long poem and a consortium of compact lyrical statements, Executive Orders makes use of a kind of ludic legalese intended as a counterpoint to the unilateralism of Donald Trump’s heavy-handed use of executive power. By the same stroke, it broaches broader questions about how the social fabric of our lives relates to the impersonal ubiquity of technology today. By opposing poetry’s negative capability — its capacity to flow against factual uniformities — to the crushing realities of executive legislation, the book maintains a subdued sense of communitarianism. 

The controlled chaos that is clowning

Interview

A conversation between Henry Goldkamp and Mayookh Barua

Henry Goldkamp
Mayookh Barua
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The cover of Henry Goldkamp’s ‘JOY BUZZER.’

In the early performances that eventually became a part of JOY BUZZER, you (or me) never know what’s going to happen next. There was no real order to it, in the lineage of the kind of controlled chaos that is clowning. […] And that wackiness that creates a lack of foresight also makes fertile grounds for laughter because laughter is always in some way or another rooted in some sort of incongruity.

In Memory of Radio (PennSound Rewind #8)

Podcast

Black Authors on the Air 1967–2018

PennSound Rewind
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In this program we celebrate Black voices on the airwaves, from a 1967 radio-play staging of Samuel R. Delaney’s The Star-Pit  to Douglas Kearney’s 2018 appearance on Charles Bernstein’s Close Listening. The stations represented here include college and community broadcasters, flagship stations for the venerable Pacifica Radio network, modern internet radio, and even the BBC. Other authors featured include Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Yusef Komunyakaa, Claudia Rankine, Tyehimba Jess, Erica Hunt, and Tracie Morris.

Knot know now (PoemTalk #215)

Podcast

Stacy Doris, "Ménage à Trois" & "A Month of Valentines"

PoemTalk
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From left: Sarah Riggs, Laynie Browne, Lee Ann Brown

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Al Filreis met up with Sarah Riggs, Lee Ann Brown, and Laynie Browne at the Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation in lower Manhattan to talk about two poems by the late Stacy Doris. The discussion included remembrances of Doris as friend and poetry-world colleague; that happens along the way but in particular toward the end. Mostly, though, the group worked through close readings of parts of two poems from the book Paramour (2000, Krupskaya): “Ménage à Trois” and “A Month of Valentines.”

A call to take up thread

Review

A review of ‘Diary of a Proletarian Seamstress’ by Victoria Guerrero-Peirano

Jill Magi
From left to right: the cover of ‘Diary of a Proletarian Seamstress,’ Victoria Guerrero-Peirano.
From left to right: the cover of ‘Diary of a Proletarian Seamstress,’ Victoria Guerrero-Peirano.

The axiomatics of Victoria Guerrero-Peirano’s first poem in this beautifully crafted, hand-sewn collection instigate a pretty radical shift away from cordoning off textile workers as banner casualties in late capitalism. Or of textile work as polite women’s work. “I leave words” begins the first poem.

Midwinter Without Mayer (PennSound Rewind #6)

Podcast
PennSound Rewind
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Bernadette Mayer and a detail from the cover of her book, Midwinter Day

The winter solstice will take place this year at 10:03 on the morning of December 21st. It’s an astronomical event thoroughly woven into the fabric of our culture, especially the holidays and festivals that we celebrate at this time of year, which seek light in the midst of our darkest days. For many lovers of contemporary poetry, the solstice also brings bittersweet memories of the late Bernadette Mayer, whose beloved Midwinter Day was written in its entirety on December 22, 1978.

“In a Temporal Panic”

Review

On Lyn Hejinian’s ‘Lola the Interpreter’

Sarah Riggs
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From the cover of ‘Lola the Interpreter’ by Lyn Hejinian.

The main character of Lola, the Interpreter is not Lola but Hejinian’s mind, and it is a ride not to be missed. Prose but not poetry, not a poet’s novel, not criticism: it is a poet thinking philosophically about the present, in full recognition of how complex that present is.

George Quasha

Podcast

PennSound Podcast #81

PennSound podcasts
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Al Filreis and George Quasha in the Wexler Studio. Photo by Chris Funkhouser.

In this episode, Al Filreis was joined in the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers House by George Quasha and Chris Funkhouser. The three discuss Quasha’s ongoing series of preverbs, which Funkhouser has worked for years to record and can be found at PennSound here.