Today we were without a live guest but were joined by Ezra Pound and H. D. Their recorded readings illustrated vorticism, a movement that was founded by artist Wyndham Lewis in reaction to and contrary to imagism and futurism; vorticism is an abstract and non-representational art using the greater energy of the poetic image. "The image is not a picture but a force."This poetry goes "beyond a static representation of the image to express a world of moving energies." Pound wrote about vorticism in an issue of BLAST in 1914. In the first half we played three recordings from Pound, one from the Caedmon recordings and two from Harvard. We discussed Pound's work and its connection to Asian artists and Buddhism. After the top of the hour Jay read an excerpt from the H. D. book by Robert Duncan who also described Pound's vorticism; perhaps Pound believed that there was one true poem. We ended the show with the H. D. recordings from her "Helen of Egypt." All of these were found on Penn Sound (a great resource for poetry recordings).
Click here to listen
Monday, September 29, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
September 21, 2014 Gloria Frym live!
This Sunday Gloria Frym joined us at Lightrail Studios to discuss her upcoming book The True Patriot (Spuyten Duyvil, 2015). Gloria, who writes both poetry and prose, shared this collection of 'proses,' narratives without traditional narrative arcs. We read an excerpt from the manuscript in preparation for the show but the final product is still in it's final stages of completion.
These pieces incorporate and communicate with news and current events. Gloria read from the piece "Tete Offensive," which is part of a larger story weaved throughout the manuscript; it takes place in the post 9/11 era and engages with the war as well as the AIDS epidemic. Here, as in the other proses in the book, Gloria expertly uses tangent and digression to display the workings of human thought and social negotiations.
After the break we heard "Lie" and "To Whom it May Concern." We considered the differences between working in prose as opposed to poetry; as Gloria says, "thoughts have their own form," and the paragraph tends to "fills space with thought." Towards the end of the interview, we focused on the title of the book, which shares its title with a piece within, but speaks to the notion that critique is a sign of a true patriot.
At the end, Gloria talked about her past work teaching in San Francisco county jails as part of the Community Works West program. She used this work with prisoners to inform her curriculum at San Francisco State University.
Check out her book in 2015!!!!
Click here to listen
These pieces incorporate and communicate with news and current events. Gloria read from the piece "Tete Offensive," which is part of a larger story weaved throughout the manuscript; it takes place in the post 9/11 era and engages with the war as well as the AIDS epidemic. Here, as in the other proses in the book, Gloria expertly uses tangent and digression to display the workings of human thought and social negotiations.
After the break we heard "Lie" and "To Whom it May Concern." We considered the differences between working in prose as opposed to poetry; as Gloria says, "thoughts have their own form," and the paragraph tends to "fills space with thought." Towards the end of the interview, we focused on the title of the book, which shares its title with a piece within, but speaks to the notion that critique is a sign of a true patriot.
At the end, Gloria talked about her past work teaching in San Francisco county jails as part of the Community Works West program. She used this work with prisoners to inform her curriculum at San Francisco State University.
Check out her book in 2015!!!!
Click here to listen
Sunday, September 7, 2014
September 7, 2014 Laura Mullen recordings
This Sunday we had the great pleasure of playing audio recordings of Laura Mullen reading her poetry. During the first half of the show we played six singular recordings. One of the pieces 'The Plastic Wrapper' is available on Laura's blog at Afteriwasdead.blogspot.com. We discussed her use of repetition, especially the use of the term 'the war on,' which exposes how common it is for us to be at war with various entities and segments of society. We also focused on Laura's incredible performance; her tone is both theatrical and understated. Jay pointed out that when listening to these recordings, we hear a confident female voice. She reminded us of Laurie Anderson.
After the top of the hour we played eight pieces that were recorded at the annual Louisville Conference of Literature and Art. Laura collaborated with multidisciplinary artist Afton Wilky, who sound mixed the poems. You can find out more about her, go to Aftonwilky.com. Given how the words are collaged over each other, we are able to interact with the language in a different way, in a possibly more meditative way. We wondered about the ways listening to this type of audio work might help us engage with our writing.
Laura's website is Lauramullen.biz.
Click Here to Listen
After the top of the hour we played eight pieces that were recorded at the annual Louisville Conference of Literature and Art. Laura collaborated with multidisciplinary artist Afton Wilky, who sound mixed the poems. You can find out more about her, go to Aftonwilky.com. Given how the words are collaged over each other, we are able to interact with the language in a different way, in a possibly more meditative way. We wondered about the ways listening to this type of audio work might help us engage with our writing.
Laura's website is Lauramullen.biz.
Click Here to Listen
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