On 12/10 we talked poetry and politics, as inspired by a paper written by Marjorie Perloff, critiquing the letters between Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan, dealing with poetic reaction to the Vietnam War. To find this paper, go to http://marjorieperloff.com/articles/duncan-levertov-letters/. We discussed the different ways that writing can engage with politics. We were not able to come to any conclusions, so if you feel inspired by our discussion, please include your comments here or email us!
For the second half of the show, we had Candy Shue join us to talk about the process of creating chapbooks.
Click here to listen
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
October 19, 2014 Joseph Noble Live!
Today, Joseph Noble came to Lightrail Studios to talk about his book Antiphonal Airs (Starlight Press, 2013). This three-part book of poetry is heavily inspired by both early Baroque Italian music and American jazz. In the first section 'Innvenzioni e Stravaganze,' each of the poems is dedicated to a musician/composer and each has locations and dates when the musician was most active. Joseph states that these pieces are investigating temporality and 'tenuous cultural memory.' The second section 'At Sound' focuses on the death's of Joseph's parents and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The first two sections are followed by an 'Afterward' and a 'Post Face,' in which Joseph generously shares his inspiration and his process with his reader. The third section, 'Correspondences,' which begins with a lovely quote by Hazrat Inayat Khan linking creation and sound, employs more improvisation and foregrounds an attention to rhythm. Joseph, who is also a flute and saxophone player, closely links music and poetry and states that poetry is closely tied to time and sound. This led us to a discussion of how Joseph listens when reading poetry, and also pays attention to phrasing when composing music. Indeed, this work is deeply aware of the connection between music and the body.
You can hear albums from the Joseph's many musical projects at http://cloud-shepherd.bandcamp.com and more of his poetry, drawings and music at josephnoble.info.
Click here to listen
You can hear albums from the Joseph's many musical projects at http://cloud-shepherd.bandcamp.com and more of his poetry, drawings and music at josephnoble.info.
Click here to listen
Monday, October 6, 2014
October 5, 2014: Norman Fischer Live!
Poet, essayist, writer, and Zen Buddhist priest Norman Fischer joined us live in the studio this past Sunday and read from/discussed his collection, The Strugglers (Singing Horse Press, 2013).
Norman opened the show reading six poems (13-18) from the first section of The Strugglers entitled "Sixty Five," one of two memorial poems featured in the book. "Sixty Five" was composed after the death of close friend Rabbi Alan Lew, who died "suddenly at age 65." The 65 "passages" were written not only in Rabbi Lew's memory, but as a "direct communication" to him.
Next, we looked at the overall structure of The Strugglers discussing the individual character of each section: Sixty Five, The Strugglers, Mandelstam/Stone or The Russian Mall Poems, Personal, A Young Girl, A Hierophant, and Recognition. Each of the six sections celebrates a different tone, voice, and form (ranging from prosier long lines which demand page-space to shorter stanzas demanding lyric clarity). The collection's title poem, "The Strugglers," is a memorial poem written for/in conversation (in song) with Leslie Scalapino. Scalapino's final prose work, The Diehedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom, served as the source text for Norman's 28-poem (each subtitled) series; he chose key words in passages and then composed his own poem of disasters that were appearing in the news at the time of writing: war, violence, tsunamis, earthquakes.
Topping our hour, Norman shared his history with Zen Buddhism and how it has influenced his writing. Early on it was something that he would "try to avoid," not wanting any one ideology to take over the work. Whereas today, Norman shared, he feels it's inevitably present in the work--evident possibly in the practice of using formal constraints. Structurally, each section of the book seems to organically find or sing out its own unique form. Citing Kay Larson's book, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, Norman commented on how art and poetry have moved from a 20th century Modernist I/ego centered expression to a destabilizing Postmodern expression that's concerned with de-centering the self. For Norman, the one rule in poetry has become "no rules," and that's "good news" where the "self is a character"--every I in the poem is a distinct voice. His interest in the phenomena of human subjectivity informed the poem "Personal," and Norman next read from this 5-poem series (each titled, "Personal") that ultimately questions: what is a person?
We concluded with a reading from his most recent collection, Escape This Crazy Life of Tears: Japan 2010 (Tinfish Press, 2014), a "travelogue" set in his "Japanese poet persona"--slowed down, smoothed down, and pared down to an essential lyric. Click here to listen.
Norman opened the show reading six poems (13-18) from the first section of The Strugglers entitled "Sixty Five," one of two memorial poems featured in the book. "Sixty Five" was composed after the death of close friend Rabbi Alan Lew, who died "suddenly at age 65." The 65 "passages" were written not only in Rabbi Lew's memory, but as a "direct communication" to him.
Next, we looked at the overall structure of The Strugglers discussing the individual character of each section: Sixty Five, The Strugglers, Mandelstam/Stone or The Russian Mall Poems, Personal, A Young Girl, A Hierophant, and Recognition. Each of the six sections celebrates a different tone, voice, and form (ranging from prosier long lines which demand page-space to shorter stanzas demanding lyric clarity). The collection's title poem, "The Strugglers," is a memorial poem written for/in conversation (in song) with Leslie Scalapino. Scalapino's final prose work, The Diehedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom, served as the source text for Norman's 28-poem (each subtitled) series; he chose key words in passages and then composed his own poem of disasters that were appearing in the news at the time of writing: war, violence, tsunamis, earthquakes.
Topping our hour, Norman shared his history with Zen Buddhism and how it has influenced his writing. Early on it was something that he would "try to avoid," not wanting any one ideology to take over the work. Whereas today, Norman shared, he feels it's inevitably present in the work--evident possibly in the practice of using formal constraints. Structurally, each section of the book seems to organically find or sing out its own unique form. Citing Kay Larson's book, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, Norman commented on how art and poetry have moved from a 20th century Modernist I/ego centered expression to a destabilizing Postmodern expression that's concerned with de-centering the self. For Norman, the one rule in poetry has become "no rules," and that's "good news" where the "self is a character"--every I in the poem is a distinct voice. His interest in the phenomena of human subjectivity informed the poem "Personal," and Norman next read from this 5-poem series (each titled, "Personal") that ultimately questions: what is a person?
We concluded with a reading from his most recent collection, Escape This Crazy Life of Tears: Japan 2010 (Tinfish Press, 2014), a "travelogue" set in his "Japanese poet persona"--slowed down, smoothed down, and pared down to an essential lyric. Click here to listen.
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