“A wound lives in whatever isn’t spoken”

Review

On torrin a. greathouse’s ‘DEED’

Marcus Zhang
From left to right: torrin a. greathouse (photo by Tarik Dobbs), greathouse’s book ‘DEED.’

Will language ever be enough to undo the violent effects of itself? torrin a. greathouse’s most recent poetry collection, DEED, does not answer the question — since it is one of the unanswerable inquiries — but its exploration of language and desire brings moments of acceptance.

The halo he sees when the light shines

Review

On Robert Gibbons’s ‘Under the Great Divide with Ed Dorn’

Richard Hoffman
From left to right: the cover of “Under the Great Divide with Ed Dorn,” Robert Gibbons (photo by Joseph Schuyler).

Robert Gibbons’s Under the Great Divide with Ed Dorn is a book of witness, of presence seeking to perfect itself. Every poem in it arises from the intersection of a given place with time and consciousness. That there is more to an encounter, a photograph, a streetscape, a snatch of music, or a memory than we at first realize is a given for this poet, as is the radical subjectivity that plays the spider to his dynamic webwork.

H.D., Bergasse 19, and the status of the image

Article
Leonard Schwartz
Freud’s Consulting Room, Berggasse 19, Vienna, 1938. Photograph: Edmund Engelman. Image: Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna.

H.D. sought out Freud as both analysand and friend during her three-month stay in Vienna in 1933 and five week stay in 1934, strolling over from where she stayed at the Hotel Regis just down the block, to visit him at 19 Bergasse Street. Here they spoke together about the difference between art-making and religion-making, Freud eliciting H.D. to wonder after herself if she hoped to found a new religion, as opposed to write a visionary poem (which is what she ultimately did), in H.D.’s account of his verbal nudging.

Vancouver to New York City

Interview

Catching up with Kevin Davies

Kevin Davies
Scott Inniss
From left to right: Kevin Davies, Davies’ book “FPO,” and Scott Inniss.

As a low-level worker (“copy chief”) in a boutique marketing firm, I of course came across this abbreviation a lot on the documents I inspected. “For position only” seemed appropriate for what I saw as the haphazard, seemingly random work I managed to eke out from 2007 to 2013. 

Two of a kind (PennSound Rewind #2)

Podcast

A lesson in grieving and acceptance from Allen and Louis Ginsberg

PennSound Rewind
An old man and his hippie son, both poets.
Louis and Allen Ginsberg in Miami, 1969

Two decades after memorializing his mother Naomi in “Kaddish,” we find Ginsberg working in a very different mode as he actively documents the death  of his father Louis in one, or eventually, two poems with the same name. The first “Don’t Grow Old,” written around the time of Louis’ death, appeared in the collection Mind Breaths in 1978; the latter can be found in 1982’s Plutonian Ode. However the two works were envisioned by Ginsberg as one complete poem, as evidenced by a number of recordings made by Robert Creeley at the time of the second poem’s composition and the broader recorded history contained on Ginsberg’s PennSound author page. As we explore “Don’t Grow Old” (and “‘Don’t Grow Old’”), we’ll witness Ginsberg come to terms with his father through his decline, then see how latter poem reframes that experience through Louis’ reciprocal acceptance of his son’s queer identity, offering up potent lessons in mourning, as well as an important statement regarding homodomesticity and intergenerational reconciliation.

Fuck no to all that (PoemTalk #209)

Podcast

Sadie Dupuis, “Cry Perfume”

PoemTalk
From left: Hannah Albertine, Sadie Dupuis, Dorothea Lasky

LISTEN  TO THE SHOW

This episode of PoemTalk brought together Hannah Albertine, Sadie Dupuis, and Dorothea Lasky to talk about three poems in Sadie’s book Cry Perfume. We took advantage of Sadie’s presence in the very studio where we make our poetry recordings and asked her to perform the poems as part of our conversation about them. The book can be acquired HERE. 

This was one of those PoemTalk episodes where the four people in the room knew each other well in various contexts and relational vectors, so — you will notice almost immediately: it gets particularly digressive and almost riotously friendly — all to the better, we feel. Thus during editing Al and Zach decided in favor of leaving in all the deviations, parentheses, detours, and periphrasis. The mode befits Sadie’s verse and, especially, her critique of commodified versions of media from which a poem (or at least these poems) can be exceptions and alternatives. Fuck no to all that, she says — and the PoemTalkers agree.

Ashbery week, 2007 (PennSound Rewind #1)

Podcast

How one poet’s generosity set the stage for PennSound’s early growth

PennSound Rewind
John Ashbery thirst trap

In October 2007, PennSound had only just started to resemble the site it is today. The PoemTalk team was preparing their first episodes in anticipation of launching that December and PennSound Daily had just started as well. In our first full week of posts we had something well worth celebrating: the addition of John Ashbery to our roster of poets.

Lived history and the British Poetry Revival

Review

A review of Luke Roberts’ ‘Living in History: Poetry in Britain, 1945–1979’

Robert Hampson

This innovative late-modernist poetry was what Mottram called “the British Poetry Revival.” It was manifested through reading series, through particular magazines and small presses, and through independent bookshops. There were hubs in London, Cambridge, Brighton, and Newcastle, but it was not restricted to these places. The British Poetry Revival was never formalised as a group and did not have a distinctive “style.” Rather it was marked by a wide range of styles (including sound and visual poetries) and was open to a wide range of experimentation. 

Crucial poetic imaginations

Article

An introduction to new recordings of classic poetry at PennSound

Toni Bowers

I first encountered PennSound Classics when it already included a significant number of important early titles. I noticed, though, a comparative underrepresentation of the work of poets who identified as women. The dearth was readily explained: early women’s writing, and especially their poetry, tended until very recently to be neglected on college syllabi, in anthologies, and in scholarship. As a result, serious readers have had little opportunity to encounter the work of extraordinary poets like Katherine Phillips, Emily Brontë, and Charlotte Mew.