PennSound Podcasts

In Episode 50 of PennSound podcasts, Emji Spero, an Oakland-based artist and poet exploring the intersections of writing, book art, installation, and performance, visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House in April 2015 to talk about their book almost any shit will do, which uses found language from mycelial studies, word-replacement, and erasure to map the boundaries of collective engagement. In this interview at the Wexler Studio, Spero spoke with , a poet living in Philadelphia and author of the chapbooks JOGS (Lulu, 2013) and Nite [chickadee]'s (GaussPDF, 2015), about personal trauma, queer longing, surveillance states, public/private access, the Baltimore riots, and a new work on violence as the static and quotidian. The interview concludes with a ten-minute collaborative reading by both poets from almost any shit will do.

In Episode 49 of PennSound podcasts, this interview tracks ' genesis and early development as a poet and intellectual. Harris' artistic and cultural education occurs during the late '50s, the '60s and the early '70s and takes place primarily in and around academic institutions: the liberal college, Antioch, which is in his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio, and the nearby black state university, Central State, in Wilberforce, and the story, if not exactly concluding, comes to "a momentary stay against confusion" at Stanford University in Northern California where he did his MA in creative writing and a PhD in English.

In Episode 48 of PennSound podcasts, on March 18, 2015, Canadian poet visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House and came into the Wexler Studio to record a conversation with . Zolf and Teare discussed Zolf's most recent book, Janey's Arcadia, which Teare described in his introduction to Zolf's reading at Temple University in November 2014 as a work that "situates us in a Canadian national history in which the ideology of nation building prescribes genocide for indigenous people, and enlists all its settler-subjects in the campaigns of conversion, dislocation, assimilation, and disappearance." Zolf created a film, a sound performance, and a number of polyvocal actions related to Janey's Arcadia and has written recently about the "mad affects" generated by the reading/audience event.

In Episode 47 of PennSound podcasts, the poet and translator Yosuke Tanaka visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House in late 2014. The purpose of his visit was threefold: to join a scientific conference on cell biology; to see the Writers House in person after spending much time there virtually as a participant in the open online course called "ModPo"; and to sit down in the Wexler Studio with to talk about contemporary Japanese poetry.

In Episode 46 of PennSound podcasts, Eric Alan Weinstein and spent some time in the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House talking about the problematics of the modern long poem. Can it be taught? Why is it so challenging, despite its central importance? The discussion is intentionally general at first, but soon Eric and Al turn to 's The Waste Land, and in particular to two modally quite distinct passages from the poem.

In Episode 45 of PennSound podcasts, convened an hourlong conversation with Alan Golding, , , and . They began by reflecting on Golding's 1995 book From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American Poetry twenty years later, beginning with a discussion about anthologies in the digital era, and soon talk shifted to Golding's assessment then of opposition to Language poets' anti-academic stance. Finally, the group discussed Golding's distinction between the Poundian long poem — mytho-informational — and 's Drafts.

In Episode 43 of PennSound podcasts, Amaris Cuchanski has edited and now introduces a 20-minute excerpt from a one-hour recording made of an October 17, 2012, featuring conceptualist writing by women, celebrating the publication of I'll Drown My Book. This excerpt is episode 43 in the PennSound podcast series. You can hear the entire recording — and indeed watch a video recording — of the event by visiting the Kelly Writers House web calendar entry and by visiting the speak PennSound page created for the audio recordings, which have there been segmented.

In Episode 41 of PennSound podcasts, on February 20, 2012, traveled from Calgary, Alberta, to read at a Belladonna* event, part of the "HOT TEXTS" project. She read with and , and was introduced by Emily Skillings. Skillings and Krystal Languell hosted the event, which took place at The Way Station in Prospect Heights Brooklyn. Episode #41 of the PennSound podcasts series, hosted and edited by Emily Harnett, features a twenty-minute excerpt from the reading after a three-minute introduction.

In Episode 41 of PennSound podcasts, on February 20, 2012, traveled from Calgary, Alberta, to read at a Belladonna* event, part of the "HOT TEXTS" project. She read with and , and was introduced by Emily Skillings. Skillings and Krystal Languell hosted the event, which took place at The Way Station in Prospect Heights Brooklyn. Episode #41 of the PennSound podcasts series, hosted and edited by Emily Harnett, features a twenty-minute excerpt from the reading after a three-minute introduction.

In Episode 40 of PennSound podcasts, visited the Kelly Writers House recently in order to record his poems for PennSound, to check with us about our progress in digitizing a box of rare recordings on cassette he has given us for adding to the PennSound archive (including readings by and ), and to participate in a recording session of PoemTalk (on a poem by ). spoke with David about his own poetry (particularly in Float, published by Chax in 2012), about his work as bookseller, convener of poetry communities (through readings series, etc.), librarian, and editor/publisher. They also discussed the poems and lives of Rattray and Frumkin.