the Poetry Project Podcast

Monday Reading Series

Jameson Fitzpatrick is the author of the chapbook Morrisroe: Erasures, which comprises 24 versions of a single text by the late artist Mark Morrisroe, and his poems have appeared in The Awl, BuzzFeed Reader, Poetry, Prelude, and elsewhere. He lives in New York, where he teaches writing at NYU.

Ali Power is the author of the book-length poem A Poem for Record Keepers (Argos Books, 2016) and the co-editor of the volume New York School Painters & Poets: Neon in Daylight (Rizzoli, 2014). From 2008 to 2015, she was an editor at Rizzoli Publications in New York. Currently, she is pursuing a master’s degree in social work at New York University and co-curates the KGB Monday Night Poetry Reading Series.

Wednesday Reading Series

Sara Deniz Akant is a Brooklyn-based educator, poet and performer. She is the author of Babette, selected by Maggie Nelson for the Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize, as well as Parades (Omnidawn, 2014), and Latronic Strag (Persistent Editions, 2015). She studies writing at the CUNY Grad Center and teaches at Medgar Evers College. Her work has appeared most recently in The Brooklyn Rail, The Bennington Review, jubilat, and Lana Turner.

Jasmine Gibson is a Philly jawn now living in Brooklyn and soon to be psychotherapist for all your gooey psychotic episodes that match the bipolar flows of capital. She spends her time thinking about sexy things like psychosis, desire and freedom. She has written for Mask Magazine and LIES Vol II: Journal of Materialist feminism, Queen Mobs, NON, The Capilano Review and has published a chapbook, Drapetomania (Commune Editions, 2015).

Special Event. Hosted by Monday Night Readings Coordinator, Judah Rubin.

Yoshimasu Gozo, born in Tokyo, has given performances worldwide, and has received many literary and cultural awards, including the Takami Jun Prize, the Rekitei Prize, the Purple Ribbon, and the 50th Mainichi Art Award for Poetry. This reading coincides with Gozo’s Alice Iris Red Horse: Selected Poems of Yoshimasu Gozo from New Directions and will feature Gozo in performance with special guests.

This event is a part of the “GIANT NIGHT: The Poetry Project at 50” platform series.

Thought of as the pre-spirit of The Poetry Project, Paul Blackburn gave the first “official” reading of The Poetry Project on September 22, 1966. His poetry, translations, and organization and recording of early downtown readings, exerted a steady and widespread influence across a wide range of aesthetic practices. In his lifetime Blackburn published thirteen books of original poetry as well as five major works of translation. Twelve other books were published posthumously. The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn (1985) and The Selected Poems of Paul Blackburn (1989) are both available from Persea Books, and a reprint of Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry, is due out from New York Review Books in 2016.

Join us for this kick-off event in “GIANT NIGHT: The Poetry Project at 50” as we read Blackburn’s work. With Kimberly Lyons, Ammiel Alcalay, Simone White, Martha King, Basil King, Jerome Rothenberg, Marcella Durand, Bob Holman, David Henderson, Anne Waldman, Rochelle Owens, George Economou, Mark Weiss, Patricia Spears Jones, Brenda Coultas, Gregg Weatherby, Carlos Blackburn and Joan Blackburn. We will also listen to some tracks from Blackburn’s 1966 inaugural Poetry Project reading.

Wednesday Reading Series

David Antin is a poet, performance artist, art and literary critic internationally known for his “talk pieces”—improvisational blends of comedy, story and social commentary. New Directions has published three books of these “talk pieces”— Talking At The Boundaries (1976), Tuning (1984) and What It Means To Be Avant-Garde (1993). Much of his earlier poetry was collected in Selected Poems 1963-1973 (Sun and Moon Press, 1991) and Granary Books recently published A Conversation with David Antin, the text of a 3 month email conversation between Antin and Charles Bernstein. His Radical Coherency: Selected Essays on Art and Literature, 1966 to 2005, was recently published by U. Chicago Press and his Selected Essays, How Long Is The Present (Ed. by Stephen Fredman) is in preparation by The University of New Mexico Press.The performance at the Poetry Project will be the launch of this new book.

Bill Berkson moved through life with compassion, grace, and humor. His generous spirit nourished and inspired those around him.

An Example, Worthwhile

Single point perspective got fudged.

The bird in the house flies in the eye of the god

Lounging at length across the field, a simple song.

One has to envision language or it’s no help.

Know history backwards.

Lay into life.

Ted Greenwald (1942-2016) was born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens, and lived in New York City his entire life. He wrote daily for over 50 years and published more than 30 books. A central figure in the second-generation of the New York school and a major influence on language writing, as a poet he is sui generis, they broke the mold. His work combines rigorous formal invention, a keen ear for plain talk, and a finger on the pulse of the life of the times. Three books of work from the 1970s are newly published, The Age of Reasons (Wesleyan), Common Sense (Wesleyan), and Own Church (Spuyten Duyvil). Other recent books include Comma Fork / Moving Parts and In Your Dreams (BlazeVOX), as well as the memoir of his childhood and youth, Clearview/LIE (United Artists). Greenwald was an integral part of The Poetry Project community having served as Newsletter editor in the 1970s as well as having been a longtime board member.

Off the Hook

He is gone now

Taking his body with him

When all the time

I thought it was

The beauty of his mind

I loved

from COMMON SENSE

Wednesday Reading Series

Rodrigo Toscano’s newest book of poetry, Explosion Rocks Springfield, is due out from Fence Books in the spring. His previous books include Deck of Deeds, Collapsible Poetics Theater, To Leveling Swerve, Platform, Partisans, and The Disparities. His poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Voices Without Borders, Diasporic Avant Gardes, Imagined Theatres, In the Criminal’s Cabinet, Earth Bound, and Best American Poetry. Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry, and was a National Poetry Series selection. He works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the United Steelworkers and the National Institute for Environmental Health Science. While in the Greenpoint township of Brooklyn, Toscano ran and wrote articles and interviews for the North Brooklyn Runners. He now lives in the Faubourg Marigny (seventh ward) of New Orleans.

Magdalena Zurawski is the author of Companion Animal (Litmus, 2015) and The Bruise (FC2 2008). Her commentary on aesthetics in the age of Ferguson, FEEL BEAUTY SUPPLY, can be found online at Jacket2.org. She teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Georgia and lives in Athens (Georgia).

Monday Reading Series

Eric Amling lives and works in New York City. His debut book From the Author’s Private Collection (Birds, LLC) was released in the summer of 2015.

Niina Pollari‘s first book, Dead Horse, was published by Birds LLC in 2015. She is also the author of two chapbooks and the translator of Tytti Heikkinen’s The Warmth of the Taxidermied Animal (Action Books, 2013).

Friday Reading Series

Lara Durback is a poet who has been living in Oakland for 10 years. She has published books collectively under NoNo Press and Mess Editions. You can see her printed and/or written work in Drift Magazine, Mrs. Maybe, Bombay Gin, the UK journal Hi Zero, and Tripwire. Her archiving work is online at deepoakland.org. In 2013, with designer Andrew Kenower, she produced the letterpress publication Field Work: Poems on the Occasion of Mark diSuvero at Crissy Field for SFMOMA. She has taught a letterpress printing course at Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program. Lara is a founding member of the new press collective Material Print Machine at the Omni Commons in Oakland, https://omnicommons.org. Her book is forthcoming from Publication Studio Oakland: psoakland.com.

Aldrin Valdez is a Pinoy painterpoet. They grew up in Manila and Long Island and currently live in Brooklyn. Aldrin studied at Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. They have been awarded fellowships from Queer/Art/Mentorship and Poets House. Their work has been published in Art21 Magazine, ArtSlant, BRIC Blog, The Cortland Review, In the Flesh Magazine, and Uncompromising Tang.