Author Archives: Don Yorty

The Water’s Work Song

I wrote the words to this song when I was twenty-three; it came in a burst of writing three other songs as well, just the words, not any music. Over the years as I learned to play the guitar (always … Continue reading →

Rosemary Cappello reads from Wonderful Disaster

15 Nov ’20

In Philadelphia, Rosemary Cappello—since the 1970s—has edited magazines, organized readings, and published books by Philadelphia poets, helping the poetry scene to thrive there. When she sent me a copy of her book, Wonderful Disaster, I was moved by her memories … Continue reading →

Ron Kolm reads from Swimming in the Shallow End

1 Nov ’20

Ron Kolm gives a lot of energy to the current poetry scene in NYC. He adds to his archives at the NYU Library, continues to publish others at The Unbearables, and collaborates with artists and writers, too, recently editing Brevitas … Continue reading →

Lynne Sachs reads from Year By Year Poems

31 Oct ’20

I heard Lynne Sachs read for the KGB Monday Night Poetry Series on Zoom a few weeks ago. She read from her new book, Year By Year Poems (2019), which is a beautifully put together publication by Tender Buttons … Continue reading →

Twelve Postcards

27 Oct ’20

I like making things, and since my husband Akram’s drawings often fit my poems perfectly, I’ve made postcards out of them. In the time of an inundating Internet and a pandemic, postcards are something physical that a friend has … Continue reading →

Nine Poems by Lewis Warsh

26 Oct ’20

In a box looking for something else, I found a stapled mimeographed magazine called UNITED ARTISTS FIVE that was edited and published by Lewis Warsh and Bernadette Mayer in 1978 when they worked together as United Artists living in … Continue reading →

John McCullough reads from Reckless Paper Birds

24 Oct ’20

Reckless Paper Birds, wow, when I saw that title, it immediately appealed to me, coming out of the ether as it did one day on the Internet. Even in a pandemic, we communicate. I got in touch with the … Continue reading →

Rachel Blau DuPlessis reads from Late Work and Around the Day in 80 Worlds

30 Sep ’20

I’d been wanting to get Rachel Blau DuPlessis on my blog for a long time. In Philly at Temple University in the mid-seventies where I was studying Latin, French and Spanish, I heard her read a sparrow poem inspired … Continue reading →

A Dozen Paintings by Emily Carr (1931-35)

29 Sep ’20

I wonder if, when Emily Carr went as a young woman to study painting in Paris in 1910, she might have read the sonnet, Vers dorés, by Gérard de Nerval that ends: Souvent dans l’être obscur habite un Dieu caché;Et, … Continue reading →

7 Postcards

10 Sep ’20

Back in the early 1980s, my friend Stephen Spera began to make poetry postcards for me. And then I took over the enterprise. Now I work on a lot of sonnet postcards. Here are seven non-sonnet postcards with the first … Continue reading →

Murat Nemet-Nejat reads from Io’s Song

1 Sep ’20

In Io’s Song, some of the poems are as beautiful to look at as they are to listen to and read. I have always been a fan of poets whose first language isn’t English, but who speak and write the … Continue reading →

Ed Sanders reads some really good poems

30 Aug ’20

In high school, my classmate, Mary Kopala, had an older brother in college studying for a PhD in Engineering, if I remember correctly, and he brought the record album, The Fugs, home at Christmas for her to listen to. … Continue reading →