Category Archives: American Poets

John Godfrey at KGB 11/21/16

… I no longer teach on Monday nights so I can get to the KGB poetry readings whenever I want, and I was especially looking forward to hearing John Godfrey read. When host, Ali Power, introduced John saying he was … Continue reading →

Poems by Gil Ott 1977 – 78

28 Dec ’16

… I knew Gil Ott when I lived in Philadelphia in the 1970s. He was hosting a poetry program on the radio at the University of Pennsylvania on Saturdays that featured both local and visiting poets. Philly had a vibrant … Continue reading →

Alfred Corn reads at Poets House

2 Nov ’16

… On October 8, 2016 in the late afternoon Alfred Corn read some poems at a celebration for his work at Poets House. The first poem Alfred reads here, The Bridge, Palm Sunday, 1973, I have added below. … … … Continue reading →

The Night Becomes Thick and Comfortable by Joel Colten and Randal Rupert: read by Peter Bushyeager

9 Oct ’16

… Joel Colten (1950 – 1980) was a poet and photographer who lived in Philadelphia and Manhattan. From 1976 to 1980, he was also coeditor of the literary magazine Hot Water Review. During his brief career, Colten’s poetry appeared widely … Continue reading →

Philip Good reads Coffee Poems

10 Sep ’16

… I was upstate over Labor Day visiting Philip Good and Bernadette Mayer at their beautiful home. It’s been freshly painted red and continues to await guests along a quiet meandering road on the edge of some woods, Bernadette’s Poetry … Continue reading →

After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

22 Aug ’16

… … My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. But I am … Continue reading →

Edwin Denby reads from Snoring in New York

22 Jul ’16

… Snoring in New York was published by Angel Hair in 1974 with a beautiful photo by Rudy Burckhardt on both the front and back covers, dark leaves, white moth. From 1976 until Edwin’s death in 1983, Rudy Burckhardt’s son … Continue reading →

Rocky Ledge # 5

23 Jun ’16

… Going through boxes and uncovering stuff. Here is Rocky Ledge #5 edited by Reed Bye and Anne Waldman in Boulder, Colorado summer of 1980. I am wary of scanning too much of this magazine because the scanning might damage … Continue reading →

HARD PRESS – SERIES 21: 12 POSTCARDS

22 Jun ’16

… Rochelle Kraut designed these postcards with the poems of poets roaming the East Village in the early 80s. There were plenty of them. Shelley will always have a special place in my heart because she gave me my first … Continue reading →

Robert Frost reads Mending Wall

9 Jun ’16

… It is Time that, after all, doesn’t like a wall. As we all know those that are built to keep people out don’t work that well if indeed they work at all. The Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of … Continue reading →

Tennessee Williams reads The Broken Tower by Hart Crane

7 Apr ’16

… Written by Hart Crane earlier in the year of his death, and rejected by Poetry, The Broken Tower was printed in the New Republic soon after his suicide on April 27, 1932. Why did Hart Crane jump into the … Continue reading →

Tennessee Williams reads Eternity by Hart Crane

5 Apr ’16

… There is something about Eternity that has always played on my heart strings. It may be that I heard the poem first read by Tennessee Williams on an LP I’d bought, a Caedmon recording. It is one of the … Continue reading →