Category Archives: Poetry

Anselm Berrigan, Alice Notley and Edmund Berrigan read from The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan

… … Anselm … At Saint Marks Bookstore on the evening of April 5, 2011, I recorded Anselm Berrigan, his brother, Edmund, and his mother, Alice Notley, reading from The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan, which they had just edited, … Continue reading →

Love Is Not All by Edna Saint Vincent Millay

14 Feb ’15

… Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain, Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again. Love can not … Continue reading →

Some Thoughts on a Crosstown Bus: Elio Schneeman

9 Feb ’15

… February 8, 2015 I rode the M14 across town this afternoon to go to a poetry reading, on the way editing some sonnets I’m working on—no place better than a bus to work and read—but by the time I … Continue reading →

Bad Boy by Bill Kushner

5 Feb ’15

……If you don’t want a house guest to walk around naked, never invite Bill Kushner. The man lives nude whenever possible; always trying to get back to the beginning, an Eden perhaps. Bill had some problems in his apartment and … Continue reading →

And Five More American Poets: Stevens, Swenson, Rukeyser, Lowell and Ashbery

22 Nov ’14

… Wallace Stevens … The Idea of Order at Key West She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic … Continue reading →

Robert Frost reads The Witch of Coös

25 Oct ’14

… As strict as Robert Frost could be about meter, here he speaks in variations of a loosely vernacular iambic pentameter, and when he reads, taking on the character of the narrators, he adds asides, and makes the listener feel … Continue reading →

William Blake’s To The Evening Star

14 Oct ’14

… TO THE EVENING STAR THOU fair-hair’d angel of the evening, Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed! Smile on our loves, … Continue reading →

Some thoughts about Marty Watt (among other things)

30 Sep ’14

… Marty Watt was the first performance poet I ever saw. And I will be forever indebted. It was in Philadelphia where I had come to live again after several years of travel. I had returned to the States Easter … Continue reading →

Dumb Luck: Sam Hamill’s Weasel, Crow and Coyote on the Dharma Trail

17 Sep ’14

… … Several years ago, I had some dumb luck; it was on a Saturday, May 12, 2012 to be exact. I went to Zinc Bar off of Washington Square for a poetry reading, but I had the time wrong; … Continue reading →

T.S. Eliot reads some minor poems: La Figlia Che Piange, Whispers of Immortailty, Sweeney Among the Nightingales, and Difficulties of a Statesman

30 Aug ’14

… La Figlia Che Piange T.S. Eliot looked all over Italy for a statue of a weeping girl. He couldn’t find her, but then one day a real one appeared. How do you say hello to a beautiful woman? Sometimes … Continue reading →

T.S. Eliot reads Landscapes

26 Jun ’14

… I’ve always liked T.S. Eliot’s “Landscapes.” I think I first read them when I was nineteen. Later on in my twenties, I bought an LP that had the recording of him reading them, a Caedmon recording. Recently I had … Continue reading →

Lewis Warsh reads from One Foot Out the Door

19 May ’14

… Tired as I was, I’m glad that I made it to Lewis Warsh’s reading at Saint Mark’s last Wednesday night on May the 7th to hear him read from One Foot Out the Door, his collected short stories just … Continue reading →