Category Archives: Poetry

Sonnet 8 from A Sonnet Sequence by Edwin Denby

… From 1976 until 1983, Jacob Burckhardt recorded and edited Edwin Denby reading from his Collected Poems. Here is Sonnet 8 from A Sonnet Sequence. 8 Three old sheepherders so filthy in their ways Whores wouldn’t touch them with a … Continue reading →

Robert Frost reads Design

27 Mar ’15

… I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth— Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the … Continue reading →

Tom Sleigh reads from Station Zed

20 Mar ’15

… February 17, on a writing assignment for the Bryant Park Poetry Series, I went to the Kinokuniya Bookstore at 1073 Avenue of the Americas to hear Tom Sleigh read from his new book, Station Zed, poems and prose about … Continue reading →

I sing “Ah! Sunflower” by William Blake accompanied by 13 Paintings of Sunflowers by Charles Burchfield

7 Mar ’15

… ….. Ah Sunflower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun: Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller’s journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in … Continue reading →

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

22 Feb ’15

… … 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 →