On Monday night, November 1, I went to KGB to hear some poetry. Jonathan Wells was the featured reader. I didn’t know his work (there is a lot I don’t know) so when he got to the microphone, I was … Continue reading
Category Archives: Odds and Ends
Ash Wednesday read by T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot joined the Anglican Church in 1927, a man of no faith who wanted to find some. Perhaps the faith was already there, the faith, at least, that if he put a pencil to paper, he would create … Continue reading
Charles Bernstein reads from Near/Miss
I am a slow reader and come to a lot of books slowly too, but if you live long enough, as I seem to be doing—so far, so good—good books, or books that I enjoy do come. Such a … Continue reading
Laura Cronk reads from Ghost Hour @KGB Monday Night Poetry
I was very moved listening to Laura Cronk read from her most recent book, Ghost Hour. Her childhood and my childhood have similarities. Although she grew up in Indiana and I grew up in Pennsylvania, I could relate. Her … Continue reading
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock read by T. S. Eliot
The first poem that anybody reads who must read something by T. S. Eliot—I think of high school teenagers—is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Perhaps, like those who first read it, the poem is young. Many people … Continue reading
Inauguration Poems, 1/21/21, curated by Dorothy Friedman
For this past January’s inauguration, after so much stress beforehand including armed insurrection, Dorothy Friedman gathered some poet friends together the day after the official celebration for a Zoom poetry reading. This reading is captured below on the Vimeo … Continue reading
Etheridge Knight reads Feeling Fucked Up
Etheridge Knight wrote some great poems, up there with the best of them. He mastered an African American oral tradition called the Toast. The improvisations of Rap today are a continuation of that tradition, and like the Blues with … Continue reading
A Kiss and a Sonnet
Last year I sent out a few Valentines, my poem “In the Circle,” and one came back with a kiss. Those lips are Shelley Kraut’s. Here’s to love, everybody. Mmmmwwahhhh! 219 I want to … Continue reading
Charles Bernstein reads from The Lives of the Toll Takers
In the Vimeo below, Charles Bernstein reads part of a poem from his book, Dark City that he made for his friend Li Zhimin, a poet and professor at Guangzhou University in China. The excerpt was selected by Li … Continue reading
Winter Paintings by Joan Eardley
Joan Eardley painted children in the slums of Glasgow and then lived in Catterline, a fishing village nobody went to. She found beauty in the often shabby common present. It is what I admire about her. The paintings below … Continue reading
The Prologue
What better way to start than at the beginning. These will be the first poems in my new book, Fucking and Other Poems, which will be published soon by Indolent Books. Till then Enjoy. words are … Continue reading
Francine Witte reads some Charley Poems
I’ve heard Francine Witte read her Charley poems on several occasions, and I’ve always enjoyed them, so it had been on my mind to ask her to read them for the blog. Charley is a man (the many men) … Continue reading