Don Yorty

A Dozen Paintings by Emily Carr (1931-35)

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 →

Seven Books

4 Aug ’20

… … I … … I will only write about books that are on my bookshelves now; if the book is not here, then I won’t mention it, so I won’t be mentioning books like The Idiot, which may have … Continue reading →

James Baldwin by Carl Van Vechten

2 Aug ’20

… On September 13, 1955, Carl Van Vechten photographed the fairly well unknown James Baldwin who had just published his first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was already … Continue reading →

Bamboo Pavilion: Chinese Poems and Paintings by Joanne Wang and Alfred Corn

1 Aug ’20

… Bamboo Pavilion is a beautiful jewel of a book. Chinese poets like Du Fu and Li Bai are translated by Alfred Corn with paintings by the contemporary Chinese artist, Joanne Wang, the present and that past in a really … Continue reading →

Timothy Liu reads from Let It Ride

30 Jul ’20

… A year ago I got in touch with Timothy Liu and asked if I could record him reading from his new book, Let It Ride, which was coming out in September. Well, one thing led to another, and we … Continue reading →

Patricia Spears Jones reads new poems

29 Jul ’20

… When I read the poems by Patricia Spears Jones in the latest issue of the Brooklyn Rail, I immediately got in touch with her and asked her if I could record her reading them for my blog. If not … Continue reading →

Jason Schneiderman reads from Hold Me Tight

22 Jul ’20

… Jason Schneiderman’s new book, Hold Me Tight, has some striking violence on its cover yet is very comfortable to hold. It’s this oxymoron about the book that pleases me the most. Pleasing too is the fluid order of the … Continue reading →

Janet Hamill reads from A Map of the Heavens

4 Jul ’20

… In the early 1970s, poets began to memorize their poems so what was coming to the listener was coming from the poet, not from the page. Janet Hamill was one of the first to do this as much a … Continue reading →

Basil King reads from Disparate Beasts

30 Jun ’20

… Basil King focuses on the details that sparkle and create the most important events in an artist’s life. His new book, Disparate Beasts, is the history of a thousand pages condensed through poetry into one. Although he began as … Continue reading →