Don Yorty

Alfred Corn reads English Renaissance Poets

… Today is April 23, the day Shakespeare was born and died. He’d be 453. In celebration here is the poet Alfred Corn reading poems of Renaissance English poets including Shakespeare that I recorded at the New York Botanical Garden … Continue reading →

The Story of the Rabbit and the Coyote. Illustrated by Francisco Toledo, Adapted by Gloria and Víctor de la Cruz

23 Apr ’15

… .. … I bought Cuento del Conejo y el Coyote illustrated by the artist Francisco Toledo when I was in Oaxaca in 1999 finishing up my novel. I’d first seen Toledo’s work about twelve years earlier when I was … Continue reading →

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20 Apr ’15

… I saw the bluebird first, its beating soft red breast. Young water snake, I looked for it next settled near the dock but it hadn’t risen yet or already’d slithered off. The pond’s cold. I won’t dive in. It … Continue reading →

Marianne Moore and e. e. cummings each read a poem

19 Apr ’15

… . WHAT ARE YEARS? …What is our innocence, what is our guilt? All are …naked, none is safe. And whence is courage: the unanswered question, the resolute doubt,— dumbly calling, deafly listening—that in misfortune, even death, …encourages others …and … Continue reading →

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens with ten engravings by Francisco Toledo and a translation by Luis Roberto Vera

18 Apr ’15

… I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It … Continue reading →

Edwin Denby reads The Climate and People on Sunday

17 Apr ’15

… … THE CLIMATE I myself like the climate of New York I see it in the air up between the street You use a worn-down cafeteria fork But the climate you don’t use stays fresh and neat. Even we … Continue reading →

Sonnet 8 from A Sonnet Sequence by Edwin Denby

15 Apr ’15

… 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 →

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13 Apr ’15

… 25 My cat and I play chasing each other. He jumps while I write and then stretches out full length in back of the warm computer to claw my hand when it comes in sight. Ouch! Ow! I say … Continue reading →

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4 Apr ’15

… Had I left sooner or later it would all have been different, but I didn’t and got into two arguments, one in a store and one on the sidewalk about the neighborhood with two freeloaders who do nothing, yet … Continue reading →

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31 Mar ’15

… The quiet aftermath of disaster dangling in the sunlight in a tall tree only decay to ever come after falling apart vanishing in the breeze where every now and then someone looks up to wonder what it was that … Continue reading →

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28 Mar ’15

… The butterflies of spring are small and dark not colorful and bright like butterflies of summer hovering from flower to flower in beauty’s camouflage. Two butterflies on the asphalt road laid with silver stone though small stand out. Because … 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 →