Thom Gunn, Joanne Kyger, Nathaniel Tarn: November 20, 1974

Thom Gunn reads "The Cherry Tree," "Touch," "The Idea of Trust," and the longer poem "Jack Straw's Castle." All except "Touch," which is included in his Collected Poems (1994) under the heading "Poems from the 1960s," are from the manuscript of his subsequently published book Jack Straw's Castle (1976).

Joanne Kyger opens with a poem written for her the day before, which was her 40th birthday, by Tom Clark, then reads the entirety of her chapbook Trip Out and Fall Back.

She reads a story by Theodora Kroeber titled "Butterfly Woman," and follows with a citation from Jaime de Angulo's writings, based on his encounters with California Indians (where, in de Angulo's words, "...the rude contact with the harsh material of life is softened and made tame by ritual and observation, collective thinking is safe"). Kyger relates the story of trying to share de Angulo's piece, titled "Do Indians Think?", with an indigenous man who is "totally insulted" and avoids her after hearing the question presented in that title.

She closes with "three more" of her own poems, the last one riffing off Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December."

Nathaniel Tarn opens by noting he wouldn't be comfortable trying to negotiate Lyrics for the Bride of God in this too brief circumstance, and that he'll begin, rather, with work written within the past ten days. He then reads the first of "Three  Narratives," "Narrative of the Spiders" (on publication in The House of Leaves this poem is dedicated to Asa Benveniste).  

He then reads "The College," a poem dedicated in The House of Leaves "for Janet Rodney, y los demas...." 

Tarn moves to the sequence, "Between Delaware and Hudson," noting that those familiar with tai ch'i might recognize how the movements of the poem "are very much controlled by that discipline." He reads section "2. First Movement, on the Delaware," then, noting it's written in reference to Robert Kelly, "4. Blithewood on Hudson" (Robert Duncan interrupting briefly with a comment from the audience), then "5. Second Movement, On the Delaware." 

Deciding to go back on his earlier decision, Tarn says he'll read one poem from Lyrics for the Bride of God. He reads, from "The Invisible Bride" section of that book, poem VII, beginning with the epigraphic lines: "Almost as if I were coming back to myself / lost for so long — / the long vacation of wisdom..."