Erica Hunt and Marty Ehrlich: April 3, 2014

Erica Hunt begins by reading some of her newer works in progress that are, as she says, "in the theme of music." Marty Ehlrich plays a song on the alto saxophone and then performs on clarinet and alto sax to accompany more of Hunt's poems from manuscript. Some of Hunt's work read from manuscript is from the collection later published as Veronica: A Suite in X Parts (selva oscura press, 2019).

Steve Dickison begins the conversation with Erica Hunt and Marty Ehlrich by posing a question about the nature of improvisation in their meeting between poetry and music. Hunt notes that the performance is not the same as the page, and that she is committed to the experimental practice of performing her poetry with music. Ehlrich discusses their method of practicing the performance, and how Hunt is free to adjust her poems, to improvise alongside Ehrlich's musical improvisaton. Neither, he says, works to cover the other person up while neither is being tentative: "It's swinging," Ehlrich puts it. Hunt calls the act of improvisation that of "radical presence, being in the moment that happens in performance" and creating the connection between the performance and the audience. Ehrlich explains that his goal in performing in duo with Hunt is to "respect her words." Hunt says "there's a stage of generating words and language that is provoked by the music."