charles olson
Showing 34 items.
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The Poetry Center presents Anselm Hollo and Robert Harris, reading from their work at San Francisco State University. Harris opens, reading two chapters from his novel She Who Is Alive (announced as forthcoming from Blue Wind Press, an edition appeared from The Figures in 2000), followed by four poems. Hollo follows after an intermission, reading early work from his book Maya, poems 1959–1969 (Cape Gollard Press, 1970), from Haiku (Trigram Press, 1968, with Tom Raworth and John Esam), from his Curriculum of the Soul fascicle, Sensation (Institute of Further Studies, 1972), a sequence from Black Book (Walker's Pond Press, Center Conway, NH, 1974), and from Motes (Joujouka Toujours, Baltimore, 1976).
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The Poetry Center presents a memorial tribute to Benjamin Hollander (1952–2016). Twenty-two poets, writers, artists, and friends come together to reminisce and to read from Hollander's books, including How To Read, Too (Leech Books, 1992), The Book of Who Are Was (Sun & Moon Press, 1997), Rituals of Truce and the Other Israeli (Parrhesia Press, 2004), Vigilance (Beyond Baroque Books, 2005), In the House Un-American (Clockroot Books/Interlink Publishing, 2013), Memoir American (Punctum Books, 2013), and his posthumously published work, The Letters of Carla, the letter b: A Mystery in Poetry (Chax Press, 2017).
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The Poetry Center presents Charles Alexander and Susan Thackrey reading and in conversation. Alexander reads from Pushing Water (Cuneiform Press, 2011) and unpublished work. Thackrey reads from Andalusia (Chax Press, 2015). The readings are followed by a conversation in response to questions from the audience.
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The Poetry Center presents Charles Olson reading from The Maximus Poems and other works.
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The Poetry Center presents Charles Olson, speaking of his life and work and reading from poems included in The Distances (Grove Press, 1960) and in his late extended work, The Maximus Poems: at the time he was at work on Book III. The footage was filmed March 12 & 13, 1966, at Olson's home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with Olson responding to questions from poet and filmmaker Richard O. Moore.
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The Poetry Center presents Charles Olson with Edward Dorn, speaking outdoors during the July 1965 Berkeley Poetry Conference, on the University of California Berkeley campus.As Olson speaks he alludes several times to what happened "last night," referring to his 3-plus hour reading of July 23, thus dating this film recording as July 24. That event was subsequently transcribed by Zoe Brown and published as Charles Olson Reading at Berkeley by James Koller's Coyote Press, 1966. The segment of this program filmed in Berkeley is followed by extensive silent B-roll footage shot in Gloucester, Massachusetts during Richard O. Moore and his KQED film crew's March 1966 visit to Olson's home (see Charles Olson, Part 1).
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The Poetry Center presents Dale M. Smith speaking on Robert Duncan and Charles Olson, reading briefly from his own poetry, and in conversation. Smith presents two pieces drawing on his research into the relationship between poets Duncan and Olson, as involved in his work on two books: An Open Map: The Correspondence Between Robert Duncan and Charles Olson and Imagining Persons: Robert Duncan's Lectures on Charles Olson, both volumes co-edited by Smith and the late Robert J. Bertholf (University of Mexico Press, 2017). Smith also reads briefly from his recent book Sons (Knife Fork Book, 2017). The reading is followed by a conversation with the audience.
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The Poetry Center and City Lights Books co-present a memorial tribute to David Meltzer, at San Francisco State University. Steve Dickison opens, with Garrett Caples as emcee, introducing Lawrence Ferlinghetti (via recording), Julie Rogers, George Herms, Jack Hirschman, Jerome Rothenberg, Marina Lazzara, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, Michael McClure, and Clark Coolidge, all of whom come together to pay tribute, read from their own work, and from Meltzer's books of poetry, including David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer (Penguin, 2005), Luna (Black Sparrow, 1970), Beat Thing (La Alameda Press, 2004), and a poem written by Meltzer for the 2011 Theo Saunders Sextet album Intergeneration. The event also features several recordings of David Meltzer reading his work at City Lights Bookstore. Photo, left-right: Sheppard Powell, Jack Hirschman, George Herms, and Clark Coolidge, courtesy Richard Friedman. Note: audio recording only, with apologies for distortion and irregular audio levels.
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The Poetry Center presents Denise Levertov, speaking of the nature of her work and reading from her poems, with her husband Mitchell Goodman commenting, and son Nickolai and a family friend, Robert Goldman, also present. Richard O. Moore engages Levertov and the others with questions and comments throughout. The footage was filmed March 20, 1966, at Levertov's apartment in New York City.
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The Poetry Center presents Duncan McNaughton, reading from Tiny Windows (Auguste Press, 2014), among other work, and Bill Berkson, reading from earlier poems and then from Expect Delays (Coffee House Press, 2014), followed by the two poets conversing and responding to questions from the audience.
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The Poetry Center presents Robin Blaser and Ebbe Borregaard, reading their work at the San Francisco State University Student Center, in the erstwhile Barbary Coast Room. Blaser, on a rare visit from Vancouver, BC, returns to what he regards as his home, San Francisco, to read from his poetry, with a declaration that he's leaving that mode of writing poetry behind him. Borregaard, saying he had intended to present only songs, opens by reading his poems, then, returning to the microphone after Blaser's reading and a break, he reads from a prose piece he calls "Notes of Arrogance and Possibility" — punctuated then overtaken by Blaser's extended interventions. Lewis MacAdams as Poetry Center director provides the introductions, dedicating the program to the goddess Isis.
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The Poetry Center presents Ed Sanders, reading from his poetry — excerpts from Poem from Jail (City Lights Books, 1963) and "Elm Fuck Poem" — on site at his Peace Eye Bookstore on New York City's Lower East Side; visiting with the editors at the offices of counterculture newspaper The East Village Other; speaking with filmmaker Richard O. Moore on protest, poetry, obscenity and censorship; and rehearsing with his band The Fugs.
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The Poetry Center, together with New College of California, co-present Edward Sanders and Edward Dorn, reading their work at New College, on Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District. Sanders reads from a span of poems, opening with an auto-reflective item, "Author's Introduction to The Collected Poems of Edward Sanders, 1961–2039 (Variorum Edition)..." and including multiple works, among them his "Elegy for O." [Charles Olson]. Dorn reads from the manuscript of Hello, La Jolla (subsequently published by Wingbow Press, 1978), a work from Nahuatl co-translated with Gordon Brotherston for Brotherston's book Image of the New World: the American Continent Portrayed in Native Texts (Thames & Hudson, 1979), later collected in The Sun Unwound: Original Texts from Occupied America (North Atlantic, 1999), and from Gunslinger (the various books of which had been collected the prior year and published by Wingbow Press in Berkeley, 1975). Duncan McNaughton, director of the Poetics Program at New College, introduces the poets.
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The Poetry Center presents Geoffrey Young, Stephen Rodefer, and Larry Goodell, in that sequence, reading and, in Goodell's instance, performing their poetry at San Francisco State University. Young reads from In XX Arrondisements (The Figures, 1975). Rodefer reads from One or Two Love Poems from the White World (Duende, 1976) and other work. Goodell reads from The Staff of Ometeotl and the Bowl of Ometeotl (Truck Press, 1975), A Garden of Ourselves, The Face of Velma, and Dried Apricots (all from his own Duende Press). Kathleen Fraser makes the introductions for this early video-documented event by these three poet friends, visiting as she notes from New Mexico, in an augmented classroom (décor by Goodell) at SF State.
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The Poetry Center presents George Stanley, visiting from Vancouver. Born and raised in San Francisco, where he lived most the first 30 years of his life, he is an alum of San Francisco State. Stanley presents an "open workshop," reading at large from his poetry and talking about his life and work, responding to questions from his audience (which includes Joanne Kyger, Donald Guravich, Tinker Greene, Ed Mycue, Lew Ellingham, among others). He reads poems from After Desire (2013), Vancouver: A Poem (2008), At Andy's (2000), and Gentle Northern Summer (1995, all from New Star Books, Vancouver). This is the first of two October 2013 programs featuring Stanley; two nights later he read with Ellingham at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco.
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The Poetry Center presents Joanne Kyger and Australian poet Robert Adamson, reading primarily from new works: Kyger's On Time (City Lights Books, 2015) and Adamson's Net Needle (Flood Editions, 2015.)
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The Poetry Center presents John Wieners, reading his poems from Ace of Pentacles (James F. Carr and Robert A. Wilson, 1964) and The Hotel Wentley Poems (The Auerhahn Press, 1958), and engaging in conversation with Robert Duncan. The poets appear in front of the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, then in the fire-scarred room of the former Hotel Wentley, on Polk Street, in which Wieners eight years before had written in one week his series of poems bearing the hotel's name. Wieners was in San Francisco to attend the Berkeley Poetry Conference at UC Berkeley this same month, and the film marks his first return to San Francisco after leaving for New York, then Boston, shortly after composing the poems of that first brief book.
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The Poetry Center and the Departments of Modern Languages and Literatures, and Jewish Studies, present José Kozer reading poems in Spanish from Ánima (Tierra Firme, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 2002; Shearsman Books, 2011) followed by Norma Cole, Chris Daniels, and Steve Dickison reading different selections from Anima in English. Kozer also reads from Carece de causa (Ediciones Ultimo Reino, 1988). The reading is followed by extended remarks by Kozer in response to questions from the audience.
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The Poetry Center presents a rare reading by Black Arts Movement poets K. Curtis Lyle, founding member of the Watts Writers Workshop of Los Angeles, and Calvin C. Hernton, sociologist and poet and founding member of the New York City-based Umbra Workshop. The poets are introduced, at New College of California in San Francisco's Mission district, by their friend (and fellow Umbra poet) Ishmael Reed. He is welcomed to the stage by Poetry Center director Lewis MacAdams, organizer of the event, in collaboration with the New College Poetics Program.
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Mark Linenthal, co-director of The Poetry Center, presents a lecture on trends and directions in contemporary American poetry, with recorded excerpts of Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, and Robert Creeley reading from their work.
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The Poetry Center presents Jim Dunn and Neeli Cherkovski, reading and in conversation. Dunn reads his poems from Convenient Hole (Pressed Wafer, 2005), Soft Launch (Bootstrap/Pressed Wafer, 2008), and from his unpublished manuscript Dreaming in Tongues. Cherkovski reads poems including selections from his book Elegy For my Beat Generation (Lithic Press, 2018) and from the manuscript of his forthcoming book Hyper (due 2019 from Lithic Press). Their readings are followed by a conversation with the audience.
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The Poetry Center presents Orlando White, recipient of the Poetry Center Book Award for LETTERRS (Nightboat Books, 2015). White reads with award judge Patrick James Dunagan, who reads from Drops of Rain / Drops of Wine (Spuyten Duyvil, 2016) and Book of Kings (Bird & Beckett Books, 2015). The poets' readings are followed by an extensive conversation with the audience focused on questions of poetics.
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The Poetry Center presents poets Peter Culley, reading from a recent collaborative work done with Elisa Ferrari, then from Parkway, from his Hammertown trilogy (New Star Books, 2003–2013), and Stacy Szymaszek, reading from Hart Island (Nightboat Books, 2015) and from the manuscript to a work subsequently titled Journal of Ugly Sites and Other Journals, which would be awarded the Ottoline Prize and published in 2016 by Fence Books.
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The Poetry Center presents Philip Whalen, reading and talking in regards to his poetics, and considering among other subjects the division between what is regarded as "eastern" and "western" writing and thought. Whalen responds to questions by filmmaker Richard O. Moore. The footage was recorded at Whalen's apartment in San Francisco, on November 10, 1965, late autumn following the summer of the Berkeley Poetry Conference at UC Berkeley, and that confluence on the West Coast of several of the poets profiled in the USA: Poetry series.
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The Poetry Center, in one of several special programs marking its 20th anniversary with celebratory readings at the San Francisco Museum of Art, presents Robert Creeley and John Wieners. Creeley reads primarily newer poems, with a few earlier poems as collected in his book For Love: Poems 1950–1960 (Scribners, 1962). Wieners reads from manuscript, writings contemporary with that published in Behind the State Capitol, or Cincinatti Pike (Good Gay Poets Press, 1975) and from his recent Selected Poems (Grossman, 1972). The poets are introduced by Poetry Center director Kathleen Fraser, who in introducing Wieners reads a statement he'd written that day for the purpose. For the early part of Wieners' performance he is accompanied by piano, a volunteer piano player having been requested from the audience by Creeley to entertain with some music during the break.
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The Poetry Center presents Robert Creeley reading from his poetry.
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The Poetry Center presents Robert Creeley, reading from his poems and commenting on his poetry and poetics, in response to questions from filmmaker/poet Richard O. Moore. Creeley is accompanied by Bobbie Louise Hawkins (at the time, Bobbie Creeley), and speaks extensively of his poetics and his contemporaries and the sense of a common and complementary undertaking between them.
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The Poetry Center presents poet-scholars Robert Dewhurst and Michael Seth Stewart reading from and discussing the works of poet John Wieners (1934–2002). The program includes a screening of the outtakes from Richard O. Moore's 1965 "USA: Poetry" public television documentary featuring John Wieners in San Francisco along with Robert Duncan.
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The Poetry Center presents Robert Duncan and George Oppen, reading from their poetry, in the very first video recording (following near-20 years of audio recordings) made for the Center's then newly established American Poetry Archives. The poets appear before a large audience at the San Francisco Museum of Art, its Van Ness Avenue, Civic Center location, for the first of a number of events billed as "Evenings at the San Francisco Art Museum," noted in the event program as "re-establishing our historical & cultural ties" between the museum and The Poetry Center. Following the poets' readings was a screening of the outtake footage from two of the USA:Poetry film series, on Charles Olson and on Frank O'Hara, as made available by Richard O. Moore, General Manager for San Francisco public television station KQED.
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The Poetry Center presents Simon J. Ortiz and Jennifer Elise Foerster, reading from their poetry, at Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco. Foerster reads from her most recent book The Maybe Bird (The Song Cave, 2022) and other work. Ortiz reads from a span of his work, including the manuscript from his forthcoming book, Light as Light, poems from the omnibus volume Woven Stone (1992), and one story from Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories (1999; all, in new editions, from the University of Arizona Press). Two days prior, he read from his poetry and stories and talked with the audience at The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University. Steve Dickison introduces the poets. On the walls of the gallery space is new work by San Francisco-based Salvadoran muralist Josue Rojas.
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The Poetry Center presents Stacy Szymaszek reading from Hart Island (Nightboat Books, 2015) and Peter Culley reading from Hammertown (New Star Books, 2013) and The Age of Briggs and Stratton (New Star Books, 2008), followed by the poets taking questions from the audience.
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The Poetry Center presents a memorial tribute to Stephen Rodefer (1940–2015), with reminiscences and poems, mostly by Rodefer, read by twenty Bay Area poets and friends. The event incorporates a portion from a Poetry Center video of Stephen Rodefer reading, May 8, 1975, at San Francisco State University.
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The Poetry Center and the Department of English at UC Berkeley co-present Tom Raworth (1938–2017): A Celebration of His Life and Work: 23 poets, musicians, publishers, and friends, in tribute to Tom Raworth. Taking place in the Maude Fife Room in Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley, the event includes in-person tributes, along with several recorded or written and read by proxy, by: Lyn Hejinian, Stephen Emerson, Norma Cole, Alastair Johnston, Kit Robinson, Claude Royet-Journoud, David Southern, Jean Day, Alan Bernheimer, Merrill Gilfillan, Armando Pajalich, Stephen Vincent, Rod Smith, Larry Ochs, Fanny Howe, Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, Jim Nisbet, Gian Antonio Pozzi, Rita degli Esposti, Duncan McNaughton, Dale Heard, Lyn Hejinian, Andy Berlin, Steve Dickison, and Miles Champion. Selections from a 2012 recording of Tom Raworth, reading his poems (from Tottering State: Selected Early Poems, 1963–1983, The Figures, 1984/O Books, 2000) conclude the evening.
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Tyrone Williams presents the 34th annual George Oppen Memorial Lecture, at the Unitarian Center, San Francisco. The George Oppen Memorial Lecture is supported by the Dorothy A. Fowler Trust.