On 27 April I helped celebrate April, which is National Soft Pretzel Month, National STDs Awareness Month, National Poetry Month, Fresh Florida Tomato Month and more, by playing LPs, CDs and selections from poets.org of spoken poetry. After LPs of John F C Richards reading the opening passages of Virgil's Aeneid and Stanley Kunitz and Andrei Voznesensky reading English and Russian versions of Voznesensky's Goya, I played CDs of Langston Hughes reading several short poems and Michael McClure reading his longer poem Indian accompanied by pianist Ray Manzarek.
The selection from poets.org included Ed Ochester reading his The March of the Penguins, Maxine Kumin reading her Purgatory, William Carlos Williams reading his To Elsie, Wanda Coleman reading her American Sonnet 35, August Kleinzahler reading his Tranter in America, Kim Adonizio reading her What Do Women Want, Clayton Eshleman reading his translation of Cesar Vallejo's XIII, Darcie Dennigan reading her Sentimental Atom Smasher, Robert Bly reading his Poem for Andrew Marvell, Rita Dove reading her Reunion 2005 and Weathering Out, Jim Powell reading his translation of Sappho's Artfully Adorned Aphrodite, Kay Ryan reading her Home to Roost, The Edges of Time and The Niagara River and W S Merwin reading his My Friends.
I then announced two upcoming readings: Rita Dove will appear at the Crest Theater in Sacramento at 7:30 PM on Wednesday 13 May as part of the California Lectures series; Bill Lee and Charity Bryson will open a reading May Day into Summer: Poetry of the Season, which will be hosted by Q Loren Ruh Smith and will conclude with an open mike, at the Broad Street Bistro and Gallery in Nevada City from 7:00 to 8:30 PM on Thursday 14 May.
I finished the program with two more scratchy LPs: Beatrice Lillie reading Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky and Cyril Cusack reading William Butler Yeats' Byzantium.
To hear this program, click here.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 9:36 PM
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