PennSound Podcasts
by PennSound
PennSound Podcasts are hosted by PennSound's co-director, Al Filreis. PennSound was created in 2003 in order to produce new audio recordings and to preserving existing audio archives of poets reading their own work and discussing poetry and poetics. PennSound makes these available to everyone through free downloadable sound files. PennSound is a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania.
Episodes
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Parts of parts: an interview with Larry Price
In Episode 78 of PennSound podcasts, poet Larry Price joins Al Filreis and William Fuller for an interview in the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers House to discuss his new book 1/0, as well as some of his earlier work. The three discuss various influences on Price's poetry, including his love…
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If we just had enough heart: an interview with Evie Shockley
In Episode 77 of PennSound podcasts, poet Evie Shockley sits down in the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers House for an interview about her work with Al Filreis, Tyrone Williams, Aldon Nielson, and William J. Harris. In this wide-ranging conversation, Shockley, Filreis, Williams, Nielson, and...
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A placeholder for memory: an interview with Sally Van Doren
In Episode 76 of PennSound podcasts, Sally Van Doren joins Al Filreis in the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers House for a discussion of her newest book, Sibilance (LSU Press, 2023). Van Doren reads aloud from her work, and the two discuss the practices of visual art and asemic writing that...
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Backwards and in circles: an interview with Willard Spiegelman
In Episode 75 of PennSound podcasts, Willard Spiegelman sits down with Al Filreis at the Kelly Writers House's Wexler Studio for a discussion on the underappreciated 20th century poet Amy Clampitt. The duo embark on a long exploration of Spiegelman's biography on Clampitt, Nothing Stays Put: The...
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Advance and retreat of energy: an interview with Gail Scott
In Episode 74 of PennSound podcasts, Christy Davids talks with Montréal writer Gail Scott about her recent release Permanent Revolution (Book*hug Press, 2021), a compilation of new and revised essays, including work that originally appeared in Scott's foundational feminist text, Spaces Like…
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I will wear the mask: a conversation with Emily Abendroth and Jeff T. Johnson
In Episode 73 of PennSound podcasts, Jeff T. Johnson and Emily Abendroth exchange perspectives on how modular, nonlinear writing can open into enactive relationships that press readers and listeners alike beyond individual experience toward "critical empathy" and its relational tactics and...
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I am the city: a conversation with Jill Magi and Davy Knittle
In Episode 72 of PennSound podcasts, Davy Knittle and Jill Magi spoke over Zoom about Magi's book Speech (Nightboat Books, 2019). Their discussion moved through many aspects of the relationship between the city and the woven object, such as the intersection of textiles and architecture; how...
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Empathy under late capitalism: an interview with Danielle LaFrance
In Episode 71 of PennSound podcasts, Levi Bentley, Ted Rees, and Danielle LaFrance met in the Wexler Studio in November 2019 to discuss LaFrance's books Just Like I Like It and Friendly + Fire as a part of the Housework series. Their conversation touched on the gross and grotesque, "it" as...
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'Some quality of song': an interview with Al Young
In Episode 70 of PennSound podcasts, Al Young, Tyrone Williams, and William J. Harris joined Al Filreis in the Wexler Studio to discuss Young and his work. The conversation covered the relationship between Young's poetry and the Black Arts Movement, the role of music and jazz in his writing, and...
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An openness to language: a conversation with Rodney Koeneke and Davy Knittle
In Episode 69 of PennSound podcasts, Davy Knittle hosted poet Rodney Koeneke in the Wexler Studio to discuss his book, Body and Glass (Wave Books, 2018). Their conversation touches on Koeneke's writing process and use of pronouns as a "distancing technique," the role of poetry — particularly...
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Not-me-ness: a conversation with Eileen Myles and Davy Knittle
In Episode 68 of PennSound podcasts, Davy Knittle and Eileen Myles had a conversation at Myles's home in the East Village in New York City in August, 2018, for this PennSound podcast. Their discussion began in the midst of an exchange about Myles's 1991 collection Not Me and changes in their...
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Taking up space: an interview with Sarah Rose Etter
In Episode 67 of PennSound podcasts, Sarah Rose Etter joined Jacket2 editor Julia Bloch in the Wexler Studio last September for a short reading from and discussion of her debut poetic novel, The Book of X, which appeared in 2019 from Two Dollar Radio. Etter and Bloch talked about the impact of…
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Always with, never about: a conversation with Dani Zelko and Jennifer Ponce de Léon
In Episode 66 of PennSound podcasts, Argentine poet Dani Zelko was joined in the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers House by Jennifer Ponce de León to discuss North Border: forced migrations (Gato Negro, 2019), the latest installment of Zelko's Reunión project. Zelko and Ponce de León's...
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Become something with other people: an interview with Wendy Trevino
In Episode 65 of PennSound podcasts, Wendy Trevino joined hosts Levi Bentley and Ted Rees for this PennSound podcast, the first in a series of intimate conversations in Housework's transition from reading series to recording series. Conversation topics included Barack Obama's appearance in Best...
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The poem is the memory: a conversation with William Corbett and Davy Knittle
In Episode 64 of PennSound podcasts, William Corbett visited the Kelly Writers House in October 2017 for a retrospective reading and conversation with Stan Mir in honor of the poet Michael Gizzi. During his visit, Corbett and Davy Knittle had a conversation in the Wexler Studio about the work of...
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New writing through the Anthropocene: an interview with Allison Cobb and Brian Teare
In Episode 63 of PennSound podcasts, Allison Cobb and Brian Teare joined Julia Bloch, Knar Gavin, and Aylin Malcolm in the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers House on April 2, 2019, following their lunchtime discussion with scholars and poets from Penn's Poetry and Poetics and Anthropocene and...
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Loving the self in the world: a conversation with Jared Stanley and Brian Teare
In Episode 62 of PennSound podcasts, the Reno, Nevada–based poet Jared Stanley visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House in April 2017 during a book tour for the release of EARS, which Sam Lohmann in The Volta has called "a manifesto of interdependence and susceptibility, a theory of the...
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Woken up in the sun: a conversation with Samantha Giles and Jenn McCreary
In Episode 61 of PennSound podcasts, Samantha Giles visited the Kelly Writers House during her reading tour last December to talk with Jenn McCreary about her new collection, Total Recall, which was published by Krupskaya Press and which Daniel Borzutsky has described as a book that "powerfully…
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Dwell in an otherwise space: a conversation with Ted Rees and Ariel Resnikoff
In Episode 60 of PennSound podcasts, Ted Rees, who recently relocated from Northern California back to his hometown of Philadelphia, and Ariel Resnikoff, who recently relocated from Philadelphia back to his previous home in Northern California, met up at the Wexler Studio at the Kelly Writers…
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A place that is living: a conversation with Sue Landers and Christy Davids
In Episode 59 of PennSound podcasts, Christy Davids returned to the Wexler Studio at Kelly Writers House earlier this year to chat with Sue Landers, whose 2016 book Franklinstein represents a documentary-poetic engagement with the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. As she notes in this...
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Through the door: a conversation with Rachel Levitsky and Davy Knittle
In Episode 58 of PennSound podcasts, Davy Knittle hosted poet Rachel Levitsky in the Wexler Studio to discuss her project during her residency at LMCC's Process Space on Governor's Island, "Mother of Separation." Their conversation centers on the role of space, scale, and queerness in Levitsky's...
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Breaking down that I: a conversation with Trish Salah and Christy Davids
In Episode 57 of PennSound podcasts, Christy Davids and Trish Salah visited Kelly Writers House on February 10, 2017, for a reading and conversation. Davids and Salah talked about lyric form, origin stories, and the "problems of the self" before Salah read passages from Lyric Sexology, Vol. 1…
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Soundtrack of your life: an interview with erica lewis
In Episode 56 of PennSound podcasts, Christy Davids visited Kelly Writers House on October 24, 2016, to talk with erica lewis, who was passing through Philadelphia to give a reading in Jason Mitchell's Frank O'Hara's Last Lover series in between stops in Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. While in the...
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Forms of ritual: an interview with CAConrad
In Episode 55 of PennSound podcasts, CAConrad returned to the Kelly Writers House on January 27, 2016, to visit the Wexler Studio to speak with Julia Bloch and to read from ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness, which appeared from Wave Books in 2014, as well as a number of new works...
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Adhered to them these extra meanings: Mike Hennessey picks five PennSound recordings
In Episode 54 of PennSound podcasts, Michael Hennessey, one of the founding participants of the PennSound archive, joins Al Filreis in the Wexler Studio to discuss Mike's top 5 PennSound picks.
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To go forward: an interview with Brian Teare
In Episode 53 of PennSound podcasts, Brian Teare came back to the Kelly Writers House on October 30, 2015, to speak with Jaime Shearn Coan about his new collection of poetry, The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven, published in 2015 by Ahsahta Press. Shearn Coan describes Teare's collection as...
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To open things up: an interview with Jerome Rothenberg
In Episode 52 of PennSound podcasts, on September 10, 2015, Jerome Rothenberg re-visited the Kelly Writers House to give an evening reading. A few hours earlier, Ariel Resnikoff and Al Filreis met Rothenberg in the Wexler Studio for an extended interview/conversation that ranged across many…
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Trouble the pronoun: an interview with Brent Armendinger
In Episode 51 of PennSound podcasts, the Los Angeles-based poet Brent Armendinger visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House in April 2015 during a book tour for the release of The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying, which Bhanu Kapil has described as a book that "traces the index of an intense...
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Any point can connect to any other point: an interview with Emji Spero
In Episode 50 of PennSound podcasts, Emji Spero, an Oakland-based artist and poet exploring the intersections of writing, book art, installation, and performance, visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House in April 2015 to talk about their book almost any shit will do, which uses found...
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All sorts of education: an interview with William J. Harris
In Episode 49 of PennSound podcasts, this interview tracks William J. Harris' genesis and early development as a poet and intellectual. Harris' artistic and cultural education occurs during the late '50s, the '60s and the early '70s and takes place primarily in and around academic institutions…
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An intangible third: an interview with Rachel Zolf
In Episode 48 of PennSound podcasts, on March 18, 2015, Canadian poet Rachel Zolf visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House and came into the Wexler Studio to record a conversation with Brian Teare. Zolf and Teare discussed Zolf's most recent book, Janey's Arcadia, which Teare described in...
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The split life: an interview with Yosuke Tanaka
In Episode 47 of PennSound podcasts, the poet and translator Yosuke Tanaka visited Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House in late 2014. The purpose of his visit was threefold: to join a scientific conference on cell biology; to see the Writers House in person after spending much time there...
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On reading and teaching the modern long poem: an interview with Eric Weinstein
In Episode 46 of PennSound podcasts, Eric Alan Weinstein and Al Filreis spent some time in the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House talking about the problematics of the modern long poem. Can it be taught? Why is it so challenging, despite its central importance? The discussion is…
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Face to face: a conversation with Alan Golding, Orchid Tierney, Bob Perelman and Ron Silliman
In Episode 45 of PennSound podcasts, Al Filreis convened an hourlong conversation with Alan Golding, Orchid Tierney, Bob Perelman, and Ron Silliman. They began by reflecting on Golding's 1995 book From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American Poetry twenty years later, beginning with a discussion...
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I'll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women
In Episode 43 of PennSound podcasts, Amaris Cuchanski has edited and now introduces a 20-minute excerpt from a one-hour recording made of an October 17, 2012, event at the Kelly Writers House featuring conceptualist writing by women, celebrating the publication of I'll Drown My Book. This excerpt...
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HOT TEXTS: Erin Moure's reading at a 2012 Belladonna* event
In Episode 41 of PennSound podcasts, on February 20, 2012, Erin Moure traveled from Calgary, Alberta, to read at a Belladonna* event, part of the "HOT TEXTS" project. She read with Rachel Levitsky and Christian Hawkey, and was introduced by Emily Skillings. Skillings and Krystal Languell hosted…
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A way of witnessing: an interview with David Abel
In Episode 40 of PennSound podcasts, David Abel visited the Kelly Writers House recently in order to record his poems for PennSound, to check with us about our progress in digitizing a box of rare recordings on cassette he has given us for adding to the PennSound archive (including readings by...
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Beauty hails us: an excerpted reading by Ann Lauterbach
PennSound podcast 39 is devoted to Ann Lauterbach — a nine-minute excerpt from a reading she gave at the Kelly Writers House in November of 2013. Allison Harris introduces and hosts. For a full video recording of the reading and/or a full audio recording, see the Kelly Writers House web calendar...
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One great poetic mind through the mind of another: a lecture on Walt Whitman by Robert Duncan
Episode 38 in the PennSound podcast series presents a fifteen-minute excerpt from Robert Duncan's lectures on Walt Whitman presented at New College in three sessions between June 11 and 18, 1981. The full recordings are available on PennSound's Duncan page. The excerpt was edited by Nick DeFina…
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Poetry and architecture: a Bowery Poetry Club event
In Episode 37 of PennSound podcasts, at a Segue Series event at the Bowery Poetry Club hosted and curated by Trace Peterson on April 25, 2009, Robert Kocik, Benjamin Aranda, and Vito Acconci each speak for about twenty-six minutes about relations between poetry and architecture. Peterson wrote…
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All subjects are made new: Four introductions to John Ashbery across five decades
The 35th episode of PennSound podcasts presents an anthology of introductions to readings given by John Ashbery: Kenneth Koch in 1963, Susan Schultz in 1996, David Lehman in 2008, and Richard Howard in 1967. Nick DeFina selected and edited the introductions from Ashbery's PennSound page; Allison...
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To invent and reinvent: Introduction to Oulipo by Harry Matthews
In Episode 34 of PennSound podcasts, the Literature faculty and the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT invited Harry Mathews to present on Oulipo in 1999. The audio has been segmented - making available separate links to audio recordings of his introduction, his remarks on the…
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Sense memory: PennSound's 10th anniversary
In Episode 33 of PennSound podcasts, on November 18, 2013, Steve McLaughlin hosted a celebration of PennSound's 10th anniversary. After introductory remarks offered by Al Filreis, there were short talks each by Charles Bernstein, Michael Hennessey, Danny Snelson, Katie Price, Steve McLaughlin...
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Act to change men's lives and minds: an Alcheringa sound anthology
For Episode 32 of PennSound podcasts, Nick DeFina and Amaris Cuchanski collaborated to present an anthology of seven recordings from among those produced in association with Alcheringa magazine by Dennis Tedlock and Jerome Rothenberg. For Jacket2's "Reissues" department, Danny Snelson has…
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Loose with rare volumes: an interview with John Tranter
In Episode 31 of PennSound podcasts, John Tranter visited the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia. He participated in the recording of an episode of PoemTalk (about a poem by Ray DiPalma), and then took time to record a conversation with Al Filreis about the founding of Jacket and various related...
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Anselm Hollo, in memoriam: an anthology of Hollo recordings
Anselm Hollo, the widely admired Finnish poet and translator, died on January 29, 2013. Hollo translated poetry and belles-lettres from Finnish, German, Swedish and French into English and was one of the early translators of Allen Ginsberg into German and Finnish. Hollo taught creative writing in...
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The words were what interested him: a celebration of Hart Crane
In Episode 29 of PennSound podcasts, on the occasion of the publication by the Library of America of Hart Crane: Complete Poems and Selected Letters (edited by Langdon Hammer), Samuel R. Delany, Brian Reed and Charles Bernstein gathered at the Kelly Writers House to talk about Hart Crane's life…
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A moment is everything: a Belladonna* anthology
In Episode 28 of PennSound podcasts, from the excitingly varied PennSound page hosting recordings from the Belladonna* reading series from 1999 to the present, PennSound podcasts now presents, for its twenty-eighth episode, an anthology of seven Belladonna* performances. The seven are: erica...
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Given just the work to be present in: Eight introductions to Creeley, 1961-1996
Episode 27 of PennSound podcasts features an anthology of eight introductions to Robert Creeley, culled from PennSound's many recordings of Creeley's readings over the years. The introductions are, in order: by Paul Carroll (Chicago, May 15, 1961), at the Berkeley Poetry Conference (Berkeley…
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Voices, one after another: a conversation with Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Pequeño Glazier
In Episode 26 of PennSound podcasts and as part of the LINEbreak series, co-editors of RIF/t, Loss Pequeño Glazier and Kenneth Sherwood, talk with Charles Bernstein visited the studios of WBAI in New York and were interviewed by Susan Howe, host then of the Pacifica Radio Poetry Show. This...
About this show
PennSound Podcasts are hosted by PennSound's co-director, Al Filreis. PennSound was created in 2003 in order to produce new audio recordings and to preserving existing audio archives of poets reading their own work and discussing poetry and poetics. PennSound makes these available to everyone through free downloadable sound files. PennSound is a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania.
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PennSound