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Mitchell, Roger 1995

February, 1995
with Lucien Stryk

When they found her prostrate in the garden,
talking to a beetle, they locked her in the loft.
There it was spiders. For them, she danced
and made strange noises in her throat.

– Roger Mitchell, “Cinderella” 

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Read this interview with Roger Mitchell from How A Poem Happens:

Roger Mitchell

Roger Mitchell’s new and selected, Lemon Peeled the Moment Before , came out from Ausable Press in 2008. The author of ten books of poetry, …

A history of some sort, one that made us,
a war and what the war had meant, or since
meaning eludes war, what it did to the look
of the trees and the sides of the buildings,
most of which survived, only to be torn down
later to widen the street or put up a new
office complex. There it was on the shelf.

– Roger Mitchell, “A Book on a Shelf”

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More info on Roger Mitchell⇒

Milosz, Czeslaw 1989

Sunday, November 12, 1989

In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori
baskets of olives and lemons,
cobbles spattered with wine
and the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
with rose-pink fish;
armfuls of dark grapes
heaped on peach-down.

– Czeslaw Milosz, “Campo dei Fiori”

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Listen to Czeslaw Milosz’s 1989 reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago:

Audio recording of the Poetry Center Reading Series featuring Tom Raworth, Diane di Prima, Kimiko Hahn, Eugene Gloria, Patricia Smith, Luis Rodriguez, Robert Bly, Brian Turner, Bruce Weigl, Tyehimba Jess, A. Van Jordan, Arielle Greenberg, Billy Corgan, Franz Wright, Czeslaw Milosz, Louise Glück, and Alicia Ostriker.

Audio recording of the Poetry Center Reading Series featuring Tom Raworth, Diane di Prima, Kimiko Hahn, Eugene Gloria, Patricia Smith, Luis Rodriguez, Robert Bly, Brian Turner, Bruce Weigl, Tyehimba Jess, A. Van Jordan, Arielle Greenberg, Billy Corgan, Franz Wright, Czeslaw Milosz, Louise Glück, and Alicia Ostriker.

Buy this audio recording featuring Czeslaw Milosz⇒

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

– Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song on the End of the World”

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Read this interview with Czeslaw Milosz from the Paris Review:

The Art of Poetry No. 70

A loss of harmony with the surrounding space, the inability to feel at home in the world, so oppressive to an expatriate, a refugee, an immigrant, paradoxically integrates him in contemporary society and makes him, if he is an artist, understood by all. Even more, to express the existent…

More info on Czeslaw Milosz⇒

Mills, Tyler 2014

Thursday, December 11, 2014
with Larry Sawyer and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas
Chicago Cultural Center

bw+elbow

I sense the trees’ light filtering the room–
knowing nothing about the tulip tree
canoe flipped so its stomach slopes up,
scuffed by quartz tumbled in the shallow drag.
I’ve walked here in the wetness holding rain,
endangered lady slippers dipping petal shoes,
dashes of pink in mud–and you’re not here.

– Tyler Mills, “Blue Mountain Lake”

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Listen to Tyler Mills read for the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Six Points Reading Series, with Larry Sawyer and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas:

Tyler Mills begins at 2:27 minutes.

You look like a monster, one woman said to another.
The woman was on fire. This is the first of two screws
twisted into a wall. One bus is sent on its route minutes before
the other. This is the first. Thousands of soldiers were lowering
their faces to the grass, as though an exercise
can will an effect.

– Tyler Mills, “First Thing”

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Read an interview with Tyler Mills from The American Literary Review:

An Interview With Tyler Mills

An Interview with Tyler Mills Interview conducted by Karl Zuehlke Karl Zuehlke (KZ): When I read your poems in Tongue Lyre, I find myself constantly intrigued in the most enjoyable way by how you negotiate your subject matter. Greek myth, classical music, writers and visual artists often offer you the opportunity to write from a persona or…

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Merrill, James 1985

Wednesday, April 17, 1985
Vintage poster of James Merrill's reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago.

Vintage poster of James Merrill’s reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago.

The hand with a seagull purpose falls upon
Sand where the beach is barren: through clean light
From eye’s blue zenith, past seascapes of blue,
Falls on grey sand; yet stenciled in its fall

– James Merrill, “Accumulations of the Sea”

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Listen to James Merrill read some of his poetry at the 1969 Glascock Poetry Contest:

The boatman rowed into
That often-sung impasse.
Each visitor foreknew
A floor of lilting glass,
A vault of stone, lit blue.

– James Merrill, “The Blue Grotto”

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Read an interview with James Merrill from the Paris Review:

The Art of Poetry No. 31

Courtesy Rollie Mckenna Collection. My first glimpse of James Merrill, a dozen years ago, was in black and white. It was a photograph of him, in the Brinnin and Read anthology called The Modern Poets. He had just turned toward the camera-his mouth slightly open, as if not expecti…

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Merwin, W. S. 1998

Tuesday, September 22, 1998

Save these words for a while because
of something they remind you of
although you cannot remember
what that is a sense that is part
dust and part the light of morning

– W. S. Merwin, “Memorandum”

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Listen to W. S. Merwin’s 1998 reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago:

When I was small and stayed quiet
some animals came
new ones each time
and waited there near me
and all night they were eating the black

– W. S. Merwin, “Animals From Mountains”

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Watch a video interview with W. S. Merwin:

Merwin’s Passion for Poetry and the Natural World… | Poetry Foundation

W.S. Merwin reads several of his poems and talks with Jeffrey Brown about memory, language, and his life as a poet and horticulturist.

More info on W. S. Merwin⇒

Meltzer, David 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

In the hole he counted heartbeats
but got scared they’d stop
listened to broken pipes
under the shit-hole in the floor
finally read the Bible they give you
but his religion wasn’t in a book

– David Meltzer, “The Art/The Veil”

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Read an interview with David Meltzer:

Interview with poet David Meltzer

Interview with poet David Meltzer

Watch David Meltzer read some of his work here:

When I Was A Poet by David Meltzer

No Description

More info on David Meltzer⇒

McGuire, Kristi 2012

Thursday, December 13, 2012

bw+elbow

Check out Kristi McGuire’s project False Flags:

Home

Psychosomatic Netflix binges, off-notification sexting on Signal, ranking Grubhub delivery options by how likely or not will be your engagement with humanity, or clicking “Report” on the trust-fund-enabled sponsored content behind a cyborg-influencer’s Instagram post about detox tummy tone wraps, are all such immaterial allusions as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep (or, as well like to call it, Suspend to RAM mode).

Read an article by Kristi McGuire:

The crisis in non-fiction publishing | The Chicago Blog

Bolder. More global. Risk-taking. The home of future stars. Not a tagline for a well-placed index fund portfolio (thank G-d), but the crux of a

Watch this presentation and conversation about Social Media as Performance featuring Kristi McGuire:

AAUP 2015: I Don’t Understand Your Brand Strategy: On Social Media as Performance from AUPresses on Vimeo.

More info on Kristi McGuire⇒

McGrath, Campbell 2003

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

I’ve got the copyright on love, honey baby.
Registered patent number such &
such. Don’t dillydally with saxifrage
& sassafras, don’t bother me with this & that,

– Campbell McGrath, “Love (c)”

Broadside of “Love (c)” by Campbell McGrath

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Listen to Campbell McGrath’s 2003 reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago:

Today is a trumpet to set the hounds baying.
The past is a fox the hunters are flaying.
Nothing unspoken goes without saying.
Love’s a casino where lovers risk playing.
The future’s a marker our hearts are prepaying.

– Campbell McGrath, “Pentatina for Five Vowels”

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Read an interview with Campbell McGrath from the Kenyon Review:

Campbell McGrath | Kenyon Review Conversations

Campbell McGrath is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (Ecco Press, 2012). A resident of Miami, he teaches in the […]

More info on Campbell McGrath⇒

Mamet, David 1997

Tuesday, May 20, 1997

There is nothing trivial about love.
There is completion in it. And a trial
By pain and power
Barely to be borne.
That fever.

– David Mamet, “Untitled”

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Read an interview with David Mamet from The Huffington Post:

Writer-to-Writer: A Conversation With David Mamet

“Writing a stage play and a screenplay have very little to do with each other. A stage play is just dialogue. One has to be able to communicate the play through disputation. A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia.”

More info on David Mamet⇒

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