Archive by Author

Segal, Lore 1982

Friday, September 24, 1982

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The doctors, nurses and patients in the overcrowded, too-brightly lit Emergency Room turned toward the commotion. It was the very old woman thrashing about her with improbable strength and agility. “You do not,” she shouted, “you do not tell me to relax! I will not relax.”

– Lore Segal, Half the Kingdom

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Read this interview with Lore Segal from BOMB Magazine:

http://bombmagazine.org/article/2900/lore-segal

Watch Lore Segal read and discuss her work:

Lore Segal begins speaking at 4:30 minutes. 

More info on Lore Segal⇒

Wilson, Chrissy 2013

Saturday, April 13, 2013

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The Lake gets its official name from a misinterpretation of a
Native American word for “edge of the lake,”
but when I see the signs while driving over the mountains
toward its shores, I think of my east coast grandmother,
with pale New England skin
and how she would pronounce it with all her refinement:
“t’HO.”

– Chrissy Wilson, “Lake Tahoe”

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Read part one of Chrissy Wilson’s story, “The Game Called Catch:”

http://pitchersandpoets.com/2010/03/15/the-game-called-catch-part-i/

More info on Chrissy Wilson⇒

Walcott, Derek 1977

Friday, October 7, 1977
Vintage poster of Derek Walcott's reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago on Friday, October 7, 1977.

Vintage poster of Derek Walcott’s reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago on Friday, October 7, 1977.

The dialect of the scrub in the dry season
withers the flow of English. Things burn for days
without translation, with the heat
of the scorched pastures and their skeletal cows.

– Derek Walcott, “from The Prodigal: 11″

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Read this interview with Derek Walcott from the Paris Review:

The Art of Poetry No. 37

Derek Walcott, ca. 2012. Photograph Jorge Mejía Peralta I went to visit Derek Walcott on his home island of St. Lucia in mid-June, 1985. St. Lucia is one of the four Windward Islands in the eastern Caribbean, a small mountainous island that faces the Atlantic Ocean on one side and th…

Then all the nations of birds lifted together
the huge net of the shadows of this earth
in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,
stitching and crossing it. They lifted up
the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes,
the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,
the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill–

– Derek Walcott, “The Season of Phantasmal Peace”

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Watch Derek Walcott discuss his life and work at Hart House Theater:

Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott on his life and work

English professor, Christian Campbell, interviews Caribbean poet and playwright, Derek Walcott, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. Walcott discusses issues of identity, culture, and language in this illuminating conversation, filmed at Hart House Theatre on November 23, 2010.

More info on Derek Walcott⇒

Talarico, Ross 1979

Friday, December 14, 1979
with Elizabeth Libby

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This crack
Runs up the wall, continues
Through the upstairs window,
Splits the sky.
It has divided the statue.
It is a ripple in water.
I try not to go on
But it cuts through my voice
And my words break
And settle, unevenly, on the page;
It is the margin of a poem.

– Ross Talarico, “The Perfect Flaw”

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Read this review of Ross Talarico’s novel, Sled Run:

http://www.thecoastnews.com/2013/03/22/thievery-and-charity-in-ross-talaricos-newest-novel-sled-run/

More info on Ross Talarico⇒

Schoen, Chris 2013

Saturday, May 11, 2013
80 Foots per Minute
with Emmy Bean and T-Roy Martin

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Watch the music video for “The Drag”:

Listen to Chris Schoen’s feature on WBEZ:

Poetry Of Failure Comes To Life At Chicago’s ‘Baudelaire In A Box’

This weekend in Chicago, a small theater troupe with a big resume will present all of the poems in Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal” – sung by more than 50 performers from around the world.

Watch 80 Foots per Minute perform their song, “Cupid and the Skull:”

Cupid and the Skull from 80 Foots on Vimeo.

More info on Chris Schoen⇒

Hayes, Alice Judson Ryerson 1981

Friday, December 18, 1981

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The president is walking in his sleep.
At the ends of his arms
air-flicking fingers thrum
dreaming of turning on a light.
Sleep, surrounded by switches
is iridescent in the Dark House.
His sleepy hand fumbles and reaches,
cheerful. Numb. Near.

– Alice Judson Ryerson Hayes, “Calling-People”

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Watch a video about Alice Judson Ryerson Hayes’s Ragdale Foundation:

Ragdale Presents: Alice Judson Ryerson Hayes – A Poet and A Place Become A Legacy

To our Artists: It will soon be 2016, the 40TH ANNIVERSARY of the Ragdale Foundation. Ragdale’s founder, Alice Hayes, envisioned a world that was inclusive, just, and filled with creative discovery. Alice’s Ragdale is that type of place and her good works continue to be recognized and celebrated.

The dilly silly court
on diases of raw silk
smirked at the dwarf
toddling. Oh, the milk
spilling down his chin!
Even the Imam laughed
as the eyes rolled
in the lolling head.

– Alice Judson Ryerson Hayes, “Jester”

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More info on Alice Judson Ryerson Hayes⇒

Ryan, Kay 2006

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

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In harmony with the rule of irony–
which requires that we harbor the enemy
on this side of the barricade–the shell
of the unborn eagle or pelican, which is made
to give protection till the great beaks can harden,
is the first thing to take up poison.

– Kay Ryan, “Soft”

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Listen to Kay Ryan’s 2006 reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago:

Read this interview with Kay Ryan from the Paris Review:

The Art of Poetry No. 94

Kay Ryan, who was named the sixteenth poet laureate of the United States in July, lives in Fairfax, California, where for more than thirty years she has taught remedial English part-time at the College of Marin at Kentfield. She is often referred to as a poetry “outsider” and underdog. S…

It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It’s all too deep for that.
You’ve overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you’re given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.

– Kay Ryan, “A Certain Kind of Eden”

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Watch Kay Ryan read some of her work:

Poetry & Science: Kay Ryan Reads her Poems

“Poetry & Science: A Shared Exploration” event on October 16, 2013. C.P. Snow complained of a world in which the “two cultures” of science and the humanities have grown increasingly separate.

More info on Kay Ryan⇒

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