Archive / 1990-1999

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Momaday, N. Scott 1993

Thursday, March 25, 1993

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows

– N. Scott Momaday, “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee”

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Read this interview with N. Scott Momaday from History Net:

Interview: Author N. Scott Momaday

Kiowa Writer N. Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969 and now claims WWA’s Owen Wister Award.

 

Watch N. Scott Momaday read some of his work and discuss his life:

A Man Made of Words: N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday, a noted Native American author, reads his works and tells anecdotes about his life. [1/1997] [Show ID: 125] More from: Library Channel (https://www.uctv.tv/library-channel) Explore More Humanities on UCTV (https://www.uctv.tv/humanities) The humanities encourage us to think creatively and explore questions about our world.

More info on N. Scott Momaday⇒

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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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⇒

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⇒

Mairs, Nancy 1996

Wednesday, November 13, 1996
with Mary Swander

Let me tell you this once
(I will not be able to say it again):
I have lost the meaning of words.
Heavy, they ripped away from the sounds,
fell into cracked ground. For weeks
I scratched but what I dug up was
bicycle spokes, black melon rinds,
a smashed doll face–it was not meaning.
I don’t know what I am saying.

– Nancy Mairs, “Naming”

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Watch Nancy Mairs discuss her book, Waist-High in the World:

Nancy and George Mairs discuss “Waist-High in The World”

From Janice Dewey’s documentary: www.mezcalmt.com

More info on Nancy Mairs⇒

Lux, Thomas 1998

Wednesday, November 4, 1998

His spine curved just enough
to suggest a youth spent amidst a boring
landscape: brokedown corncrib, abandoned sty,
skeletal manure shed, a two-silo barn with one
sold off leaving a round pit
filled with rubble–where once the sweet silage
piled up and up now the brooding
ground of toads…

– Thomas Lux, “His Spine Curved Just Enough”

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Watch Thomas Lux read his poem, “Refrigerator:”

“Refrigerator” by Thomas Lux

Thomas Lux read this on March 15, 2012 at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, Massachusetts at the annual Robert Creeley Poetry Reading. Thomas Lux is the 2012 winner of the Robert Creeley Award. For more information about the foundation, please visit http://www.robertcreeleyfoundation.org/about_foundation

you need not talk nor fear
that particular sticky abrasion gotten
by walking into pine trees… You find
a lucidity in this darkness.

– Thomas Lux, “The Night So Bright A Squirrel Reads”

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Read an interview with Thomas Lux from Writer’s Digest:

Thomas Lux: Poet Interview

Poet Thomas Lux, author of a dozen books, including Child Made of Sand and God Particles, takes a moment to talk poetic process, surrealism, and the importance of reading until you bleed.

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Lombardo, Stanley 1994

Thursday, February 17, 1994

Read an interview with Stanley Lombardo from Jacket Magazine:

Stanley Lombardo

Lombardo: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Beowulf – trying to read some of it in the original, in whatever way I could. The Romantics, especially Keats and Coleridge, but also Wordsworth. I memorized ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat, The Waste Land.

Watch Stanley Lombardo read from his translation of the Iliad:

Professor Stanley Lombardo reads from his translation of the Iliad

One of the speakers at Hollins 34th annual Classics Symposium was Stanley Lombardo, professor of classics at the University of Kansas, who read from his translation of the “Iliad.”

More info on Stanley Lombardo⇒

Komunyakaa, Yusef 1996; 2003

Wednesday, December 11, 1996
Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Beauty, I’ve seen you
pressed hard against the windowpane.
But the ugliness was unsolved
in the heart & mouth.
I’ve seen the quick-draw artist
crouch among the chrysanthemums.
Do I need to say more?

– Yusef Komunyakaa, “Poetics”

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Listen to Yusef Komunyakaa’s 2003 reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago reading series:

Yusef Komunyakaa begins at 7:17 minutes.

Audio recording of the Poetry Center Reading Series featuring Billy Collins, Andrei Codrescu, Ron Padgett, Lucille Clifton, Mark Perlberg, Li-Young Lee, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anne Waldman, Yusuf Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, Ted Kooser, Paul Carroll, Jorie Graham, and Paul Hoover.

Audio recording of the Poetry Center Reading Series featuring Billy Collins, Andrei Codrescu, Ron Padgett, Lucille Clifton, Mark Perlberg, Li-Young Lee, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anne Waldman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, Ted Kooser, Paul Carroll, Jorie Graham, and Paul Hoover.

Buy this audio recording featuring Yusef Komunyakaa⇒

If only he could touch her,
Her name like an old wish
In the stopped weather of salt
On a snail…

– Yusef Komunyakaa, “Lust”

Broadside of “Lust” by Yusuf Komunyakaa

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Hand-to-hand: the two hugged each other
into a naked tussle, one riding the other’s back,
locking into a double embrace. One
forced the other to kiss the ground,

– Yusef Komunyakaa, “from Love in the Time of War“

Broadside of “from Love in the Time of War” by Yusef Komunyakaa

Buy this broadside⇒

More info on Yusef Komunyakaa⇒

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