that there is a great power within us, that when used in purity,
unselfishness and immaculate thought,
cures, heals and causes miracles
and now assists me in my journey–
– Jimmy Santiago Baca, excerpt from “Healing Earth”
Broadside of excerpt from “Healing Earth” by Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Listen to this interview with Jimmy Santiago Baca on NPR:
And the convicts themselves, at the mummy’s
feet, blood-splattered leather, at this one’s feet,
they become cobras sucking life out of their brothers,
they fight for rings and money and drugs,
in this pit of pain their teeth bare fangs,
to fight for what morsels they can. . . .
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
Former President of the Poetry Center of Chicago
I keep stamps in odd colors: moss, mauve,
diamond gray. They looked obsolete
the day they were minted.
Feathers that dropped from the sky,
my airedale’s bark, a child’s cry.
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.
Interview with Sonia Sanchez, Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, renowned advocate for peace, and artistic mother to generations of local poets and writers. Part 1. www.apiarymagazine.com https://www.facebook.com/events/188036064681435/?fref=ts [music for video by Podington Bear]
Your limbs buried
in northern muscle carry
their own heartbeat
I had removed the hook from which he’d swung with such momentous grace. But wasn’t I snared? That look, that flash as I tossed him back, alive, in air.
From milkweed to lupine a woman shadows a monarch. Slowly makes her way, conveys her weight with care. Inside the womb her son flutters, then butterfly-kicks against walls.
EDWARD BYRNE ~ ELISE PASCHEN INTERVIEWED BY EDWARD BYRNE I n November of 2006 I was pleased to introduce Elise Paschen for her poetry reading in the excellent Writing Out Loud series of author presentations at the Michigan City Public Library, not far from Valparaiso.
This is what I was afraid of:
This paper this thought lines
dividing white space lines dividing
nothing.
This exhaustion this futility
this game or promise.
Friday, June 1, 1979
with Ted Berrigan
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
with Anselm Hollo
I don’t mind Walt Whitman’s saying”I contain multitudes,” in fact I like it,
but all I can imagine myself saying is
“I contain a sandwich and some coffee and a throb.”
Vintage poster of Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett giving a poetry reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago.
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.
In this mouth I gather darkness, an aria,
rosewater tongue, tympanic bone,
a poem more quiet than quietness,
a bronze song, something undone, salvia,
a crushed butterfly.
– Simone Muench, “Elegy for the Unsaid”
Broadside of “Elegy for the Unsaid” by Simone Muench, “Try” by Jennifer Grotz, and “burdens” by Quraysh Ali Lansana
Roger Reeves, Simone Muench, and Jason Koo at the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Six Points Reading Series, August 29, 2014.
More & more I see the human form, a nothingness which longs to be the sea. Lives infinitely repeated down to atomic thinness like footfalls in a strange house.
Wednesday, December 13, 1995
Monday, May 5, 1997
Thursday, April 18, 2002
From the province of spring everlasting
bring back a rose that remains half-open,
from the drydock of mute old men
bring back the miracle of a tear,
from the delta of good intentions
bring back the seed that will change a life.
– Lisel Mueller, “Spell For A Traveler”
Broadside of “Spell For A Traveler” by Lisel Mueller
Listen to Lisel Mueller’s 1995 Poetry Center of Chicago reading:
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.
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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
