Here is a recording of Charles Bernstein reading “The Kiwi Bird in the Kiwi Tree” at the Kootenay School of Writing in 1989. This is a long mp3 - about 20 minutes - since it includes almost half of poems from this particular reading. If you’re feeling ambitious and want to listen to the whole thing, the link to all the different recordings is here.
Original post by rmillard
Julianna Baggott’s reading on October 30th was an interesting look at the place of poetry in today’s world. I confess to being a little disappointed that she chose to read more of her fiction than her poetry. Even though I did not love Compulsions of Silkworms & Bees, I was still looking forward to hearing an accomplished poet read and talk about her work. When Baggott laughingly said that she was not going to recite any poems from Silkworms during the actual reading but that maybe she would have an opportunity to read one during the q&a, I felt vaguely insulted. I tried so hard to find more in those poems than flippancy and here was the poet herself treating the book as a punch line. (more…)
Original post by rmillard
Poetry Addresses Her Daughter, the Novel
I called you new, forced you out.
You didn’t even scream, folded neatly,
unnaturally white in the hook-nosed nurse’s arms.
I was enraptured by you:
your smell of softly sour whey, powder,
your persistent quietness, soft, roaming, wormy fingers,
and your eyes, the color of a twilight snow-sky,
so unlike my own.
I could trace blue lines under your cheap-paper skin.
Too new, and ill-defined,
wound in the wicker bassinet,
I watched you grow,
like one might watch a fern, hoping
by spring the robins would find it.
You never cooed to rival the dove-trimmed windowsill.
Your lacey eyes didn’t follow beams
from a car’s twin light-rods, crossing the room.
(I think you knew, though I never said:
you, my dear are an economic phenomena,
the product of a baby-boom,
the cheapening of paper, the widening of literacy.
You are the commoner’s looking-glass,
alone on trains, watching rain smear belly-up
across windowpanes.)
The doctor took one look at your milky eyes
and told me only:
“she is blind.”
As if I didn’t already know.
Brand new, you hadn’t noted the moonscape
of my body, the dimpled fallow fields of ribs.
Rather, you felt your way,
through the valley,
to the balmy, pinked planets.
Grafted: You to Me,
a solitary vine rugs the earth, blind,
as loping sandals
on a crowned tree.
Original post by Whitney
This is nothing profound or spectacular. I just like this song and thought I would share it as it has to do with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. It’s called “Hey Jack Kerouac” and it is by the 10,000 Maniacs. Enjoy 
http://www.youtube.com/v/4KqbAmvczCI&rel=1
Original post by chelseanewnam
I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve been to my fair share of author readings (be it poetry or prose) and usually I walk away feeling yuck. This is often because the author lacks charisma as a speaker or because the other people in the audience are too charismatic. Walking into the Julianna Baggott reading, I didn’t notice either of these. Before Dr. Scanlon’s introduction, I was chatting with a couple of classmates (don’t worry, I won’t give you up) about how we’re too normal for a poetry reading. I feel excluded or inadequate a lot of the time, because I’m not artsy enough, or avante garde fashionista enough, or deep enough, or what-have-you. Am I too much of a jock to enjoy poetry? Is my brain too mundane to appreciate a good reading?
Yes, these are questions I really ask myself.
Apparently, I’m not alone. What a relief, to not be the only one who feels out of place. The consensus was that being a “normal” woman in no way impacts your ability to understand language one way or the other. Thanks ladies.
Then the reading began. Julianna Baggot’s whole demeanor was refreshing. Her self-conscious sense of humor was charming, and made me laugh at the conversation I had had before the reading. Oh my god, she’s a normal girl too! Although I wish we had gotten more poetry, I would not have cut a minute from her prose reading. More time altogether would have been great. The excerpt from Which Brings Me to You was hilarious and devastating, and reminds me a lot of how my own brain works. Her attention to detail is incredible. What really struck me was her explanation of the emotionally charged content. To listen to her explain to us, “I always forget how hard it is to read this, and then I almost always tear up afterward.” That’s a real commitment to her words. I feel violated knowing that somebody could be reading my stupid internet blog. To feel that strongly about someone, to write about them, and then to read your words aloud, and still be mostly okay with baring yourself like that…wow.
Original post by sfranklin
Slyvia Plath reading “Daddy”
A video of Charlie Rose from March 19, 1996. About halfway through, Charlie interviews three poets (one of which is Mark Strand, whose book Blizzard of One I reviewed for our assignment) about Joseph Brodsky, who had just recently passed away. I was hunting for a reading by Strand, but apparently no such beast exists on YouTube. However! Strand does dedicate a poem in Blizzard of One to Brodsky.
Upon further hunting around, go to
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15204
to hear a reading of “A Season” by Brodsky as translated by Strand. Neat.
Original post by sfranklin
When I was trying to come up with questions to ask the great Lady Baggott last week, I started thinking about what she has to say about formal poetry. In “Why don’t you write formal poetry?” Baggott discusses how formal poetry can seem contrived and arranged, yet in “An Apologia for Using Words in Poetry” she seems to say that poetry in its essence is that arranging, that arrogant subjugation of words. So, if her own free verse poems are arranged, if even those poems have to rein in the words and make them work for her, how is that so much different from formal poetry? Doesn’t all poetry try to “arrange the world” (see line six of “Why don’t you…”)?
Original post by jowens
I was disappointed that Julianna Baggott did not read much of her poetry as well, but I have to say that I really enjoyed her prose piece. I’m not sure if it was the way she read it or her actual style of writing, but two things about it stuck out as original. Throughout the whole story, it felt as if Julianna was having a conversation with us about one of her former flames, very casual and nonchalant. The story’s honesty stood out as well, a kind of honesty that I don’t find in most first person pieces. Everything about her character seemed genuine and not overexaggerated. I appreciated her willingness to share that personal of a story in an unfamiliar setting.
Original post by Megan G