WNET Levertov & Olson – Levertov

January 20, 2018Simon Pettet

Continuing our spotlight on vintage tv, WNET’s extraordinary USA Poetry series. Today (this weekend), we continue with Denise Levertov and Charles Olson, (the Olson segment is excerpted (as most of these are) from a much larger filmed trove – in Olson’s case, a much larger filmed trove! – the extraordinary complete footage, out-takes et al, are available at the San Francisco State University Poetry Archives)

For today – part one – Denise Levertov

DL: “I always took it for granted that I was a poet. I mean, I knew from an age before I had a concept, … Read More

Denise Levertov

December 12, 2013admin

 

 

The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov are now available in a handsome one-volume edition edited by Paul A Lacey, with an introduction by Eavan Boland, published by New Directions.  Here, from her reading in Los Angeles, in 1993, for the Lannan Foundation,  are six poems, “Settling”, “Open Secret”.”Tragic Error”, “The Danger Moment”, “A Gift” and “For Those Whom the Gods Love Less”. Here, in an audio over-view from The Poetry Foundation, are recordings of several poems recorded in 1971 at the Library of Congress, “At The Justice Department, November 15, 1969″,”What My House Would

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Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 153

November 22, 2013admin

 

[Doris Lessing (1919-2013), in Philip Glass’ kitchen, New York City,  March 10, 1990 – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg c. The Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

Nobel-prizewinning author Doris Lessing, who died last week, aged 94, recalling, in her typically acerbic, typically no-nonsense way, “an amused get-together with Allen Ginsberg and some fellow Beats” –  “They turned up in London, a whole lot of them, and I went to meet them” [this would be 1965, perhaps?]. “I thought they were extremely likeable, but that isn’t how they wanted to be seen. I thought then, and think I was right, … Read More

Charles Olson (1910-1970)

January 10, 2012admin

[Charles Olson, “Poet Maximus elder”, during the Vancouver Poetry Conference, July 1963 c. The Allen Ginsberg Estate]
January 10 – 42 years ago today – Charles Olson died. We’ve linked already to Henry Ferrini’s documentary movie, Polis Is This. His (Olson’s) EPC page (out of the University of Buffalo) may be accessed here. His PennSound (University of Pennsylvania) audio recordings page may be accessed here. Storrs (University of Connecticut) is, of course, the singular repository of his archives.
Allen and he first met in Harvard in 1959, but the crucial first conjunction, perhaps, was the 1963 Vancouver Poetry
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