In this installment, Scott Thurston reads Lines 236-268 from Act IV of “Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Thurston began writing in the context of Gilbert Adair's Sub-Voicive Poetry reading series and Bob Cobbing's New River Project workshops in London in the late eighties. After a first degree and a job teaching English in Poland, he completed a Ph.D. on Linguistically Innovative Poetry and Poetics. Currently residing in Liverpool, he lectures in English and Creative Writing at the University of Salford and edits The Radiator, a journal of contemporary poetics. His publications include: HOLD: Poems 1994-2004 (Exeter: Shearsman, 2006), Of Utility (Hereford: Spanner, 2005), Turns (with Robert Sheppard) (Liverpool: Ship of Fools/Radiator, 2003), Two Sequences (Sutton: RWC, 1998), Sleight of Foot (London: Reality Street Editions, 1996), Fragments (Norwich: The Lilliput Press, 1994), State(s)walk(s) (London: Writers' Forum, 1994) and Poems Nov 89 - Jun 91 (London: Writers' Forum, 1991).

In this installment, Gillian Conoley reads Part VII of “Dejection: An Ode” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Conoley is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Profane Halo, Lovers in the Used World, Beckon, Tall Stranger, and Some Gangster Pain. The winner of several Pushcart Prizes, her works have been included in Best American Poetry. She is poet-in-residence and professor of English at Sonoma State University and the editor of Volt.

In this installment, Anne Waldman performs “An Ode, Written October, 1819, Before the Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Waldman, poet, editor, performer, professor, curator, cultural activist carries in her genetics the lineages of the New American Poetry, and is a considered an inheritor of the Beat (Allen Ginsberg called her his "spiritual wife") and the New York School (Frank O'Hara told her to "work for inspiration, not money") mantles.

In this installment, Jeffrey Thomson reads “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomson’s third book of poems, Renovation, was part of the Carnegie Mellon University Press poetry series in 2005. His second collection of poems, The Country of Lost Sons, inaugurated a new poetry series from Parlor Press at Purdue University in February 2004 and first book, The Halo Brace, was brought out in a limited edition letterpress version from Birch Brook Press in 1998. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Maine, Farmington.

In this installment, Barry Silesky reads “Song” [“I peeled bits of straws”] by John Clare. Silesky’s third book of poems, This Disease, will be out from Tampa University Press, Fall 2006. He is author of biographies of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and John Gardner, as well as editor of the literary journal ACM (Another Chicago Magazine). He teaches poetry at Loyola University-Chicago.

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