January 2006

Caroline Bergvall reads "Mont Blanc" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Accompanied with music by Mario Diaz de León, "Pervaded with that Ceaseless Motion")

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In this installment, Caroline Bergvall reads Percy Bysshe Shelly’s “Mont Blanc,” accompanied with music by Mario Diaz de León, “Pervaded with that Ceaseless Motion.” Bergvall is a poet and performance artist based in London, England. Her most recent collection of poetic and performance pieces, FIG (Goan Atom 2) has recently been published by Salt Publishing. Her CD of readings and audiotexts, Via: Poems 1994-2004 (Rockdrill 8 ) is available through Carcanet. She develops live readings, performances, collaborative pieces, both in Europe and in North America. She is Research Fellow at Dartington College of Arts (Devon) and co-Chair of the MFA Writing Faculty, Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College (NY). For more information about Bergvall click here. Mario Diaz de León is a composer currently living in Brooklyn, NY, where he writes chamber music for instruments and electronics, collaborates with Jay King in the audiovisual duo King/Diaz de León, and plays improvised music. He holds a B.M. in TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) from the Oberlin Conservatory, and is a recipient of the 2005 Meet the Composer / Van Lier Fellowship.

Aaron Anstett reads "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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In this installment, Aaron Anstett reads “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Anstett is the author of Sustenance and No Accident, selected by Philip Levine for the 2004 Backwaters Press Prize. In his introduction, Levine wrote, "Aaron Anstett's No Accident is here for anyone who needs to replenish the belief that American poetry is as healthy and useful as it ever was." Anstett has held fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. He currently lives in Colorado.

Joshua Weiner reads "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802" by William Wordsworth

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In this installment, Joshua Weiner reads “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth. Weiner’s collections of poetry include The World's Room (2001) and From the Book of Giants (2006). He was a Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellow in Literature at the American Academy in Rome and his writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, Best American Poetry, and The Threepenny Review. He currently lives in Washington, DC.

Robert Thomas reads "On first looking into Chapman's Homer" by John Keats

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In this installment, Robert Thomas reads “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats. Thomas’s Door to Door (Fordham University Press, 2002) was chosen by Yusef Komunyakaa as the winner of the Poets Out Loud Prize.  He received a 2003 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his poem "Quarter Past Blue" appeared in the 2004 Pushcart Prize anthology.  His most recent book of poems, Dragging the Lake, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press.  He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College. He and his wife live in South San Francisco.  Learn more about Thomas's work here.

Ira Sadoff reads "London" by William Blake

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In this installment, Ira Sadoff reads “London” by William Blake. Sadoff is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently Grazing and Barter. He is also the author of a novel, Uncoupling, and The Ira Sadoff Reader (poems, stories, and essays). His work has been widely anthologized, appearing in both The Harper Anthology of American Literature and St. Martin's Introduction to Literature; he has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA and has taught at the University of Virginia, the Iowa Writer's Work Shop, and the M.F.A. program at Warren Wilson College. Currently, he teaches at Colby College and is a core faculty member at New England College's low-residency M.F.A. program. For more information on his work, see here or here.