The overwhelming number of comics, little magazines, books, posters, and all sorts of poetry and radical literature that Charles Plymell has printed during the last half-century is too many to count. All that time he was writing inspired poetry and prose of his own and having it published by a flock of small presses. Now in old age — he turns 89 today — Plymell is getting significantly renewed attention for his poetry with the release of "Over the Stage of Kansas: New & Selected Poems 1966-2023." To celebrate the book, he will give a reading on May 18 in Hudson, New York. It's bound to be a grand occasion.
We’re celebrating National Poetry Month with 2021 NEA Literature Fellow and poet Leslie Sainz who discusses her debut poetry collection, “Have You Been...
Since today is the 120th anniversary of Willem de Kooning's birthday, I am reminded by my staff of thousands of his fervent efforts "to break the willed articulation of the image." Which, as it happens, is not dissimilar to the goal of the cut-up procedure in writing, intended by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs to free the mind and language itself from preconceived formulations. Nor is it a bad follow-up to yesterday's blogpost about "Cut Up or Shut Up."
Kevin Ring, the indefatigable editor of Beat Scene magazine, emailed me a few months ago to ask about the new reprint of "Cut Up or Shut Up" released by the German publisher Mokolo Print in a facsimile edition in English with a new cover design by Robert Schalinski and a modest intro by yours truly. Ever curious about all things Beat, Ring wanted to know the back story of the book's origin and development. Et voilà!
Before I needed to earn a living from writing, I was a member of the avant-garde — fervent and full of high opinion. The other day I came across a typescript of "Synchronic Non-Causative Agent," an unpublished paper of mine written more than half a century ago. Reading it over, I got the bright idea of posting here despite its age.
Leah Lowe, Professor of Theatre and Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, talks about the ability for theatre to impact environmental activism.
Katie checks in with music director, supervisor, conductor, and pianist (Gutenberg!, The Who's Tommy, and KPOP on Broadway; Anne of Green Gables; Diary of a Wimpy Kid; Picnic at Hanging Rock), Amanda Morton.
I wrote a book looking at how different ways of moral and political theorizing drew different conclusions regarding whether the state should, or should not, subsidize...
Since 2001, the Jazz Journalists Association (over which I preside) has celebrated some 350 “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz,” as Jazz...
Bill Banfield, Award-Winning Composer-in-Residence at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, shares the inspiring process of creating his new opera, Edmonia.