Archive for the ‘poetry recordings’ Tag
For the Love of Dante redux
Filed under: The Brouillon | Tags: Dante, poems, poetry, poetry recordings, Purgatorio, The Divine Comedy
Leave a comment Every Easter Week I read through Dante’s Commedia.
Last year, to mark the occasion, I recorded a poem “The book I can’t read closed beside me…”. As Easter Week has come around again, and, since making that last recording, I’ve been fortunate enough to invest in a new microphone, I’ve re-recorded a cleaner, crisper, and hopefully more lively version.
You can read that original post and hear the new recording, here.
Synchronicity-invoked Dangerous Supplement
Filed under: poems | Tags: As on a holiday, poems, poetry, poetry criticism, poetry recordings
Leave a comment By “meaningful coincidence,” the day I downloaded and taught myself the software I needed to make the raw Zoom footage of the launch for my latest chapbook at least a little more presentable, a Canadian poet-critic shared he’d just published an essay on “‘counterfactual’ poetry anthologies, ” a topic essayed by one of the poems from that chapbook‘s Toronto Suite: “Literary Life in the Capital””
“As on a holiday” launch, for your poetry viewing pleasure…
Filed under: poems | Tags: As on a holiday, Cactus Press, poems, poetry, poetry readings, poetry recordings
Comments (2) The March 24, 2021 launch of my latest chapbook is now up online: if you missed the event, you can catch it here.
As on a holiday: teaser #3
Filed under: poems | Tags: As on a holiday, poems, poetry, poetry recordings
Comments (1) 
My latest chapbook, As on a holiday, launches Wednesday 24 March.
It’s a challenging book to present orally/aurally, as the poems are all very short. The reader, too, therefore, is faced with the question of exactly how to connect all these short poems. In the tradition of postmodern poetry, such as that of Homer, Dante, and Cervantes, the collection includes a poem that suggests an approach, the first of Farnad Songbook, read here:
Looking forward to seeing you all at the launch!
As on a holiday: Teaser #2
Filed under: poems | Tags: As on a holiday, poems, poetry, poetry recordings
Leave a comment The launch of my new chapbook, As on a holiday, is getting closer. Today, I offer as preview (pre-hear?) two poems from the section “Made in Germany”.
Everything you need to tune in you should find here.
As on a holiday: Teaser #1
Filed under: poems | Tags: As on a holiday, poems, poetry, poetry recordings
Leave a comment 
I launch my chapbook As on a holiday (Cactus Press) in just over a week. Between now and then I’ll be posting short readings from the book to pique your interest if not whet your appetite.
The first is part of the “London intermezzo” from the section “Made in Germany”.
The FB Event page for the Zooom launch Wednesday 24 March is here.
“Does Anybody Buy Books Today?”
Filed under: poems | Tags: gentrification, poems, poetry, poetry recordings, S.W. Welch Books
Leave a comment “Developers” are changing the face and character of cities all over the globe, no less in Montreal, Canada.
The city’s Plateau / Mile End neighbourhood has been undergoing gentrification for years, but a recent flashpoint has been the threatened eviction of a longstanding used bookstore, S. W. Welch. The landlord’s jacking the rent caused such an uproar that locals organized a “read-in” in support.
The story was widely covered in local media, including a number of telephone interviews with one of the landlords, Danny Lavy, quoted in the poster, above. Lavy’s words struck me as so representative of a certain mindset (like those that inspired Basil Bunting’s “What the Chairman Told Tom”) I quickly cobbled them together into a poem of my own.
You can hear the poem, here:
(You can read another poem about the changes in Mile End, here.)
For the love of Dante
Filed under: poems | Tags: Dante, poems, poetry, poetry recordings
Comments (2) Every Easter I read through Dante’s Divine Comedy, and when I’m teaching, the Inferno holds centre spot in a course I try to give every Winter term, “Go to Hell!”.
That love for Dante and the Commedia makes its way into my poetry, too. A reader sensitized to this fact will fill a big basket of easter eggs reading through my books, published and unpublished.
Rarely, my love for his work is expressed outright, like in this short poem, “The book I can’t read closed beside me…”, that you can hear, here:
Of course, you’ll get even greater pleasure reading through the Commedia outloud over Easter week: the Inferno, Good Friday through to Easter Sunday morning; the Purgatory, from Easter Sunday to Easter Wednesday; then begin the Paradiso Easter Thursday and ascend at your leisure!
You can hear the Commedia in Italian and English translation, at the Princeton Dante Project, here.
Poeta Doctus 