PennSound: Rachel Blau DuPlessis (original) (raw)

Inside PennSound

Search PennSound

Complete reading of Drafts, 1988–2024

Visit the full collection on PennSound here.

Appearing on Close Listening with Charles Bernstein, April 27, 2005

Program One: Reading

From Drafts 1–38, Toll (Wesleyan University Press, 2001):

  1. Draft 20 - Incipit (5:35): MP3
  2. excerpt from Draft 19: Working Conditions (4:16): MP3 (from LIVE KWH/WXPN radio show)
  3. Draft 25 - Segno (5:34): MP3 [ALSO, from KWH LIVE Draft Twenty-Five Segno (4:53): MP3]

From Poker 4 (Summer 2004):

  1. Draft 63 - Dialogue of Self & Soul (6:49): MP3

From: Drafts. Drafts 39–57, Pledge with Draft, unnumbered (Salt, Cambridge, England, 2004) & Torques: Drafts 58-76 (Salt, 2007):

  1. Draft 46 - Edge (9:18): MP3
  2. Draft 64 - Forward Slash (5:05) (unpublished): MP3
  3. 4 Sections from Draft 51 - Clay Songs (12:34): MP3
  4. Draft 61 - Pyx (5:21): MP3

Program Two: Conversation

Complete conversation (36:02): MP3

PoemTalk #188, Discussing Ted Pearson's "Catenary Odes," feat. William Fuller, and Bruce Andrews

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #116, Discussing Anne Tardos' "Uxuda", feat. Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Ariel Resnikoff, and Stephen Ross on September 2, 2017

For complete recording and program notes go to Jacket2.

PoemTalk #69, discussing Rachel Blau DuPlessis's "Draft 85: Hard Copy," July 28, 2013

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #67, discussing Catherine Wagner's "This Is A Fucking Poem," May 20, 2013

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #65, discussing Lisa Robertson's The Weather, April 16, 2013

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #54, discussing Ron Silliman's "You," June 20, 2012

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #41, discussing Ezra Pound's "Canto III," March 15, 2011

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #34, discussing Charles Olson's Maximus poems, July 26, 2010

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #28, discussing Jack Spicer's "Psychoanalysis: An Elegy," February 3, 2010

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #8, discussing Armantrout's "The Way," July 7, 2008

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #4, discussing Ginsberg's "The Garden of Love," March 4, 2008

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #3, discussing Oppen's "Ballad," Kelly Writers House, February 2, 2008

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

Reading from Late Work and Around the Day in 80 Worlds, October 2020

Watch on Media.sas

David Bromige Memorial Reading, Kelly Writers House, September 25, 2018

Watch Video

Watch on Media.sas

Complete Recording: MP3

Reading and Q&A at Books Actually, Singapore, February 23, 2018

Watch on Media.sas

Watch on Media.sas

Complete Audio (57:40): MP3

Reading for Heatstrings at Penn State, State College, PA, September 9, 2016

Ashraf Fayadh Teach-in at the Kelly Writers House on January 14, 2016

part of the "Life & Freedom for Ashraf Fayadh Worldwide Reading"

  1. Introduction by Charles Bernstein (3:26): MP3
  2. Untitled excerpts from Instructions Within (used as "evidence" by the Saudi courts in sentencing Fayadh to death for the crime of "apostacy".) read by Ron Silliman (5:28): MP3
  3. "A Space in the Void" (Original Arabic) (4:14): MP3
  4. "A Space in the Void" (trans. Johnathan Wright) read by Julia Bloch (2:08): MP3
  5. "A Melancholy Made of Dough" (Original Arabic) (5:58): MP3
  6. Brief Remarks on "A Melancholy Made of Dough" from Rachel Blau DuPlessis (2:21): MP3
  7. "A Melancholy Made of Dough" (trans. Tariq al Haydar) read by Rachel Blau DuPlessis (3:00): MP3
  8. "The Last of the Line of Refugee Descendants" (Original Arabic) (12:31): MP3
  9. "The Last of the Line of Refugee Descendants" (trans. Johnathan Wright) read by Ariel Resnikoff (6:59): MP3

Reading with Nathaniel Mackey at the Edison–Newman Room, Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University, October 29, 2015

Rachel Blau Du Plessis and Nathaniel Mackey, The Poet’s Voice (October 29, 2015). PS3554.U566 P64 2015. Woodberry Poetry Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Reading for Heatstrings at Modernism Studies Association, Pittsburgh, PA, November 7, 2014

Readers, in order:

  1. Lesley Wheeler (05:37): MP3
  2. Tyrone Williams (05:48): MP3
  3. Dan Tobin (04:40): MP3
  4. Elizabeth Savage (04:20):MP3
  5. Lisa Samuels (04:23): MP3
  6. A.L. Nielsen (04:11): MP3
  7. Julia Lisella (03:14): MP3
  8. Meta DuEwa Jones (03:31): MP3
  9. Cynthia Hogue (04:46): MP3
  10. Jeanne Heuving (05:35): MP3
  11. Elisabeth Frost (04:31): MP3
  12. Jan Beatty (04:42): MP3
  13. Rachel Blau DuPlessis (11:09): MP3

Complete recording (1:08:37): MP3

Segue Series Reading at the Zinc Bar, New York City, October 5, 2013

  1. Daisy Atterbury's Introduction (03:06): MP3
  2. Letter 8: Dear Y (02:29): MP3
  3. Letter 7: Dear B (01:47): MP3
  4. From Graphic Novella (06:28): MP3
  5. Draft 102: One on One (07:00): MP3
  6. Draft 104: The Book (06:55): MP3
  7. Draft CX: Primer (05:02): MP3

Complete reading (31:22): MP3

Studio 111 Session, December 8, 2010

  1. Draft 89: Interrogation (7:42): MP3
  2. Draft XC: Excess (4:30): MP3
  3. Draft 91: Proverbs (8:43): MP3
  4. Draft 92: Translocation (5:21): MP3
  5. Draft 93: Romantic Fragment Poem (2:27): MP3
  6. Draft 96: Velocity (7:21): MP3
  7. Draft 98: Canzone (12:36): : MP3
  8. Draft 99: Intransitive (11:02): MP3
  9. Draft 104: the Book (5:49): MP3

Studio 111 Session produced by Michael S. Hennessey & Jeffrey Boruszak

At The Kootenay School of Writing, Vancouver, 2010

Studio 111 Session, October 12, 2007

from Torques: Drafts 58-76 (Salt, 2007)

  1. Draft 58: In Situ (8:03): MP3
  2. Draft 60: Rebus (7:26): MP3
  3. Draft 72: Nanifesto (5:59): MP3
  4. Draft 75: Doggerel (14:07): MP3
  5. Draft 85: Hard Copy (41:10): MP3
    epigraph (0:26): MP3
    Section 1: 17 May 1986 (0:26): MP3
    Section 2: Things are very bright tonight (0:27): MP3
    Section 3: Emotions wash up and across (1:44): MP3
    Section 4: It's a question of "among" or some (0:53): MP3
    Section 5: You and I had crossed that bridge (1:21): MP3
    Section 6: Civitas uncanny (0:36): MP3
    Section 7: Bewildering what happened (1:02): MP3
    Section 8: It is astonishing (0:55): MP3
    Section 9: And in this space a birth of enigma (1:22): MP3
    Section 10: The watchers are struggling (1:36): MP3
    Section 11: So—what is the normal? (1:04): MP3
    Section 12: Any consolation that the only typo was in "the father"? (0:47): MP3
    Section 13: A postwar lasts far longer than they think (1:27): MP3
    Section 14: She had asked for photocopies (1:22): MP3
    Section 15: I want polyphony (0:58): MP3
    Section 16: I won't quote a word (1:32): MP3
    Section 17: Who registers deep lakes of darkness (0:39): MP3
    Section 18: Stet atrocity (0:17): MP3
    Section 19: Or another answer (0:51): MP3
    Section 20: If we destabilized (1:35): MP3
    Section 21: If one began: it (0:49): MP3
    Section 22: Some topographies and folds (0:48): MP3
    Section 23: Snow blowing from the north plasters the route signs (0:49): MP3
    Section 24: To resuscitate (0:26): MP3
    Section 25: Walking up and down in it (0:59): MP3
    Section 26: Feeling that pulsation as if in vigil (0:59): MP3
    Section 27: It's hard for me to talk about poetry (2:29): MP3
    Section 28: The antics of the waning moon at dawn (0:27): MP3
    Section 29: So she stole her father's teraphim (1:24): MP3
    Section 30: The distant water (1:01): MP3
    Section 31: There is a space beyond (0:51): MP3
    Section 32: What is important and what is not (1:11): MP3
    Section 33: That dazzling blue teardrop (0:27): MP3
    Section 34: To mothers who cannot (1:23): MP3
    Section 35: The terrible political moment, after the demo (0:14): MP3
    Section 36: Rain cloud caught in the valley (0:18): MP3
    Section 37: A little breath, a bird (1:38): MP3
    Section 38: The sofa holds a wrinkled nude (0:26): MP3
    Section 39: Once again a sense of occurrence (0:30): MP3
    Section 40: Can only write hungry (0:57): MP3

See Also: DuPlessis' readings of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats, recorded that same day

"Draft 85: Hard Copy" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 69.

Studio 111 Session produced by Michael S. Hennessey

Tender Buttons at 100 Celebration, Kelly Writers House, October 1, 2014

Rachel Blau DuPlessis (7:56): MP3

Reading at Arizona State University, October 23, 2013

  1. introductory remarks (1:24): MP3
  2. Letter 19: Dear C (2:18): MP3
  3. Ledger 11 (1:53): MP3
  4. Letter 8: Dear Y (2:46): MP3
  5. Letter 6: Dear J (3:13): MP3
  6. Draft 102: One-on-One (7:14): MP3
  7. Draft 104: The Book (6:38): MP3
  8. Draft 109: Wall Newspaper (10:07): MP3 Complete reading (35:36): MP3 Watch on Media.sas

Q&A Discussion (15:57): MP3

Watch on Media.sas

Reading at Notre Dame, October 10, 2013

Introduction by Joyelle McSweeney

Watch on Media.sas

Reading "Letter 8" from Interstices, In Celebration of 'Surge: Drafts: 96-114, KWH, September 25, 2013

introduction by Ron Silliman

Reading for ex.it, Materiali fuori contesto, Albinea, Italy, April 12-14, 2013

Watch on Media.sas

Reading of Rachel Blau DuPlessis' work by translator Renata Morresi, ex.it, Materiali fuori contesto, Albinea, Italy, April 12-14, 2013

Watch on Media.sas

American Philosophical Society Celebration of Marjorie Perloff, KWH, UPenn, November 10, 2012

Complete Recording (5:30): MP3

I'll Drown My Book Anthology Reading at the Kelly Writers House, October 17, 2012

  1. from Draft 98: Canzone (3:34): MP3
  2. from Collective Memory by Norma Cole (3:51): MP3 Complete Reading (7:26): MP3

Convergence on Poetics, University of Washington Bothell, North Creek Events Center, September 27-30, 2012

Readings at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, March 2012

All recordings made in the Audio Studio, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, New Zealand, and engineered by Jeanette McKerchar. Distributed by PennSound and New Zealand EPC.

March 27, 2012

Draft 49: Turns

Draft 51: Clay Songs

Draft 53: Eclogue

March 16, 2012

Draft 74: Wanderer

Draft 87: Trace Elements

March 15, 2012

Draft 102: One-on-One

Draft 103: Punctum

Draft 109: Wall Newspaper

MLA Offsite Reading, Town Hall Downstairs, Seattle, January 7, 2012

Complete reading (2:09): MP3

Reading at Jerome Rothenberg's 80th Birthday Tribute, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, December 9, 2011

Complete video (1:02:23): MOV

Rachel Blau DuPlessis Celebration, Temple University, October 21, 2011

Complete video (43:39): MOV

Reading at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, March 7, 2011

  1. Introduction by Joseph Harrington (2:41): MP3
  2. Draft 95: Erg (9:30): MP3
  3. Draft 96: Velocity (7:44): MP3
  4. Draft 98: Canzone (11:33): MP3
  5. Draft 104: The Book (6:30): MP3
  6. Draft 105: Pilgrimage (read with Joseph Harrington) (7:28): MP3 Complete reading (52:01): MP3

Special thanks to Benjamin Cartwright for making this recording available.

Whenever We Feel Like It, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, March 3, 2011

Complete video (56:32): MOV

Poetry in 1960 - A Symposium at The Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, December 6, 2010

(with Al Filreis, Danny Snelson, erica kaufman, Bob Perelman, Mel Nichols, Ron Silliman, Judith Goldman, Chris Funkhouser,Kristen Gallagher, Michael S. Hennessey and Charles Bernstein)

on Second Avenue by Frank O'Hara (6:00): MP3

Complete program (2:20:13): MP3

Chapter & Verse Series Reading at the Chapterhouse Cafe, PHL, with Pattie McCarthy, January 30, 2010

MLA Off-Site Reading at the Rotunda, Philadelphia, December 29, 2009

Reading from Poems for the Millennium III, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, October 7, 2009

Complete Reading (12:04): MP3

Talking and reading to students at the University of Auckland in New Zealand from the National Humanites Center in Durham, NC, April 2009

Complete recording (20:51): MP3

Reading for the Arcade Taberna Reading Series, David Need and Jehanne Gheith's House, Durham N.C., April 24, 2009

Reading for the So and So Series, co-curated by Chris Tonelli and Christopher Salerno, Raleigh, N.C., February 21, 2009

Complete video (7:20): MOV

Statement made for the celebration of Ron Silliman's The Alphabet, February 2009

Complete Recording (10:43): MP3

From A Celebration of George Oppen's 100th Birthday at the Kelly Writers House, April 7, 2008

"Section 9: Of Being Numerous" (7:54): MP3

Reading at the Kelly Writers House, February 5, 2008

  1. Introduction (4:52): MP3
  2. Draft 64: Forward Slash (8:06): MP3
  3. from Draft 74: Wanderer (10:55): MP3
  4. Draft 88: X-Posting (a variation on Ingeborg Bachmann's "Keine Delikatessen") (16:25): MP3
  5. from Draft 85: Hard Copy (12:47): MP3

Complete Reading (54:17): MP3

"Draft 85: Hard Copy" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 69.

Selected portions of this event were recorded:

Complete video (19:00): MP4

Segue Series Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, January 19, 2008

Complete reading (29:55): MP3

MLA Offsite Series Reading in Philadelphia, December 26, 2006

Poetry and Empire: Post-Invasion Poetics, presented at the ICA, University of Pennsylvania, 2003

DuPlessis and class in discussion with Alice Notley, Temple University, February 20, 2001

on Virginia Woolf, from Nine Contemporary Poets Read Themselves Through Modernism at the Kelly Writers House, October 13, 2000

from PhillyTalks Episode #13, November 15, 1999

Reading for LIVE at the Writers House, Episode 10, University of Pennsylvania, September 14, 1998

  1. Draft 25: Segno (4:52): MP3
  2. Excerpt from Draft 19: Working Conditions(4:16): MP3

Summer Writing Program, Naropa, June 17, 1998

(with Carl Rakosi, Jenny Penberthy, and Mike Heller)

Part 1: Panel on the Objectivist poets (1:42:15): MP3
Part 2: Complete discussion (1:32:50): MP3 (note: recording is of extremely poor quality)

Special thanks to Rachel Blau DuPlessis for making these recordings available.

Reading for the Segue Series at HERE, New York, February 7, 1998

  1. introduction (3:48): MP3
  2. Draft 25: Segno (5:16): MP3
  3. Draft 26: M-m-ry (6:08): MP3
  4. Draft 27: Athwart (6:31): MP3
  5. Draft 28: Facing Pages (6:53): MP3
  6. Draft 36: Cento (8:23): MP3

MLA Offsite Series Reading at the Four Seasons Hotel, Washington D.C., December 27, 1996

  1. Reading from Draft 29: Intellectual Autobiography (4:22): MP3
  2. Reading from Draft 23: Findings (3:43): MP3

Lecture for The Recovery of the Public World: A Conference and Poetry Festival in Honour of Robin Blaser, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June 1-4, 1995

"The Blazes of Poetry: Remarks on Segmentivity and Seriality with Special Reference to Blaser and Oppen"

complete recording (28:40): MP3

Segue Series reading at The Ear Inn, New York, April 24, 1993

Reading at The Ear Inn, New York, November 21, 1992

Reading for Wednesday @ Four Plus, University of Buffalo, April 17, 1991

  1. from "Acknowledgments" (3:50): MP3
  2. The Pink Guitar (48:12): MP3 Complete reading (52:04): MP3

Reading at Robin's Books, Philadelphia, May 11, 1988

  1. Introductory comments (2:54): MP3
  2. Attar (from Tabula Rosa) (1:40): MP3
  3. Introduction to Drafts (1:48): MP3
  4. Draft 2: She (11:54): MP3
  5. Draft 3: Of (9:40): MP3
  6. Draft 6: Midrush (12:46): MP3
  7. Draft 7: Me (6:31): MP3

(this track cuts off prematurely)

Complete reading (48:23): MP3

(recording courtesy of the Herschel Baron Collection)

Reading at Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee, WI March 27, 1988

  1. Introduction (2:44): MP3
  2. From H.D.: The Career of That Struggle (1:06): MP3
  3. From Other-how (4:29): MP3
  4. Praxilla's Silliness (7:38): MP3
  5. Rupturing the History of Poetry by the History of Poetry (4:12): MP3
  6. Introduction to Crowbar (3:35): MP3
  7. Crowbar (17:52): MP3

Complete Reading (42:23): MP3

  1. Discussing Drafts (3:50): MP3
  2. Draft 2: She (13:07): MP3
  3. Introduction to Draft 6 (5:30): MP3
  4. Draft 6 (10:08): MP3

Complete Reading (42:56): MP3

St. Mark's Talks, June 6, 1985

Reading at Robin's Bookstore, April 24, 1985

Reading at the Tyler School of Art, April 10, 1985

  1. From Wells (2:29): MP3
  2. Writing (7:18): MP3
  3. Crowbar (17:14): MP3

Complete Reading (27:33): MP3

Panel Discussion on Image/ Imaging at the Tyler School of Art, April 10, 1985. With Clark Coolidge, Michael Palmer, John Yau, and Geoffrey Young

  1. tenets of Imagism (2:40): MP3
  2. Clark Coolidge on logopeia and the movement of language (4:01): MP3
  3. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on the rejection of "poetic material" and imaging as a site of struggle (3:28): MP3
  4. Michael Palmer on the economy of the poem, the diffusing of Imagism, vorticism and objectification in the body of the poem (11:51): MP3
  5. John Yau on stereotypes of the writer and the structure of images one is allowed to produce (3:45): MP3
  6. on T.S. Eliot and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (4:23): MP3
  7. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on the politics of prosody, the hierarchy of the text and destroying language while using language (3:09): MP3
  8. on the totality of the image (2:55): MP3
  9. on the visual aspect of words on a page (6:05): MP3
  10. Michael Palmer on the apparition of visual images in his work (1:40): MP3
  11. John Yau on field verse, the source of images, and cues in language (4:03): MP3
  12. on the source of dreams and the harmony of the work (3:32): MP3
  13. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on being a woman writer, rupturing the images of a culture, and stealing other people's images (5:20): MP3
  14. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on deconstructing socially mandated discourses (3:08): MP3
  15. Michael Palmer on the analytic-lyric (1:02): MP3
  16. Rachel Blau DuPlessis on the place of woman as constructed site and the difference between a feminine and a female poetry (3:46): MP3

Reading at Intersection in San Francisco May 4, 1982

  1. Introduction to Selections from Wells (2:04): MP3
  2. From Wells: Eurydice (5:24): MP3
  3. From Wells: Medusa (6:57): MP3
  4. From: A History of Poetry (9:30): MP3
  5. Excerpt from Wells: (2:13): MP3
  6. Ode in Six Parts (15:20): MP3

Complete Reading (43:41): MP3

Writers Talk with Mary Oppen, Anita Barrows and Frances Jaffer, Produced by Norma Smith at KPFA Berkeley, 1985 or 1986

DuPlessis and class in Discussion with Susan Howe, 1986

See also: The Louis Zukofsky Centennial Conference at Columbia University and Barnard College, September 17-19, 2004 for video footage of DuPlessis' presentation.

Also of interest:

Rachel Blau Duplessis on PennSound Daily

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2005-2018 Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Studio 111 conversation © 2005 Rachel Blau DuPlessis/Charles Bernstein. Used with permission of Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Distributed by PennSound.