DOI: 10.25549/lipton-c108-495
title: 389. Poetry readings by Boyd, Perkoff, McGrath, Roskolenko, Saroyan, Foster, Lipton, Lacy, Margolis, Forsberg, 1957-1960

description: Tape 389, side 1: Poetry and short story readings, 1958 March 23 (0:02): Tape 389, side 1, part A) Bruce Boyd reading his poetry (0:07): "Canticles for the hours: vespers" (0:53), "Canticles for the hours: matins with lauds" (2:16), "Canticles for the hours: prime (3:52), "Noetical predicament" (8:11), "Toes" (10:40), "A chorale of minstrels" (11:32), "Song" (12:54) "Meteor[?] poem 1958" (14:06). ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part B) Stuart Perkoff reading poetry by Saul White (15:40): "I feel the pale blue endless sea" (16:06), "A man asks a question: what am I doing here" (16:57), "Bang bang, I shot you first" (18:02), "Outside the window" (18:19), "Hey, hold on America, China's gone again" (18:52), "The walk to any door takes time" (19:34), "In the cool breeze back east" (20:20), "You say you have willpower" (21:19), "The funny style cat" (21:42); Stuart Perkoff reading his poetry (22:32): "The acrobat" (22:43), "An attempt at bridge building" (23:18), "Trees are structures like ladders" (24:05), "Gull wing, dancing..." (24:42), "Linear poem in late February" (25:30). ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part C) Thomas Mcgrath reading his poetry: "Memory of a prophet" (27:31), "John Cary's song" (30:51), "Autumn after the war" (32:33), "Gone away blues" (36:45), "Poem (Past midnight now in the city)" (38:33). ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part D) Harry Roskolenko reading his poetry (42:10): "The return" (43:07), "Charlie" (48:01), "Exile" (49:06), "Aries of conscience" (50:12), "Images of disorder" (51:06), "I stole the mad woman's love, the mad woman said" (52:02), from Paris Poems "Now they come without the motives of the war" (53:18), "Montage effects" (54:27), "Europe" (55:19), "Christmas in wartime" (56:15), "End voyage" (57:17). ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part E) William Saroyan reading from the Bible, "Genesis, or the formation of the chosen nation" (0:11), and comments and discussion (with Lawrence Lipton and Stuart Perkoff) (1:02, 1:42) on various topics including: Clifford Odets (playwright), Jake Shakespeare, Odet's play The Flowering Peach, T.S. Eliot's "The wasteland", poetry, jazz in Russia, sitting vs. standing to write, the writing process, Mahatma Ghandi, poverty, Saroyan's plays My Heart's in the Highlands, The Time of Your Life, Don't Go Away Mad. ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part F) Harold Rabinowitz reading his poetry: "Recognition" (18:27), "Too late and too early" (20:33), "I'm hung, I'm hung on roots" (23:26). ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part G) William Saroyan reading from his short story "The fire" (25:04) [excerpt]. ❧ Tape 389, side 1, part H) Harry Roskolenko (27:57) reading his poetry: "Escape" (28:57), "Leviathan" (31:58) [excerpts]. ❧ Tape 389, side 2, part A) Harry Roskolenko reading his poetry: "Leviathan" (0:02) [excerpts continued]. ❧ Tape 389, side 2, part B) Bruce Boyd reading his poetry, 1957: "Petition" (2:24), "Mi ami kay" (3:01), "This is what the watchbird sings who perches in the love tree" (3:24), "This is how the wind sings lover on the beach" (4:06), "Nocturne for the west" (4:39), "Hubris" (5:23). ❧ Tape 389, side 2, part C) Stuart Perkoff reading his poetry, 1957: "To be read on festival days" (6:03), "The swing" (6:40), "On unloading a boxcar" (7:42), "We are forced to wage war against time" (8:25), "Echos, echos" (8:55), "We come on quiet man moving down the street" (10:08), "The caveman and the computing machine" (10:52). ❧ Tape 389, side 2, part D) Charles Foster reading his poetry, 1957: "Let us count among the customs of the dying islanders the gift of love" (11:41), "Parlor'" (14:03), "Preliminary report on rarum naturum" (15:29). ❧ Tape 389, side 2, part E) Lawrence Lipton reading his poetry, 1957: "How to listen to a poem" (19:10), "How jazz was born" (20:38), "The ultimate weapon" (23:07), "The dreaming hands" (24:48), "To make beautiful" (26:33). ❧ Tape 389, 2F) Lawrence Lipton introduces (28:41): Wilmer Lacy reading his poetry, 1959: "After a glass of gin" (28:56), "Gone. Bird is silent" (30:24), "In a quaint Kako corner" (31:23), "Close your eyes" (32:54), "Where are you" (33:46), "From my mystic perch" (34:56), "We lay on the beach" (36:49), "Before waving nevermind" (38:54), "It began with grapefruit juice and gin" (40:10), "She had me listen to the quiet" (41:55), "Come to me in the afternoon" (43:04), "Retire to a tinted chamber of evening" (44:35). ❧ Tape 389, 2G) William Margolis reading his poetry, 1960 April 4: "Half a man riff" (0:04), "Poem for nine months not leading to a new birth" (06:21), "Knotes" (8:37), "Collages" (9:36), "Speak softly big man" (13:59), "Words are my only wine" (14:22), "My image of myself as poet" (14:34), "The never melting eyes of R.S." (14:52), "Processional" (15:46), "The chessman" (16:54), "To come unto night" (17:12), "The journey" (18:23), "Wall blows with Autumn's morning glass" (18:44). ❧ Tape 389, side 2, part H) Carl Forsberg (19:14) reading his short story, "War Department telegram, April 20th, 1886" [excerpts] (19:18), "Screaming [inaudible] Little Rock" (29:07). -- TIMES indicate where sections begin.