Nine contemporary poets read themselves through modernism

For three evenings, October 12 through 14, 2000, The Kelly Writers House, collaborating with the Modernist Studies Association conference, "Modernisms II," presented nine contemporary poets read themselves through modernism.

Three nights of readings at the Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk on Penn's campus: each night featured three contemporary poets reading their own and a modernist's writings, thirty-minute selections chosen to express a relationship to the work of modernism. These programs were recorded in digital audio, and are now available as a permanent archive of the project.

Click on the name of the poet below to hear the poet's 30-minute reading/discussion following a brief introduction by Al Filreis. The format is RealAudio; if you need a RealPlayer, just click here. For downloadable MP3 recordings of some of the readings, please scroll down this page.

"[S]omehow modernism as I...want to understand it...is really an ongoing project in the contemporary writing scene."

--Bob Perelman

The "nine poets" program was been conceived by Bob Perelman and Al Filreis, organized and convened by Al Filreis, Class of 1942 Professor of English & Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, and was introduced by Al Filreis and Kerry Sherin, Director of the Kelly Writers House. Funded by the Kelly Writers House, MSA, and the Creative Writing Program of the Department of English. For more information about the Modernist Studies Association, visit the MSA web site.

Complete recordings

Charles Bernstein / Walter Benjamin

Rachel Blau DuPlessis / Virginia Woolf

Erica Hunt / Samuel Beckett and James Baldwin

Recordings of individual poems

Note: Click on the title for downloadable MP3 recordings. For instant streaming audio, click on the sideways triangle.