Women poets

  • Anne Sexton reads at the Poetry Center

    Anne Sexton reads some of her work before an audience at the Poetry Center of the 92nd St. YM-YWHA in New York City in 1965. Some of the poems read are: Her kind — I remember — In the deep museum — The truth the dead know — Walking in Paris — For the year…

  • Marianne Moore reads at the Poetry Center

    In this program, the well-known American poet, Marianne Moore, reads from her work before an audience at the Poetry Center of the 92nd St. YM-YWHA in New York City in 1965. Unfortunately, the entire recording of Moore’s reading was unavailable, and this program includes only the second half. It begins with Moore reading her poem…

  • May Swenson reads at the Poetry Center

    This is a recording of May Swenson (1913 – 1989) reading from her own work at the YM-YWHA Poetry Center in New York City. On Part 1, Swenson reads Living Tenderly, The Surface, Fountain Piece, The Exchange, The Engagement, Death, Great Smoothener, At First, At Last (introduced as A Diagram of Life), The Lightning, Working…

  • May Swenson reads at the Poetry Center (Part 2 of 2)

    This is part two of May Swenson reading from her own work at the YM-YWHA Poetry Center in New York City. The reading took place on December 16, 1965.

  • Jean Garrigue reads at the Poetry Center

    Poet Jean Garrigue (1912 – 1972), author of five volumes of poetry, including the recently published “Country without maps,” reads from her work in a program recorded at the Poetry Center of the YM-YWHA in January 1965. Garrigue reads For the circuit of the Orpheum and the Isis, For the beauty of the Beau Monde(?),…

  • KPFA poetry festival (Part 2 of 5) / recorded by Randy Thom and Doug Maisel.

    KPFA Poetry festival Part 2 of 5. The second part of the festival begins with Harlem’s David Henderson followed by Jessica Hagedorn. This tape ends with a mystical, miniature sermon by 1968 National Book Award winner Robert Bly, incorporating poems by, among others, Rilke, Yeats, and the world’s first whirling dervish.

  • KPFA poetry festival (Part 3 of 5) / recorded by Randy Thom and Doug Maisel.

    KPFA Poetry festival Part 3 of 5. This part begins with Max Schartz, host of KPFA’s prison poetry show STATE OF EMERGENCY, who conducts a spontaneous jam with his jazz musician friends. Edward Dorn, Joanne Kyger, and Simon Ortiz are the other poets on this program.

  • KPFA poetry festival (Part 4 of 5) / recorded by Randy Thom and Doug Maisel.

    KPFA Poetry festival Part 4 of 5. The fourth part of the Poetry Festival features Victor Hernandez Cruz, who opens with the question “What do you do if you are raised in Iowa and you still want to be a poet?” This program also includes the dynamic poet Alta of the Shameless Hussy Press.

  • The blood jet is poetry: the life and work of Sylvia Plath /Mimi Weisbord Anderson and Nanette Rainone (Part 2 of 2)

    Biographical sketch of poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). Program includes interview footage with Plath by Peter Orr from the British Council, recorded in London in October 1962. During this interview she reads the following poems: Stopped Dead, Daddy, Lady Lazarus, The Applicant, Medusa, A Secret, Amnesiac, Nick and the Candlestick, and A Birthday Present. Other readings…

  • Feminist poetry reading / Grace Paley. (Part 2 of 3)

    Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007), feminist writer, reads poetry at the San Francisco Women’s Building on June 22, 1980 in a benefit for the War Resisters League. Also performing that night was Judy Grahn (see AZ0456). Recording also contains Grace Paley reading at U.C. Extension, Berkeley on June 19, 1980. Finally,…