seriously people record yourselves already

Well, Gay Expectations II is over and done with. I got a couple of stealth recordings, but they need a lot of polishing before I’d feel comfortable putting them up here. Besides, I’m now heavily into production for The Bind of Isaac, which goes up on Thursday. I’ll still have my recorder with me, of course, so I’ll try to find some nuggets worth sharing with OOS fans.

In other news, be sure to preorder Mike Young’s We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough, or pick it up when it comes out – I got a sneak peek at it and it’s brilliant. His poetry is incredibly fun to read aloud, and it’s a great blend of abstract and absurd, in that it makes you think about language and imagery without being pretentious or wooden.

Anyway, let’s get to some poetry. Here’s Peter Cooley reading at Tulane. Enjoy!

Oh hey look it’s Donald Hall

No new episode this week – I was making the most of my free time before signing my life away to theatre this week, so I shirked my recording duties. Mea culpa and so forth. If I have time, I’ll record some people during tech this week, but the odds are shaky, at best. Good news is, I’ll be working with some truly awesome people who, time permitting, will probably agree to read for OOS. At least, they will if they care about the safety of their loved ones.

In the meantime, here’s multi-prizewinning poet laureate Donald Hall, reading at UVA and having a really good time of it. So was his audience, to judge by their response. His reading style is similar to that of Robert Bly, but with much less political lecturing in between poems. Hope this distracts you from my shoddy work ethic! SEND ME RECORDINGS OF YOURSELVES.

Episode 7 – Public Domain Edition

Well! I finally managed to slap an episode together for this week, so needless to say there won’t be one posted on Sunday. Which is just as well, since I’ll be watching the Red Sox beat the Orioles into paste (I say this as a demoralized Orioles fan) on Sunday anyway. I really wish I’d thought to bring my recorder to what turned out to be a very fun Reading in the Round last night, but c’est la vie. Anyway, I cribbed everything in this episode from Librivox, which has a very nice collection of short poetry and a stable of readers who don’t sound like Chris Rock’s impression of white people. Go team!

By the way, try a Youtube search for “news bloopers” sometime. Holy crap. The sample in this episode is only the tip of a hilarious, unprofessional iceberg.

Download OOSep7 and maybe this crazy woman won’t haunt your dreams forever!

the clod and the pebble – written by w. blake/read by leon mire
by the arno – written by oscar wilde/read by joe brenneman
futility – written by w. owen/read by caroline foty
when i heard the learned astronomer – written by w. whitman/read by alan davis-drake
egotist – written by ambrose bierce/read by lee ann howlett

Blame Memorial Day

Episode 7′s going to be a bit late, obviously. I didn’t get a chance to record anyone, so I’m poking through my various public domain options to try and find some good stuff to slap together. However, I did add an About page to the blog, as well as a page explaining how you, yes you, can contribute to OOS. Hopefully some of you will do so, because I can’t very well go around recording everyone everywhere. I’ve got rent to pay and cat litter to scoop, people.

Anyway, here’s some content: Neil Gaiman reads his poem, “Instructions.”

A Very Special Episode 6

So for this episode, I did some stealth recording at an open mic in Annapolis and captured, among other things, the complete set of one of the evening’s featured poets. So in that spirit, Rachel Lucke gets the entire episode to herself. Isn’t that nice? She’s really good, and the last two poems (written in the characters of Picasso painting Gertrude Stein and Lot’s wife) are particularly good. Past OOS contributor Angela Horner was another featured poet that evening, and she was awesome too.

Download #6 to your computerbox!

I need to include a Submissions tab to this thing, which I’ll do at some point today or tomorrow, because summer makes people more difficult to pin down and record for some reason. Yes, I know how creepy that sounds, just go with it.

Episode Fi(ve)nally!

Oof, that’s a clunky headline. But do forgive me – I thought I’d never get this thing together. It’s a good episode though, and the musical interludes come courtesy of 1994!, specifically the song “New Holland 1995.” It’s great. They’re great.

Since we all know what my excuses for being late are, I’ll skip over reiterating them and just let you folks get to listening. Hopefully my schedule will realign in time for next weekend’s update – I’ll be in Pennsylvania that weekend, so I’ll officially be taking this thing on the road! Whoooo!

…I’m easily excited.

Download Ep. 5 here!

sleeping on trains – written/read by aliza ess
like brandy in our milk – written/read by lindsey wittstruck
we keep on driving – written/read by meredith purvis
urgency of now – written/read by daniel aluma*
saturdays – written/read by angelus*

*recordings taken from archive.org

Update! Still late!

No, I’m not sorry the headline rhymed. This is a poetry podcast, after all. I should have OOSep5 up by Tuesday – I’ve got two live recordings already and at least one more primed for tomorrow, so it won’t be much longer, I promise! Been a busy week, but my schedule is starting to smooth out so I may very well have more time to devote to this project.

In the further meantime, here’s Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues,” set to some classic footage of Cab Calloway being awesome.

Episode 5…is delayed

Welp, Episode 5 will be delayed because I get to spend my weekend as a projectionist for the never-ending shitshow that is the Maryland Film Festival. Oh, and I’m still working on a final. If I manage to survive all of this, god help me, I’ll record people this week and put together OOSep5 as soon as possible.

But I can’t just leave you guys hanging in the wind, so here’s Dave Chappelle’s infamous poem, “Fuck Ashton Kutcher.” Hi-larious.

Episode 4: Long Poem Titles!

Happy Sunday! As promised, there’s a new episode waiting to be downloaded. If it were a puppy, it’d be jumping up and down in the bin, begging you to adopt it. Don’t you dare look away, you monster.

Anyway, this episode was really fun to put together – the heavy metal show and Star Wars poems will probably get me barred from Literature forever, but the poignant Hiroshima poem at the end balances things out, I think. Plus, there’s no rule against me having fun with this.

OOSep4 also introduces someone I’ve never met before – Ming Wen is a JHU student who I found reading his work on Friday, and I recorded him while hipsters gathered chairs and PA equipment all around us. Fun times were had. Julie is also a JHU student, just so you know.

Download it! Don’t you make that puppy cry!

proving more true than those with more cunning to be strange – written/read by salimah j. perkins
executive – written/read by ming wen
spell to commemorate one of the best nights of my life – written/read by julie depasquale
stormtrooper poetry #18 – written/read by fiddleback*
i come and stand at every door – written by nazim hikmet/read by hema manicka*

*recordings taken from Archive.org

Minor weekly update!

Just popping in to remind people that links to OOS contributors are in the sidebar now, so go look at them! I’ll most likely be posting a new episode sometime on Sunday; my plan is to record some people at the JHU reading I’ll be attending tonight so I won’t have to cheat and dip into Archive.org quite as much.

I also did some guest blogging over at Meredith Purvis’ website – click here to read my extremely important opinions about Wallace Stevens.

Oh, and I also write a monthly column for the Gettysburg Times. Here’s me waxing historic about Tax Day.