Saturday, May 24, 2008

Philip Levine Poems, Bryant Park Reading Series

Considering I am still working on a post from last month about a poetry reading at St. Mark's in New York City, I didn't want to wait so long for the poetry reading I attended on Wednesday.

So here's an abridged version, so I can at least share the event, which was very, very good.

The Bryant Park Reading Room has a Summer Reading series. The event was bumped to a nearby classroom a couple blocks away due to rain.

I shot three clips of Philip Levine reading poems. Here they are:

Philip Levine reads "How Much Can it Hurt?" from THEY FEED THEY LION & THE NAMES OF THE LOST, on May 20, 2008, Bryant Park Reading Room Series (relocated to a nearby classroom, due to rain):



Note: He's reading from a copy of the book which he borrowed from me.

Next, Levine reads "Call It Music" from BREATH. There are several minutes of Levine introducing this poem. Just marvelous:



And finally, Levine reading "The Two":



I'll do better justice to this post later, but I am proud (and I don't often brag) of my contribution here. Levine is a major American poet, and I generally don't get such good quality poetry video on my little Kodak Easyshare camera.

I truly hope poetry fans, and Levine aficionados, will appreciate these little gems.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd love to translate "the two" in italian for my blog. Can I put this video too when i'll do it?
thank you
lisa

Tattoosday said...

Absolutely! Thank you for your interest!!

Anonymous said...

sorry, if I disturb you again.I got a doubt about the last word of the poem. In the video it sounds "confusions", in the text I found it's "confessions". Which is right?
thank you
lisa

Tattoosday said...

Interesting. The printed word is "confessions" according to the Academy of American Poets posting on the site: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16505

However, I would say without a shadow of a doubt that Levine says "confusions".

Poets have been known to change words as a work evolves over time. I'll see if I can find out more.....

Anonymous said...

Well. I'm going to write "confusions". I think that it got more meaning inside the poem
(truths/confusions).
I do loved this poem anyway. Finally I finished my translation!!!
Thank you for helping me. I didn't know this poet but now I love him. I'm going to read more.
thank you again
lisa