[Poetry reading, May 11, 1966] / Robert Lowell.

Recorded on May 11, 1966 on 7 inch Scotch reel-to-reel tape. Reading was possibly held in Buffalo, N.Y. and possibly recorded by Anthony Ostroff.

This poetry reading by Robert Lowell was held on May 11, 1966. The location is unknown, but it would not have been Lowell's only time in Buffalo if in fact this reading was held there. In October 1959, Lowell visited Lockwood Memorial Library's curator Charles Abbott and his wife Theresa in their home. Lowell returned to Buffalo to give a reading and interview in Lockwood Memorial Library on October 3, 1973. In this recording of the 1966 reading, Lowell first read "Stalag Luft" and "Eighth Air Force" by Randall Jarrell ("He was the most brilliant mind of my generation, I think, in both poetry and prose, the best poet-critic we had and maybe the best poet."), "Visits to St. Elizabeths" by Elizabeth Bishop ("Miss Bishop has this tremendous power of description, and it's a natural gift, it's not just a stylistic one. You feel that she sees and notices more than other people."), and "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath ("I think she's one of the best poets in the language.") Before reading all of the poems of Part four of Life studies, Lowell said, "Now I want to read a poem of mine that, it's a sequence of thirteen poems, I think, called Life studies, and it's rather a personal poem, but I wrote it and I published it, and it's something you could only write once in your life and shouldn't read very often. It's a long time since I read it and it's a long time before I'll read it again, but I'd like to tonight, and it's about my family, my grandparents and my parents, and my wife and child come into it, and I think that one of the significances of it, one of the intentions, is that it begins in my grandparents' world, and that's a world that goes back into the last century, and it's no longer here anymore."

Robert Lowell.

The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries. Digital conversion was made possible through a 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

1966

Sound recording

OST012

Stalag Luft /written by Randall Jarrell --Eighth Air Force /written by Jarrell --Visits to St. Elizabeths /written by Elizabeth Bishop --Lady Lazarus /written by Sylvia Plath --My Last afternoon with uncle Devereux Winslow --Dunbarton --Grandparents --Commander Lowell --Terminal days at Beverly Farms --Father's bedroom --For sale --Sailing home from Rapallo --During fever --Waking in the blue --Home after three months away --Memories of West Street and Lepke --Man and wife --To speake of woe that is in marriage --Skunk hour.

Hear@Buffalo: The Poetry Collection’s Audio Archive

UB Only

lib-pc002-OST012.mp3