[Poetry reading at the University at Buffalo, June 21, 1973] / Charles Reznikoff.

Recorded on June 21, 1973 by Allen De Loach on two 60 minute Ampex sound cassettes. The Poetry Collection acquired the recording from De Loach.

Charles Reznikoff reads selections from his works: Inscriptions: 1944-1956, Jerusalem the golden, Going to and fro and walking up and down, Poems (1920), Rhythms II, By the well of living and seeing, Testimony, and A fifth group of verse. The first two poems, Reznikoff says, "illustrate my platform as a writer of verse." Reznikoff then says of the next group, "Now I'm going to read material which I would call urban or city. As you know, for a long time, much of the verse of the last century and even this century has been nature poetry, so called, and the last great poet for that group is Robert Frost, who has just died, but for us who were born and brought up in the city, there is a kind of verse which might be called city verse, and I'll begin with some of these." In track six, Reznikoff discusses Testimony: "Law cases, recorded in the law books, not only include the legal decisions but, at times, the facts on which the decisions are based and, of course, what I was looking for were the facts." There is a brief lapse in the audio near the end of Testimony (II) in track six, after which the audio resumes at the beginning of Domestic scenes (I), and continues without interruption to the end of the reading.

Charles Reznikoff.

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

1973

Sound recording

INT086

first line of poem:[Salmon and red wine] --first line of poem:[I have neither the time nor the weaving skill, perhaps] --first line of poem:[These days the papers in the street] --first line of poem: [Scrap of paper] --first line of poem:[On a Sunday, when the place was closed] --first line of poem:[When the sky is blue, the water over the sandy bottom is green] --Building boom --Rainy season --first line of poem:[The house-wreckers have left the door and a staircase] --first line of poem:[Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies] --first line of poem:[Of course, we must die] --first line of poem:[Rails in the subway] --first line of poem:[This subway station] --first line of poem: [What are you doing in our street] --first line of poem:[Permit me to warn you] --first line of poem:[As I was wandering with my unhappy thoughts] --Scrubwoman --first line of poem:[The winter afternoon darkens] --first line of poem:[The elevator man] --first line of poem:[The young fellow walks about] --first line of poem:[Showing a torn sleeve] --first line of poem:[Two girls of twelve or so at a tabe] --Depression poem --[Showing a torn sleeve] --first line of poem: [I am always surprised to meet, after ten or twenty years] --first line of poem:[The new janitor is a young man] --first line of poem:[Most of the stock in the hardware store] --first line of poem:[The Chinese girl in the waiting-room of the busy railway station] --first line of poem:[During the Second World War, I was going home one night] --Love story --Testimony (II) --Domestic scenes (I) --Boys and girls (5) --The south (X) --Negroes (17) --Domestic scenes (4) --Domestic scenes (12) --Property (4) --A citizen --first line of poem:[I have not even been in the fields] --first line of poem:[Blurred sight and trembling fingers--] --first line of poem:[You are young and contemptuous] --Heart and clock --first line of poem:[Our nightingale, the clock] --first line of poem:[The clock] --first line of poem:[My hair was caught in the wheels of a clock] --first line of poem:[Hardly a breath of wind] --first line of poem:[After I had worked all day at what I earn my living] --Te Deum --The English in Virginia, April 1607 --New nation --Samuel --From the apocalyptic Ezra --first line of poem:[God saw Adam in a town] --first line of poem:[Ah, the drill] --first line of poem:[In the street, nine stories below, the horn of an automobile out of order] --Early history of a writer (17).

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