ModPo in Boston, October 2019
The ModPo team just returned from a four-day trip to Boston. We hosted our weekly live webcast at MIT on October 10—thanks for Nick Montfort, the poet (see week 9 of ModPoPLUS) and critic/theorist who is on the MIT faculty. On Friday, October 11, we gathered at the home of a friend in Cambridge—for a Writers House salon evening, featuring readings by former ModPo TA Camara Brown and ModPo’s coordinator Anna Strong Safford. Then on Saturday we were invited to gather at the home of Lisa New (the creator of “Poetry in America”) for a meet-up; there will filmed new collaborative close readings (of two short poems by Larry Eigner and one poem by Robert Lowell). During our visit we also filmed five new ModPo videos! Here are photos:
Nick Boatright joins us at the webcast.
Anna reads her poems at the Cambridge salon.
Dan Bergmann, Camara Brown, Meredith Bergmann after the webcast at MIT on 10/10/19.
Camara Brown, former ModPo TA and now a doctoral student at Harvard, reads from her poems at our Cambridge salon, 10/11/19.
Michael and Dan Bergmann at the table just prior to the start of the webcast at MIT.
Camara talks about her connections to the Writers House before reading her poems.
We film a new ModPoPLUS video in front of the Houghton Library at Harvard. In this video we discuss a 5-page section of Susan Howe’s “The Midnight” in which she describes her feelings of being an imposter as she first entered the Houghton to read Dickinson manuscripts.
The ModPo team returns to our Harvard Square hotel after an intense day of “on location” filming.
At the Woodberry Poetry Room, Anna examines one of the lovely old turntables. Students in the late 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s would come to the WPR and listen to recordings on vinyl records of poets reading their poems.
Anna with Melissa Silva.
Anna and Nick Montfort. Nick is a chapter 9.2 (week 9) poet and a faculty member at MIT. He hosted our webcast.
Autumn and Chris tired and happy after dinner.
Chris Martin in his element — running sound.
Dan Bergmann at the webcast table.
We filmed a walk-n-talk around Harvard Yard. We discussed an experimental short story (prose poem) by John Keene.
We finally met Sanjeev Naik!
Sanjeev and Michael.
Susan and Sarah (Sarah was visiting from Germany!)
The lovely Woodberry Poetry Room where we made a new episode of PoemTalk. The PoemTalkers were Stephanie Burt, Bonnie Costello, and Anna Strong Safford. We talked about 5 paired haiku by Tonya Foster.
Zach navigates.
Zach tries to fix a problem Al caused with his laptop. Typical pre-webcast first aid.
Gear.
