ModPo 2019 opening day message from Al
It’s Friday morning as I write this here in Philadelphia USA. Twenty-four hours from now we will begin our 10-week journey through the ModPo course. Whether you are able to devote just two hours...
Author: Al Filreis
Marcel Duchamp’s notes (discussion with Marjorie Perloff & others)
Marcel Duchamp’s miscellaneous notes were included in the conceptualist anthology called Against Expression. HERE is a copy of the text. HERE is a video recording of a discussion about these notes with Marjorie Perloff, Danny...
Marjorie Perloff on William Carlos Williams’s “Spring and All”
During a visit to Los Angeles in January 2019, Al and Anna stopped by to see the eminent critic Marjorie Perloff at her home. We recorded a conversation about a several-pages-long passage from WCW’s Spring...
ModPoPLUS video on Gwendolyn Brooks’s “The Chicago Picasso”
We have added Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “The Chicago Picasso” to week 5 of ModPoPLUS. Here is a link to the text of the poem. Here is a link to the video inside the ModPo...
Message to ModPo people ModPo 2019 begins
Yes, ModPo 2019 begins on Saturday (September 7). The discussion forums are open now, of course, but on Saturday we will really get going again. I will write again soon to give you some...
Message to all ModPo people before ModPo 2019 begins
Hello to all ModPo people! Greetings from Philadelphia—from the Kelly Writers House, home of ModPo since 2012. “ModPo” is short for “Modern & Contemporary U.S. Poetry,” the 10-week course that is free, non-credit, and...
Shetland poet Christie Williamson visits the Writers House
Shetland poet & ModPo regular Christie Williamson reads his poem “Da Burn” and explains it a bit for us at KWH: http://jacket2.org/commentary/christie-williamson-reads-explains-poem-shetlandic
AP English class tries the ModPo method of collaborative close reading
ModPo’er & teacher Christan Bush tried the ModPo method of collaborative close reading with her students, and it worked! And you can watch it work! The poem they discussed is Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking.”...
Rae Armantrout describes her encounter with “Howl”
Watch a discussion—excerpted from a fall 2018 webcast—in which Rae Armantrout describes her encounter with Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”:
CCCR video in which Max leads a discussion of Stein in Chicago
We have added to the CCCR* syllabus a discussion led by Max McKenna with some ModPo’ers in Chicago (October 2018) about stanza 2 of Gertrude Stein’s “Stanzas in Meditation.” Here are the links as...