Tonight the Poetry Center is pleased to welcome back Philip Levine, whose new collection is News of the World. He’ll be reading with Rita Dove. In an interview with The Atlantic, Mr. Levine once remarked on the difference between performing poetry and writing it:

“The process of writing poetry depends on being alone in a room, and being comfortable being alone for long periods of time—almost reveling in solitude and slow time. I’ve had friends tell me, younger poets, that when they came back from their early reading tours they’d get very depressed. I guess they were waiting for applause as they picked up pen and pencil. But there is no applause.”

There was plenty of applause at Mr. Levine’s last appearance at the Poetry Center in November of 2001. Today’s featured recording is the entirety of that reading, which included “On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane,” “My Father With Cigarette Twelve Years Before the Nazis Could Break His Heart” and “Two Voices.”

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings by some of the best writers of our time—many of whom, like Philip Levine, are returning this season. To purchase tickets to tonight’s readings by Mr. Levine and Ms. Dove, please click here. For more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here. And for access to other recordings from the Poetry Center archive, please click here.

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

You can also download the MP3. [15 MB]
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