Some years back, Ken Krug painted a series of small diptych portrait/still lives: each with a book (favorites of Ken’s—usually his own beat-up paperback copies) and an object. I loved the intended and (mostly) accidental juxtapositions, which struck me as both literary and quotidian. I’ve had one of these (Spiegelman’s Maus/salt & pepper shakers) and now I’m proud to own two more (Samuel Delany‘s Dahlgren/flip phone; and Borges/Mets cap). Thank you, Ken Krug, for being so smart and so talented and for being the most avid reader of books I know. And thank you, Chip Delany, for creating in all of us a powerful sense of the future of the retro and the retro of the future.
Follow:
- Next story Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge in conversation with Charles Bernstein
- Previous story PoemTalk #128 coming soon: on Sueyuen Juliette Lee

PROJECTS:

Convener/teacher, “ModPo.” an open online course on modern & contemporary U.S. poetry—overview of the course ][ intro video
Publisher of Jacket2 magazine—my Jacket2 commentary series ][ "First Readings"
Producer/host, PoemTalk podcast series—co-sponsored by Kelly Writers House & the Poetry Foundation
Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing—Creative Writing ][ RealArts internships ]
Co-founder & co-director of PennSound—50,000 files ][ 15 million downloads annually
Teacher & host, "Kelly Writers House Fellows"—since 1999 ][ Susan Sontag, John Ashbery, Jamaica Kincaid, Laurie Anderson, Adrienne Rich, Joan Didion, John Edgar Wideman & more
Teacher, "Representations of the Holocaust"—a course on survivor testimony ][ my holocaust site