I can’t think of an urban park I admire more than Hudson River Park running south from Chelsea all the way to the bottom of Manhattan Island. The features vary; it’s not a single design. Some of the piers have been renovated, but each differently. The gardens are gorgeous, each...
For my morning run I lugged my Nikon 3200. Not something I recommend but it induced me to pay attention to views, scenes, compositions I don’t think I would have noticed otherwise. Click on any image for a larger view.
A perfect weekend in Cornwall, in the northwest corner of Connecticut. This is essentially the Berkshires — but lower rolling hills, more farmland, etc. I did a lot of running and walking and was fascinated by various objects and scenes seen from the road. Here, below, is a selection of...
The day lilies are now out, and looking good despite the 90+-degree heat. Click on an image for a larger view.
I haven’t really weeded since coming home from a few weeks away, but nonetheless my tiny urban garden here in West Philly is as green and fecund as it could be. Tonight, the plan: grill some jumbo shrimp and add to a giant salad of garden greens and herbs, beets,...
Today we went to the vertigo-inducing Cliffs of Moher. The drizzle suspended itself for us and the sun started to make some sky blue to match the remarkably azure Atlantic Ocean over here. Click on any image for a larger view.
We went early this morning to the small estuary-side town of Tarbert—home of one of my favorite Irish modernists (poet, curator-librarian & friend of Jack Yeats, Joyce, Beckett & Stevens), Thomas McGreevy. The ferry there has been running for hundreds of years. We took it, with the car, across the...
Today we explored the first half of the Ring of Kerry—driving, hiking, exploring from Kenmare to Valentia Island. Click on any image for a larger view.
Today we bade farewell to the Irish Sea-facing city of Waterford (with the quay view from our hotel room balcony) and drove all the way through Cork and out the other side of County Cork (and the town of Glengarriff, where we had lunch in a very old pub) and...
After walking around the remains of the first monastic community in Ireland (settled in the 6th century) we went on a 5 1/4 mile hike about the Upper Lake. Then we drove to Avoca (a tiny Wicklow Mountains town which was the home of the very first Irish woollen mill)...
Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center
for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, and Publisher of Jacket2—all at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are Secretaries of the Moon,
Wallace Stevens & the Actual World, Modernism from Left to Right, and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60. His new book is 1960: When Art & Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II & Remade the Modern (Columbia University Press, 2021). He is currently writing a book about online pedagogy. He has taught a massive open online course, "ModPo," to 265,000 participants in 192 countries since 2012.
Founder/Faculty Director, Kelly Writers House—intro video ][ events calendar
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
Click on the image for information about the book.