New to ModPo for fall ’17—a video discussion of Tracie Morris’s “Enclosed,” one of her poems in response to Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons.” Tracie Morris herself joined us for this discussion. Here’s the link to the video inside the ModPo site: https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo/resources/vmyjg — For access to this & all ModPo...
The free, open, non-credit course on modern & contemporary U.S. poetry hosted by the Kelly Writers House—known as “ModPo”—will begin its sixth year on Saturday, September 9. ModPo is designed as a 10-week course, but it also serves (all year, always open) resource site and also as a community for...
Class Central’s assessment of reviews and responses (contributed to their own site and that of others) is that ModPo is in the top 3 among free open online courses “of all time.” LINKS: [] the Class Central top 50 ranking [] how to enroll in ModPo [] ModPo week 8...
Here is a highlight reel — brief clips — from week 9 of ModPo, our free, open, online 10-week course on modern and contemporary U.S. poetry.
Tyler Burke has now created two video excerpts from my one-hour interview/conversation with Nathaniel Mackey, an event held during his time at Kelly Writers House as a Fellow in March 2017.
Charles Bernstein is back from a trip to Israel & Palestine and we are chatting by email this afternoon (typical of us) and I realized that this overview I did of why I like his “Pitch of Poetry” so much adequately gets to what I love about his anti-anti-intellectual Euromodernist...
Soon after sending another update to all the people enrolled in ModPo, I received this note from Carlene (one of the 20,000 or so ModPo’ers who received my message): You probably already know, but a university that is alway open is the sentinel of a modern way of considering learning....
The Free Library of Philadelphia is proud to now be leading the Poet Laureate Program. I am honored to continue as a member of the Poet Laureate Selection Committee. We will be accepting submissions from young poets in all styles including written and spoken word, ages 13-18 who are interested in...
I’m a fan of pretty much whatever Jake Marmer does. Now he’s into sci fi jazz poetry. Here’s an instance of his new work:
I’m grateful to Huda Fakhreddine the gift she made of “Lighthouse for the Drowning,” poems by Jawdat Fakhreddine (her father) as translated by herself and Jayson Iwen. “Now when I meet [this poem] in a book / from time to time, / it beckons to me like a prisoner, /...
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.