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.
Today Nathaniel Mackey concluded his visit to the Kelly Writers House as a Writers House Fellow — with a one-hour interview/conversation moderated by me. Here are some photos I took here and there throughout the day.
Nate read a poem from Blue Fasa while Hannah Judd joined him for an improvised duet—poet’s Andoumboulous voice and cello.
Nathaniel Mackey is here as a Kelly Writers House Fellow for several days. Yesterday he joined me and the students in the Kelly Writers House Fellows seminar for an intense three-hour conversation about his work and much else. In the evening he gave a spectacular reading from his work —...
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, Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60; 1960: When Art & Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II & Remade the Modern (2021); and The Difference Is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems. His new book is The Classroom & the Crowd: Poetry & the Promise of Digital Community (2025). He has taught a massive open online course, "ModPo," to 315,000 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.