Family Weekend. Another moment for realizing how long I’ve been doing this work and how deep & sustained many of my relationships are. Here I am yesterday with Rachel, who was my student and advisee in the early 1990s, and Josh, her son, who is currently my student and my...
My brilliant former student (class of 1987) Jeff Martinek has been a professor at Iowa Wesleyan for many years—and recently won a teacher-of-the-year award. A local newspaper covered the commencement speech he gave to the graduating class. He recalled his Penn graduation in Franklin Field. From his speech: “It was...
I’m honored to have been the faculty mentor/advisor for Cosmic Writers (aka Word Camp). Click here for a Penn Today article about the project. Cosmic Writers brings free creative writing education to school-aged children. In the photo below: recent graduates Rowana Miller and Manoj Simha lead the new nonprofit supported by...
“Celebrating poetry and literature at Penn since 1985, Al Filreis, Kelly Family Professor of English, continues to create community at the home for writers he founded in a Locust Walk house a quarter-century ago.” The opening of a profile about me written by Louisa Shepard. HERE is your link to...
Recently the son of a long-time friend of writer Jerre Mangione sent me a typescript he found among his mother’s papers—an unpublished version of Jerre’s “Life Sentences” series. These were single-sentence poem-like things, satires all. Here’s one of them.
I was honored to receive the Faculty Award of Merit given by the Penn alumni in 2020. The ceremony was delayed by a year, and in October of 2021 the ceremony was presented via livestream. Here is a recording of the brief talk I gave in response to receiving the...
An article published in Tablet magazine about Charles Bernstein mentions PennSound, Jacket2, and the Kelly Writers House—and Penn: But my bond with Charles also formed around the University of Pennsylvania. I told him I had graduated from Penn in 1991, where I’d studied early American lit with Dr. Elisa New, which was...
I am honored to be part of our collaboration with Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center—founded in 2014, it’s called “Writing a Life”—through which oncology patients are encouraged to write about their lives of health and illness. Here is a short history of the program: https://media.sas.upenn.edu/writershouse/Writing-a-Life-History-April-2021%20.pdf
I published a memorial comment on Paul Kelly in the March 15, 2021, issue of the Daily Pennsylvanian. It has been issued as a guest column and can be found HERE.
We received hundreds of applications again this year’s RealArts@Penn paid summer internships and the RealArts@Penn prize. Below is a list of the students who have been appointed as RealArts@Penn interns for 2019.For more about RealArts@Penn: http://writing.upenn.edu/realartsI want to thank Mingo Reynolds and R.J. Bernocco, Director and Associate Director of RealArts@Penn; and Anthony DeCurtis,...
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.