It’s a perfect Sunday morning here in West Philadelphia. I tried to get some work done on my laptop while sitting on our balcony overlooking the alley that runs between Osage and Larchwood Avenues from 46th to 47th Streets, but the birds kept calling me.
This morning I went walking in my West Philadelphia neighborhood, masked and carrying my Nikon with new Vivitar telephoto lens. I found some birds in the sun: goldfinches in a neighbor’s sunflower and some house sparrows way up in a Sycamore.
Monmartre, on a perfectly sunny warm day. (Included a visit to the Salvador Dali Museum where my favorite piece was the chess set Dali made for Duchamp.)
Paris today (June 1), part 2 of 2: an astonishing show at the Musée du quai Branly about Félix Fénéon who was an anarchist and art critic (first identified the neo-Impressionists as such and supported them intellectually, critically & as himself a collector) and also strongly advocated for the inclusion...
Color and gritty brightness, Manhattan in February. Words on the sidewalk at Greenwich Avenue and 7th. Self-portrait in a convex subway mirror. A favorite scruffy mailbox. Subway mosaic. And the western sun hitting me hard as a I turn down 11th Street.
We walk around Manhattan every December 25th—this year in preparation for our dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Here are some photos from our walkaround. We were surprised at how much was going on, mostly for tourists, in Little Italy. It was hopping, especially at the Cannoli King.
Looking east a little after sunrise on Christmas morning, from our Greenwich Village apartment. The first photo is the same view as the second—but seen through the fisheye lens.
My tiny urban garden—here along an alley between 46th/47th, Osage, and Larchwood—is producing lots of beautiful herbs and veggies. It’s south-facing and so gets tons of sun (and the worst heat) but it drains well and we’ve had a good deal of rain. Here are some mid-August wonders.
Another early July weekend in Cornwall with Liz and Ken. And the luck of the weather. It broke, and we are taking in the slant of Sunday morning sun on the old deck. The heavy contrast of sun and shade made my reach for my Nikon.
I took a walk at dusk around the neighborhood and took in some verdant scenes. Here is a selection of photos:
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.