On April 16 I was interviewed by Gerry Fialka for 90 minutes—about poetry, intersubjectivity, education, and medium-over-message. It’s a YouTube series called “InnerViews” and my conversation is episode 612.
Matvei Yankelevich, Ahmad Almallah, Kevin Platt & I discussed Matvei’s marvelous new book of poems, “Dead Winter.” Ahmad’s students joined us and toward the end got wonderfully involved in the conversation.
Anthony DeCurtis hosted legendary singer-songwriter Eric Andersen at the Kelly Writers House yesterday. At my request Eric sang “Thirsty Boots” to conclude the event.
On April 4, 2017, I moderated a discussion with Wesley Morris and Stephen Metcalf. In this video clip from the program, I ask Wesley about models for his own podcasting. The whole video (and also a link to the whole audio) can be found here at the Kelly Writers House...
We have made a new video for ModPo—on Lorine Niedecker’s “I married.” During this discussion we listen to two voicemail left for us by ModPo people, asking questions about this poem. Here is a link to the video.
When I teach my course on representations of the holocaust, I don’t lecture (for what it’s worth, it’s an ethical stance for me—but that’s for another comment sometime) and I rarely if ever record our sessions. As can be imagined—since, as I say, these are discussions, not lectures—the sessions are intense...
Two voices I hear via podcast series—Stephen Metcalf, who hosts the Slate “Culture Gabfest,” and Wesley Morris of the New York Times who since September ’16 has hosted “Still Processing“—came along with their whole selves, to the Writers House, the other day. I moderated a conversation with them. And HERE is...
I moderated a conversation with new Penn faculty members Sharon Hayes and Brooke O’Harra to discuss teaching, collaboration, and multidisciplinary art. Hayes — a painter, sculptor, and conceptual artist — and O’Harra — an experimental theater and performance artist — have brought together their varying media for several outside-the-box projects....
As part of the poetry reading series “Whenever We Feel Like It”, Rob Fitterman visited the Kelly Writers House to read from his work. This clip includes Fitterman reading from his book Nevermind, a “relaxing” of the lyrics of Nirvana’s seminal album “Nevermind” into slow poetry.
Today we have added to ModPo a new video in which we do a collaborative close reading of Robert Creeley’s “The Language.” Anna Strong and I moderate a discussion that includes six ModPo regulars: Mandana, Arif, Shoshana, Nadia, Ray, and Alonna. They joined us, via “GoogleHangout,” from near and far....
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.