HuffPo looks at Poetry Center digital archives

Thomas Gladysz over at the Huffington Post digs up some books by Philip Levine, remembers Levine reading in San Francisco years ago, and then misses his voice. This leads him to San Francisco's Poetry Center and the American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University, which recently launched a digital archive of their poetry recordings on the web. Everything from Levine reading in 1958 to the very famous April 27, 1959 reading by Allen Ginsberg. More on our sir Laureate:

One of the audio recordings included in this first batch of files is that of Philip Levine. It is a six-poem, nearly 14-minute recording dating from November 24, 1958. In it, one can hear the muscular Whitman-esque line which shaped Levine's verse, and what's a bit surprising, a sly humor is also present -- the audience laughs on more than one occasion. Certainly, this 1958 reading is historically significant for the Detroit-born Levine; for it was in that year that the future Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner joined the ranks of California poets after joining the English Department at California State University in Fresno.

Gary Snyder, then also another up and coming writer, read along with Levine at that 1958 event. Synder, who read from the Riprap poems which became his first book, can also be heard on a separate audio file lasting 21 minutes. It's full of choice moments from another future Pulitzer Prize winner.

That 1958 Poetry Center reading was also personally significant for Levine. According to the Center, this campus event was only Levine's second reading, and beforehand, the more experienced Snyder coached the novice reader. (The night before, Levine gave his very first public reading, also with Snyder; that event took place the previous night at an off-campus Poetry Center event co-sponsored by the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Association in San Francisco.)

Lucky for us, Gladysz points us to Jess as well (that's his collage up top), whose assemblages and "turning of Nature" we've discussed just recently:

The most unusual recording is certainly that of Jess (Collins), the seldom seen and famously reticent San Francisco painter. He can be heard reading his own singular sing-song verse as well as his translations of Christian Morgenstern's Gallows Songs. Jess was the long-time companion of the poet Robert Duncan, who for a couple of years in the late 1950s served as assistant director of the Center.

Gladysz also writes: "This stuff is rare, historically valuable, and incredibly interesting. The plan is for new audio files to be added incrementally as recordings from the 1950s onward are prepared and uploaded to the web. And, beginning in Spring 2012, recordings will be added from the Poetry Center's extensive collection of original video tapes, collecting works from 1973 forward." Read the full article here, visit the Poetry Center, and learn more about their upcoming benefit, which will feature Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder reading together at the Poetry Center for the first time.