Andrew Kenower is a voice box

Andrew Kenower, Bay Area poet and co-publisher (with Erin Morrill) of Trafficker Press, has another project up his sleeve (and this is not to mention his band)! If you haven't come across it yet, please take a look around A Voice Box, Kenower's storehouse for "Bay Area recordings of the recent past." Included there, as you'll see, is a collection of recorded poetry readings from the likes of Kathleen Fraser (at top, circa 1980), Stephen Rodefer, Ariana Reines, Will Alexander, Tyrone Williams, Erika Staiti, Dan Hoy, Lisa Robertson, Joanne Kyger, Miles Champion, Joe Wenderoth, Zachary Schomburg, Peter Culley, Kevin Killian, Alli Warren—and just about anyone you might think of who would circle around these circles. The readings are culled from various series, cities, and periods of time, as well. Kenower is hard at work requesting permissions and digitizing many of them.

Complete with biographical information, photographs, options to comment, and links to further reading, the site is clean and comprehensive. Many of the mp3s comes direct from Kenower himself—you know how often you're at a reading and suddenly wish it were going on the record? If Andrew is wallflowering in the back, it most likely is! He has a keen ear for what's currently resonant. The project doesn't seem to be about accumulation in terms of quantity; moreover, A Voice Box looks like an aim to set poetic past and present on a level (west coast) field. Have a good listen (that link will take you directly to Clark Coolidge reading in 2009 at SPT).