A welcome surprise to receive so extensive and careful a review of my book -- one that is invested in understanding the Jewishness of my writing even as it works to come to grips with the role of flamenco and of concepts such as "duende" in my poetics: www.theseaboardreview.ca/p/duende-and...
Posts by Ben Meyerson
Had a great conversation with @varnvlog.bsky.social about subjectivity and the production of social interiority in medieval and contemporary poetics, my book Seguiriyas with @blackoceanbooks.bsky.social, flamenco, various elements of MFA culture, 'difficult poetry,' and much more
Looking forward to them! And this was a lot of fun -- thanks for having me on
If you oversleep and get to the flamenco archive two hours before closing time, then you, too, might find yourself getting interviewed by BBC presenters in an empty hallway outside of a library in which you have been surreptitiously scanning pages from out-of-print books with your phone camera
Tune into BBC Radio 3 today to hear me get interviewed about the history and contemporary relevance of flamenco alongside some of the foremost living performers and scholars of the art form: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
The cover of my forthcoming #poetry collection. I am delighted with it. Brilliant work by the @faberbooks.bsky.social designers.
The island of Orasaigh is the inspiration for a book I have a book out with @steveeely.bsky.social
Following two exhibitions, this unique collaboration between poet & photographer has been published by @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social
More here 👇
www.ansolasoir.com/orasaigh
#Poetry
#Photography
Join us for an AWP offsite reading with @blackoceanbooks.bsky.social and Saturnalia Books on Thursday 3/27 @barhenryla in Echo Park! 📖🎤🗣️
➡️ News | Burnside Review
#awp #awp2025 #losangeles #awpoffsitereading
Here's that lyric's most recent appearance, in a banger of a soleá by María Terremoto, who is one of the most talented flamenco singers alive right now: youtu.be/isSYu9sFKdk?...
Long shot, but does anyone know if the line "Soñé que la nieve ardía" predates the Chilean composer Osmán Pérez Freire's "Ay Ay Ay" from 1913? It appears in folk musics throughout Spain (jota, flamenco, Gallego music, etc) and also in Peruvian music. Is there a longer history?
We are deeply troubled to learn that some members of the Jewish community are calling for the deportation of foreign-born university students and faculty who they deem “pro-Hamas,” and compiling lists of those they want to target for deportation.
Something rather lovely for the poets from Marian Christie...
marianchristiepoetry.net/from-fibs-to...
Michael Longley
We’re mourning the loss of the wonderful Michael Longley, who has died in Belfast aged 85. A Vice President of The Poetry Society, we were proud to publish him in our magazine The Poetry Review throughout his long career. Sharing below a 2014 poem which celebrated his long marriage to Edna Longley.
some above/ground press author activity: Jordan Davis @jordandavis.bsky.social , Saba Pakdel, rob mclennan, Derek Beaulieu @derekbeaulieu.bsky.social + Ben Meyerson,
abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2024/12/some...
If you're interested in checking out SEGUIRIYAS, here's a link to that: www.blackocean.org/catalog1/seg...
Now live: an interview in Common Measure about my book SEGUIRIYAS (Black Ocean, 2023). I talk process philosophy and the role of violence in collectivity + how metaphor and the voice of a flamenco singer can both act as vehicles for historical solidarity: commonmeasure.substack.com/p/fan-wu-int...
Mimbres School 2025 Courses:
SPRING:
Slavery and Unfreedom
When is Capitalism?
Philosophy: Friend or Foe?
SUMMER:
Domestication Syndrome
Anti-Kant
FALL:
Political Arithmetic
Prehistory of Islam
Childhood
Tuition $250. Registration open soon.
See thread for descriptions
Some of it is just about commitment to the 'bit,' too. Like, devising the sentimental mis/redirection is one thing, but it's another thing to venture that deeply into the surreal/absurd and embrace the risk, knowing all the while that you can bring it back into the realm of the unspecified personal
This is the reason why everyone was trying to write like Young in the mid to late 2000s
Happening live NOW
24hr Global Reading starting now from Palestine
Join the livestream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxJN...
Done!
The concept of the lyric (the poetic movement from interiority to exteriority) implies a poetic subject that is anterior to the poem. What are the ideological positions underpinning our willingness to accept that any poet's attention can ever be separated from the form into which it is funneled?
In approaching the medieval troubadours, the question arises as to whether it's possible for the poet to express subjectivity beyond the arrangement of formal topoi. Meanwhile, we make an easy distinction between the modern poetic subject and the 'formal enclosure' that they select for their poem
I would submit that most of us don't really think about this enough.
I have spent the past year transposing very old discursive and notational templates into poetic forms and am now realizing that beyond the abstract terms that we've all inherited from hylomorphism (form as the emergence of content, etc), I still need to figure out what a form actually is
@djolder.bsky.social is hosting a workshop for us on narrative fundamentals on December 19th! All proceeds go to Motasim’s family in GZ. Sign up here: www.workshops4gaza.com/calendar/cri...
I never thought about the connection between the Akedah and Pericles' Funeral Oration, but it makes sense
Might also be worth checking out Douglas Kearney's "Optic Subwoof," which has a chapter about silence and building a poetics of sonic unrepresentability, and another about the ways in which violence resists representation. He discusses "Zong" at least once in that book