Philip Metres

Check out "Poetry in the Everyday" projects by some of my students.  In these projects, students bring poems off the page and into the world--as broadsides, as dance, as video mashups, as songs.

Here's a link to our co-edited anthology of peace poetry, Come Together: Imagine Peace(2008), partly a companion to Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (2007).

A piece in Cleveland Magazine (May 2008) called "Gray Matters," on documentary poetry.

Listen to this Poetry Foundation podcast on documentary poetry.

Check out my article on poetry in public spaces, called "Lang/scapes: Further Investigations of War Resistance Poetry in Public Spaces."

Listen to stories recorded by my students and me at the Peace Show 2007, an annual celebration of area peacegroups and peacemaking in Cleveland.

The audio files of my poems and commentary from Fishouse,

Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941, a study of the interactions between American poets and the peace movement, was published by the University of Iowa Press. 

Check out this poem, "Old Glory," on Big Bridge, and this essay, "Poetry and the Peace Movement: Useable Pasts, Multiple Futures."

Listen to the "Poems of Peace and War" event from the Chicago Humanities Festival (November 2006).

Check out this poem called Questions for Sergey Gandlevsky--for all you experimental Russophiles (published in New American Writing)

Check out this "Ode to Pavement"--for all you indie rokkers (published in DIAGRAM).

Readings

Philip Metres has given over a hundred readings in the past ten years throughout the United States, solo and on tour with Russian poets Sergey Gandlevsky and Lev Rubinstein, including at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Place, Amherst College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, Princeton University, University of Southern California, and Wesleyan University.

Pictured (left-right): Betsy Coleman, Katie Arthurs, Brendan McLaughlin, Jess Morris, Meredith Snow, Marygrace Hemme, Philip Metres, A.J. Dibbin, Christina Pottmeyer, Daniel Garbes, Katie Sedon, Heather Cigoi, Tammy Layton, Joe McNair, and John Filkorn.  One promotional account of the event, written by Tammy Layton, went like this: "You'll laugh; you'll cry. You may wonder what the hell the poems mean--but you won't be bored. Topics not limited to: Polish sausages; family; death; sex; SoCal culture; friends; desire; war and peace; homelessness; art; Tremont; dead ends; and vaginas."  And so much more.

• Installation of "Farther and Farther On," Literature and Culture Conference Since 1900, Louisville, KY February 2007.  During the "Poetry and Performance" panel, I invited the audience to walk through my installation, set up in the quad between the Humanities Building and the Library at the University of Louisville campus.

Credits

Here, everything begins.  Everything begins here.  But let's go farther.

Mike Magee, bowing to poem.

Barrett Watten, cataloguing a comedic novelty.

Magee hunting for poetry.

Metres videodocumenting the excursion.

Patrick Durgin, in action.

Here, one shouldn't stay for too long.  (Card Eight).

Lynn Keller, Dee Morris, and Carla Harryman, farther on.

Let's go farther.. (Card Four).

(Thanks to Kaplan Harris for these photos of the installation!)

Readings with Sergey Gandlevsky (2005)

Sergey Gandlevsky Interview for Russian TV International (New York)

Gandlevsky and Pushkin in Michael Wachtel's office (Princeton)

Philip Metres and Gandlevsky reading at Hunter College (NYC)

Metres at Hunter College

Walt Whitman's boots (NYC)

It is Dangerous to Touch or Tamper With Lines

Metres and E.J. McAdams, New York City

Gandlevsky at University of Wisconsin, Madison

Gandlevsky at Wesleyan University

Metres and Gandlevsky and Wesleyan

Gandlevsky at cemetery in Amherst, with Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson kitsch

Gandlevsky and Metres with Emily Dickinson, "called back"

Gandlevsky pondering his next move at Amherst College

Gandlevsky and Metres with samovars in Amherst

In Cambridge, with Gandlevsky's people

The Bus Ride North to Hanover

Class with Mr. Gandlevsky at Dartmouth

Metres, David Young, and Gandlevsky with Tu Fu at Oberlin College

Metres and Gandlevsky at John Carroll

Gandlevsky at Nighttown 

Metres at City Lights

Metres, Gandlevsky, and Mikhail Iossel on Jack Kerouac Street

Special thanks to everyone who made this reading tour happen: John Carroll University's Center for Global Education (for funding our travel), my wife Amy Breau and daughter Adele (for putting up with my absence), Anselm Berrigan and the Poetry Project crew (Stacy, etc.), Matvei Yankelevich, the Russian club at Hunter College, Project Gorod (Sasha Stessin), Michael Wachtel (and Princeton University), Jennifer Tischler (and CREECA at UWisconsin Madison), Duffy White (and the Wesleyan Slavics Department), Cathy Ciepela (and Amherst) (Cathy, thanks for driving us to Cambridge!), Stephanie Sandler and the Davis Center at Harvard, Lev Loseff at Dartmouth, Brian Cook (for brotherhood), Jeff Parker (and Eastern Michigan University), David Young (and Oberlin), John Carroll University, Alik Zholkovsky (and the USC Slavics Department), Marjorie Perloff (thanks!), Lazar Fleishman (Stanford), Jenny Barker, and Becca Black. 

Contact Philip Metres

If you would like Phil to read at your upcoming event, or would like to invite Sergey Gandlevsky or Lev Rubinstein, contact

Philip Metres
Department of English
John Carroll University
University Heights, OH 44118
(216) 397-4528
pmetres@jcu.edu