Jesus d.a. levy-tates on Video
d.a. levy
Here's a video of me reading d.a. levy's
Prose: on poetry in the wholesale education & culture system (1968)
in the Crisis library in Elyria, Ohio on 25 July 2008:
I'll add the text to my online library when I have time.
For more d.a. levy, check out the page clevelandmemory.org devoted to him.
And I highly recommend works by or about levy on Amazon.com:
If you subscribe to my blog by e-mail, the video won't show up in your e-mail, but there will be a link that says "Media," and you can click that to watch. Sorry for the inconvenience....
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I know the video quality is jumpy and distracting. When our company leaves tomorrow, I'll load it in my video software and make it "smooth like TV" - at least the audio's fine for now. That's what I get for rushing to post.
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Well read. I think d a levy must be a poets' poet with that writing, what with all the angst about poetry & audience & competition.
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Thank you, Lady! I agree with you - he certainly seems like a poets' poet to me.
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Yow!!! I just tuned into this and started watching when I realized the speakers were off. So I turn them on and the first thing I hear is "FUCK", so I hurry up and push pause cause there's my daughter sitting there, but then she leaves so I start it up again and I'm listening and my other daughter walks in right on time for "FUCK YOU". So I turn it off again but now they're both gone so I think I'll turn it back on. Fuck on...
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Oh good grief..now the boy's here...I'll come back later...
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LOL... thanks, Terese! I'm glad you got to come back and hear the whole thing.
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WOW!!! I've honestly never heard of or read any of d.a.levy's stuff before. But I like it enormously.. it is honest and raw.. just my style. You do a great job of reading it.. I imagine a lot of it resonates with you in a way...
Thanks for posting this... I like hearing things like this read... by somone who understands them...
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Thank you very much, Chris!
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Excellent reading. And a very good poem. Thank you for sharing John.
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Thank you kindly, Shyloh!
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ginsberg may have left, but this feels like the right comment to leave.
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Cool... I hadn't seen that before.
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Just got home, saw you had a new blog-- again!-- and turned the volume up to listen to your reading. James said you say "fuck" better than anybody he knows. As for me, I have to get some of that d.a.levy for myself, and soon! I loved the poem-- and you read it beautifully.
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lol... thank you, Dianne (and James)!
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Very depressing. I guess only poets can read other poet's works convincingly. But these thoughts are suicidal and leave me despairing for this pitiful young man who seems to be totally fucked up living in his dark and sunless world.
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I LOVED IT! I can sooo relate! But I think I tell myself that being a poet isn't good enough instead of others doing it for me. At least HE knew what he was doing was worth something. Kinda ironic that he is dead and ppl are buying and reading his work instead of living poets..... really makes ya think.... I'll have to check him out further, thanx JC.
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Thank you, Kryst! I'm happy you dig it!
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That was good, John. I had to put my earbuds in to listen in peace, and it made it sound even better. You should do more like this...
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What do the guys think of this reading?
lady, Teresa, Chris, shyloh, meribeth, Dianne, and Krystika have commented but not one single male. Why? Are your only readers the girls?
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40 years ago d.a.levy committed suicide.
His works live on and I must say the way JC read this was admirable. It reminds me of Oberlin students who took over Peters Hall and broadcast midnight sit ins while screaming obscenities against the Vietnam War. Levy was a part of the zeitgeist of those times and according to what I read about him was a generally quiet and kind person but affected with manic depression, and I presume this is what drove him to suicide. He is a tragic figure and part of Cleveland State history. I would like to know if the movie made about him in 1981 still exists in the Cleveland State archives.
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charlax is READING (LOOKING) at the you tube ??? the movie NOW this is a wonderful from the heart reading SUICIDE
is such a touchy feely subject the man had a heart and was a wonderful poet
and JESUS CRISUS reads so well
http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=815888&sitename=charlax&password=&poemoffset=0&displaypoem=t&item=poetry
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Thank you, Charles!
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Now that I've listened to the video again with an enormous improvement of quality, the bitterness and sarcasm come through loud and clear. I must say you have a real flair for reading with feeling. You would make a great actor or teacher.
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Thanks, Elena!
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The author sounds very disgusted, fed up. I think it was probably a huge burden on his sense of ethics and his own character to find himself in a position where one has to trade autonomy for success. Surely, the wealthy and powerful always have and always will harness the influence of the arts with their patronage. The Catholic Church immediately comes to mind. Would that lead to suicide? Was that his suicide note? I don't know, but it kinds of sounds like a resignation. You did a great job reading You absolutely captured the tone and the mood in my opinion. I hope you do more like this, including reading your own work. You're a Renaissance man.
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Thanks, Tara, for your kind words and your always penetrating insights.
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I like Tara's comment... about often trading autonomy for success. it is the constant choice any artist or writer must make as their work becomes better know... Also a sad fact that people think they know who you are by what you write... they think they know all of you... think of it as a full reflection of who you are.. when it is only a shadow of what you really are...and what as a writer or artist you may think or feel about things. Anyway..I find it's interesting how people have reacted so differently to the poem and how it was read.
I thought it real and bittersweet, as all lifes tragedies often are... I like that you can feel his anger, doubt, loneliness, despair i so clearly in what he wrote... but there is a beauty in what he wrote that I think is inescapable.. it reflects the fragility of the human spirit...
Thanks for introducing me to d.a levy.... I hope you put that in you online library... even just a written version.
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Oh.. just something I'd found as I just went to wikipedia to see what they had on him...
a short piece I actually like the style of.... I think it part II of a poem called the Well...
it disappears when i know i am there
images
color images
negative images
trucks cars cunts flowers birds
light jade ivory sculpture
places no-places temples thighs
cities casts flashes
roses clouds eye EYE
chaos
NOT THAT NOT THAT
anyway.. I liked it...
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Thanks, Chris! I dig it!
And I was unacquainted with that piece.
Glad I'm not any longer...
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i wanna see and hear this, but videos take more time than i have right now. perhaps later.
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I wanted to post this on You Tube - but they have a ten minute limit and this is thirteen-something. Even if I cut out my introduction, it's about eleven. And I think it loses its effect if broken up into two parts (which is how most longer videos end up on You Tube).
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You can post it on google video.. they have a much longer time limit.. They have Pink Floyd's The Wall on there and it's over 90 minutes...
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Thanks for the suggestion, Chris! That's where the Literary Cafe posts their videos, too. Why didn't I think of that? I may have to start using it over You Tube. I had the same time problem when I was posting those Clinton videos during the primary election season.
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MUCH better. while the audio was fine before, watching was distracting. now i feel like i am getting the full essence of your reading of this marvelous but sad poem.
the way you've presented yourself reading it fits the poem well.
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Thank you, Meribeth. I would have fixed the video quality sooner... but for one thing, the grandkids arrived just as I'd posted it and was realizing it was fucked up. I had rushed to get it online before their arrival. In retrospect I wish I'd waited and got it right the first time. But I like it now. And "all's well that ends well."
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Dugg this
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Thanks, Monica!
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Just listened to this again this morning.
I see the similarity between you and D.A. Levy in your thoughts and your life. It is pretty amazing that you read it with such feeling.
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Thank you, Elena! In retrospect, I kinda wish I'd left off my lengthy introduction and just gone straight to the poem.
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This Levy reading is a fine intro to the voice that goes with your now-familiar mug. It looks me forward to being in the same room with you somewhere, somewhen, asea in poetry read and heard. In the meantime, all I can do to return the favor in similar measure is to put you hip to my reading of Charles Potts's "Eight dreams from a Mexican New Year", if you haven't already copped it. Thanks again, one way or another.
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Just wandering through your magical library this morning and tumbled to this video of you reading one of the last of D. A. Levy's blossoms. Marvelous performance. Your delivery is flawless. I so admire a reader who eschews the use of "uh, um, er," and other such linguistic fillers; not to mention how you otherwise quickly establish, and then stick to, a smooth and lucid rhythm. Excellent job here, JC. Made my morning and then some. Everytime this video is played Mr. Levy's soul smiles into the heart of a star and feels helium get made. You have done yourself proud.
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Very kind of you to say, Willie.... Thank you.
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Yes the world is so full of sad and lonely people. I was back then and it still is.
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