Diane DiPrima: San Francisco Poet Laureate

On the occasion of her becoming San Francisco’s 5th Poet Laureate, we thought we’d celebrate the work of Diane di Prima with a podcast of her reading from her book, Revolutionary Letters in October 2007. Di Prima succeeds Jack Hirschman, who served in the position from 2006 to 2009. Allen Ginsberg described her as “a revolutionary activist of the 1960s Beat literary renaissance.” City Lights was fortunate to have published her Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems in 1990.

 

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Valentine’s Day Noir: Domenic Stansberry & Don Herron

 

City Lights celebrated the release of San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics (published by Akashic Books) with a Valentine’s Day reading inside Tenderloin’s wonderfully seedy Ha Ra Club bar.

Some like to spend this romantic holiday amidst candles and soft music. Not us. It was an evening of passionate heckling and literary transgression as Peter Maravelis, the editor of San Francisco Noir, hosted a release party for a second volume of hardboiled fiction celebrating the underbelly of our city-by-the-bay.

Authors from San Francisco Noir, Volumes One and Two read selections from their works and the works of noir masters of the past. The evening included readings by Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria; David Corbett, author Blood of Paradise and Done for a Dime; Don Herron, original Suicide Club member & creator of The Dashiell Hammett Tour; John Shirley, cyber-punk trailblazer, author of Black Glass; Sin Sorrocco, original Black Lizard author, author of Low Bite and Edge City; and Domenic Stansberry,
author of The Last Days of Il Duce and The Ancient Rain

We couldn’t include them all (owing to limited space and an uncooperative and very loud refrigeration system), but we present for you here two readers from that evening:

Don Herron, original Suicide Club member & creator of The Dashiell Hammett Tour, & Domenic Stansberry, author of The Last Days of Il Duce and The Ancient Rain.

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A Celebration of Hölderlin

 

Join “Live From City Lights” in celebration of the work of Friedrich Hölderlin. Hear translator Nick Hoff introduce his new collection of Hölderlin’s early poetry, Odes and Elegies , with readings by special guests Andrew Joron and Susanne Hoelscher.

Friedrich Hölderlin emerged in the early 20th century as one of the key figures of modern European literature. This comprehensive selection of over 80 of his odes, hexameters, and elegies is taken from the important early period of his mature work—a time in which we encounter the poet open to nature and love with a rare vulnerability. The translations in a new book of translations, Odes and Elegies includes poems never before available in English, rendering forcefully and directly the deep longing and heartbreak of Hölderlin’s poetic world; their open, pathos-filled rhythm and disarming clarity present Hölderlin’s powerful work as distinctive English poems.

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), whose work has influenced such figures as Rilke, Celan, Heidegger, Adorno, and Benjamin, is considered by many to be one of the most important German lyric poets.

Nick Hoff is a writer and translator who lives in San Francisco. His translations have been published in numerous journals.

Recording for this podcast was provided by Ian Hiebert of Dublit.com

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights

 

For our first episode, we thought it might be fitting to hear from our founder. Lawrence Ferlinghetti read a series of his thoughts from Poetry As Insurgent Art on October 24, 2007. Enjoy!

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