Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, and Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-founder and co-director of PennSound. His books include "Stevens and the Actual World," "Modernism from Right to Left," "Secretaries of the Moon" (with Beverly Coyle) and "Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry." He is currently writing a book about poetics in 1960.
articles/essays
"The President of This Sentence: Bob Perelman's History", Jacket (2010)
An essay about the convergence in Bob Perelman's writing of two parallel and also, at...
The Stevens Wars, Poetics Studies Papers (2009)
This paper surveys the responsiveness of contemporary poets to the writings of Wallace Stevens in...
Sound at an Impasse, Poetics Studies Papers (2009)
This brief paper presents six reasons why studies of sound in the poetry and poetics...
Tests of Poetry, American Literary History (2003)
Contribution to a forum convened by Robert von Hallberg to consider literary history as a...
"Still Life without Substance: Wallace Stevens and the Language of Agency", Poetics Today (1989)
A study of Wallace Stevens' engagement with the French agent for his acquisition of paintings,...
reviews
Review of "Wallace Stevens across the Atlantic", Modernism/Modernity (2010)
Review of a book of essays about Wallace Stevens and Europe, edited by Bart Eeckhout...
Review of Alan Wald's "Trinity of Passion: The Literary Left and the Antifascist Crusade", Left History (2007)
A review of the second volume in Alan Wald's trilogy of literary histories about American...
"A Note on Aaron Levy's 'Tombe'", Slought (2001)
A statement made on the publication of Aaron Levy's book "Tombe."
book chapters
Modernist Pedagogy at the End of the Lecture: IT and the Poetics Classroom, Teaching Modernist Poetry (2010)
Describes a modernist pedagogy based on the end of the lecture as we know it...
Stevens in the 1930s, Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens, ed. John Serio (2007)
An overview of Wallace Stevens' poetic response to radical poets and ideas in the American...
Modern Poetry and Anticommunism, A Concise Companion to Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2005)
A survey of the complex association of modern poetry and American communism (and anticommunism), including...
"Description without a Sense of Place" (1991)
This is chapter 3 of a book, "Wallace Stevens and the Actual World" (Princeton University...
comments
Selecting Three Poems by W. Stevens: A Roundtable Discussion, Poetics Studies Papers (2009)
Three poems by Stevens indicate a particular aesthetic predicament, expressions of near-cessation: "Mozart, 1935," "The...
"Believing in the World Because It Is Impossible" [on George Oppen], Jacket (2008)
A reading of Oppen's "Myth of the Blaze."
"Mending the Break in Time" (on Marianne Moore), "Finding the Words" (post-9/11 symposium) (2001)
A commentary on Marianne Moore's correspondence with Wiliam Carlos Williams during wartime.
"Making Good Books Possible: Remembering Jerre Mangione", The Pennsylvania Gazette (1998)
A remembrance of Jerre Mangione, author of immigrant memoirs, novels, and a crucial account of...
interviews
talks/presentations
Planning to Stay: a manifesto, Banff Centre "Interventions" conference (2010)
An invited manifesto to conclude a 4-day conference on new writing practices.
"Mending the Break in Time" (on Marianne Moore), "Finding the Words" (post-9/11 symposium) (2001)
A commentary on Marianne Moore's correspondence with Wiliam Carlos Williams during wartime.
notes
On William Carlos Williams's "At the Ball Game", Poetry Society of America "Crossroads" (2010)
A commissioned short essay on a favorite poem.
"The Seminar", Re-publication event for Tan Lin's 'Seven Controlled Vocabularies' (2010)
Written in response to a request for short essays to be presented as part of...
prefaces
"Descriptions without Places" (2009)
Preface to a book anthologizing poems about and in honor of Wallace Stevens.