Welcome to poetryvlog.com
A weekly video reading of poetry by the poet.
Marvin Bell has been called "an insider who thinks like an outsider," and his writing has been called "ambitious without pretension." He has collaborated with composers, musicians and dancers and often performs with bassist Glen Moore of the jazz group, Oregon. He was for many years Flannery O'Connor Professor of Letters at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and served two terms as the state of Iowa's first Poet Laureate. He is the creator of a form known as the "Dead Man" poem, for which he is both famous and infamous. The most recent of his nineteen collections of poetry and essays is Mars Being Red, much of it wartime. Marvin lives in Iowa City, Iowa, and Port Townsend, Washington, and teaches for the brief-residency MFA program based in Oregon at Pacific University.
From reviews:
"Marvin Bell enlarges our understanding of what poetry can do." --Georgia Review
"Marvin Bell has the largest heart since Walt Whitman." --Harvard Review
"Bell's poems, beyond their formal mastery, constitute an admirable project whose interrogations run deep." --Poetry
Available books:
Mars Being Red and Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000 are available from Copper Canyon Press: P. O. Box 271; Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271; 360-385-4925; fax: 360-385-4985; 877-501-1393. Four other books available from Copper Canyon: Rampant; Ardor: The Book of the Dead Man, Vol. 2; The Book of the Dead Man and Iris of Creation.
Poetry for a Midsummer's Night (In the Spirit of Shakespeare's Play A Midsummer Night's Dream), a hardback with illustrations by Mary Powell, $19.50, pub. by Seventy Fourth Street Productions in Seattle. Contact Peter Kahle at Seventy Fourth St. Productions: 350 N. 74th St.; Seattle, WA 98103; ph: 206-781-1447; fax1-888-781-1447; e-mail: puck74@ix.netcom.com; www.74thstreet.com.
Books by Marvin Bell:
Mars Being Red [2007]
Rampant [2004]
Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000 [2000]
Poetry for a Midsummer’s Night [1998]
Wednesday: Selected Poems 1966-1997 [1998, Europe]
Ardor: The Book of the Dead Man, Vol. 2 [1997]
The Book of the Dead Man [1994]
A Marvin Bell Reader: Selected Poetry and Prose [1994]
Iris of Creation [1990]
New and Selected Poems [1987]
Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things That Have Been in the Fire [1984]
Old Snow Just Melting: Essays and Interviews [1983]
Segues: A Correspondence in Poetry (with William Stafford) [1983]
These Green-Going-to-Yellow [1981]
Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See [1977]
Residue of Song [1974]
The Escape into You [1971]
A Probable Volume of Dreams [1969]
Things We Dreamt We Died For [1966]