GBH Openvault
Poetry from M.I.T.; Robert Penn Warren
Part of From the Vault. Part of Nine Poets Walk Into An Institute of Technology.
01/01/1963
In this recording, one of several poetry readings and talks from M.I.T. that aired on WGBH in 1963, Robert Penn Warren offers some biographical retrospections before reading several recent poems. Acknowledging that he "considered the invitation to come to M.I.T. with some trepidation," Warren references C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures, but indicates that he himself been interested in chemistry as a youth, and had initially intended to major in chemistry as an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University. Explaining that poets "cultivate ignorance" and that poems are written "to find out what you think or feel" and "to be alone with that unshaped inside fuzziness," Warren contrasts the way of poetry and the way of science, reading a series of poems that obliquely address this distinction, including "Eidolon"; "Original Sin: A Short Story"; a pair of poems from the sequence "To a Little Girl, One Year Old, in a Ruined Fortress," titled Sirocco" and "The Child Next Door"; "Country Burying, 1919"; "Dragon Country: To Jacob Boheme"; a poem from the "Garland for You" sequence, titled "Man in the Street"; "Harvard '61: Battle Fatigue"; and three poems from the sequence in process tentatively titled "Delight," titled "Into Broad Daylight," "Something is Going To Happen," and "Not to be Trusted." The most provocative moment of the reading comes in Warren's performance of a poem titled "So You Agree With What I Say? Well, What Did I Say?" In prefacing this piece, Warren says: "here's a little poem that has an IBM machine in it; in fact it ends with one. You can take that as a tribute if you like." Summary and select metadata for this record was submitted by Jim Cocola.
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- Series
- Poetry from M.I.T.
- Program
- Robert Penn Warren
- Series Description
Radio series. Series release date: 1963
- Program Description
Radio
- Duration
00:52:59
- Asset Type
Broadcast program
- Media Type
Audio
- Subjects
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Poetry
- Poetry readings (Sound recordings)
- United States Poet Laureate
- Art and Science
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989
- Artistic Influences
- Locations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Genres
- Performance for a Live Audience
- Event Coverage
- Topics
- Literature
- Contributors
- Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989 (Speaker)
- Publication Information
- Copyright © 1963 by Robert Penn Warren
- Citation
- Chicago: “Poetry from M.I.T.; Robert Penn Warren,” 01/01/1963, GBH Archives, accessed November 21, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_7C9118CD12D042D6AE795D1BAEBB538B.
- MLA: “Poetry from M.I.T.; Robert Penn Warren.” 01/01/1963. GBH Archives. Web. November 21, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_7C9118CD12D042D6AE795D1BAEBB538B>.
- APA: Poetry from M.I.T.; Robert Penn Warren. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_7C9118CD12D042D6AE795D1BAEBB538B