Breaking Form Selects: Larry Levis (A Summer Poetry Salon)

Please enjoy this Summer Salon Series episode of Breaking Form Selects: Larry Levis--one of our favorite straight guys!

Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. 

 Notes:

Larry Patrick Levis (September 30, 1946 – May 8, 1996) was an American poet and teacher who published five books of poetry during his lifetime. Two more volumes of previously unpublished poems appeared posthumously. A collected volume called Swirl & Vortex (Graywolf, 2026, edited by David St. John) makes all of Levis’s poetry available in one volume, including the five books published in Levis’s lifetime, a brilliant reconfiguration of Levis’s posthumous books, and unpublished late poems, with an afterword by St. John. 

Watch this 1984 reading Levis gave with Phil Levine (~67 min; Levis reads first).

Watch the book launch for Swirl & Vortex here (~2 hours).

Watch Analicia Sotelo read Levis's "My Story in a Late Style of Fire" (with a brief commentary; ~6 min).

Read "Winter Stars" here.

Poems Read include:

"The Smell of the Sea"

"Unfinished Poem" 

"The Blue Hat Band"

"My Story in a Late Style of Fire"

Read how to seduce a Libra here. 

If you've never seen Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, here's the trailer.