call up some poetry

Several years ago, when opportunities for in-person poetry were limited, Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani launched a Tele-Poem program for National Poetry Month. The poetry hotline is back for 2024 with new voices and new poems as well as an archive of poems from previous years. Call (503) 928-7008 and hear poems read by Laureates Paulann Petersen, Kim Stafford, Elizabeth Woody, and Mojgani.

“It’s just a little door into a small room of quiet,” Mojgani says.

Call for poems

Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani invites you to dial up some poetry on Oregon’s Daily Tele-Pomes Telephone Line. Call 503.928.7008 to hear poems from Oregon Poets Laureate throughout the month of April. Find out more on Oregon Live.

Dial-a-Poem

Among his many artistic achievements, the poet and artist John Giorno gave us Dial-a-Poem. Launched in 1968 at the Architectural League of New York and expanded over the subsequent years, Giorno’s project used the words and voices of John Ashbery, William Burroughs, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Bernadette Mayer, Frank O’Hara, Diane Wakowski, Anne Waldman, and many others. Giorno “released a series of 50 LP and CD albums called The Dial-A-Poem Poets in the 1970s and ’80s, encouraging people to start their own Dial-A-Poem, and use cuts from the albums along with their local poets.”

The success of his idea continues with the Telepoem Booth and Calling the World, among other projects, and a current exhibit at Almine Rech in London has just launched Dial-a-Poem in the UK for the first time.

In honor of the exhibit, CBC Radio’s “As It Happens” interviewed John Giorno Foundation director Elizabeth Dee on October 19, 2021. Listen to the broadcast or read the transcript to learn more about the visionary artist and Dial-a-Poem.

dial up some poetry

If you’re suffering from Zoom fatigue, here’s something a little different: the Poetry Society of America and Saint Flashlight present a dial-a-poem project: Calling the World. It’s pretty simple. You dial (212) 202-5606 and press one of the extensions (1 – 9) to listen to a selection of poetry.

Calling the World was created in response to the isolation brought about by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Initiated prior to the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, Calling the World showcases an international group of voices ─ African, Asian, Caribbean, European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern ─ and encourages us to look outside our national boundaries as we reconnect with the world. This touch-tone anthology drawn from the Poetry Society of America’s rich audio archives reminds us that poetry’s truths have no borders.

Visit Calling the World for more information and a list of poets.