Poet Dan Langton on Cartwheels on the Sky

Standardzeezee

29 min

Arts & Philosophy

Description

Dan Langton was a longtime Creative Writing Professor at San Francisco State  University. He arrived in SF during the burgeoning beat movement, and he  held a poetry gathering (he hates the word “salon”) in San Francisco in  the Haight-Ashbury that was legendary, and to this day, he is loved by  so many poets and renowned as an important mentor for a new generation  of poets. Daniel Langton has  won national and international prizes in England, Ireland, and the  United States, including the coveted Devins Award for Poetry in 1967. He  has a PhD from UC Berkeley and he taught in the Creative Writing and  English Departments at SF State University for 50 years. He  will be 94 in September, and by all accounts, he is, right now, turning  out some of the best work of his life. “I’m an old man in a hurry!” he  shouts as he types away at his battered old Royal. Puzzling out rhyme  schemes is what keeps him alive, well into his dotage. Or, as he calls  it, “my anec-dotage.” Here is an excerpt from an open letter he wrote to the SF State faculty the day he retired at 90: I have often felt I was living near history rather than in it. My  father was in the Irish Republican Army and had to run for his life, my  wife is a German Jew and had to run for her life, I was in the squadron  (but not the planes) that dropped Fat Man and Little Boy, our niece was  murdered on 9/11. I  have lived in four neighborhoods in my life, mostly by happenstance. I  grew up in Harlem, moved to the Village, from there to Rive Gauche,  wound up in the Haight-Ashbury. I am not the reason all four are  world-famous. As  I said, I was middle-aged before I stood in front of a class. I also  said I had had a variety of jobs, I didn’t say I was good at them, or  happy with them. But  with teaching I came alive. There is no othe

Uploader

aria.wind

Episodes

Poet Dan Langton on Cartwheels on the Sky

Standardzeezee

29:46