i never knew what time it was

by David Antin

In this series of intricately related texts, internationally known poet, critic, and performance artist David Antin explores the experience of time—how it's felt, remembered, and recounted. These free-form talk pieces—sometimes called talk poems or simply talks—began as improvisations at museums, universities, and poetry centers where Antin was invited to come and think out loud. Serious and playful, they move rapidly from keen analysis to powerful storytelling to passages of pure comedy, as they range kaleidoscopically across Antin's experiences—in the New York City of his childhood and youth, the Eastern Europe of family and friends, and the New York and Southern California of his art and literary career. The author's analysis and abrasive comedy have been described as a mix of Lenny Bruce and Ludwig Wittgenstein, his commitment to verbal invention and narrative as a fusion of Mark Twain and Gertrude Stein. Taken together, these pieces provide a rich oral history of and critical context for the evolution of the California art scene from the 1960s onward.

Genres: Poetry, Art

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this after hearing him talk. The talk is the real thing, an idiosyncratic realization of the moment. These transcriptions are well worth reading, but not the same.

[Jeneva Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A favorite--Antin's "talking" poems blur the lines between prose and poetry, shifting literature toward speech itself.

[Michael Gossett · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Talk-poems' that read like fascinating, associate speeches/thinkings-out-loud. A cool new way to do poetry, and Antin does it as well as anyone might. The title poem is a great one, as is "The Noise of Time."

[Katie Pierson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend! Extremely thought-provoking.