Jonah Raskin, Marc Zegans, Larry Beckett read some of their poetry, and Jonah introduces his latest book
Jonah Raskin introduces his most recent book of cultural writings, Keeping the Beat (Regent Press, 2026), a collection of original, groundbreaking reviews and essays about the writers of the Beat Generation, plus their contemporaries and fellow travelers. Jonah’s five and a half decades’ output of short and long-form literary/cultural criticism and journalism has traced three-quarters of a century of outsider American socio-political life, with an eye on the American imperial project that frames it. Lately, he’s also produced a fair amount of poetry.
Jonah will bring some of his poems to the table to join with poets Marc Zegans and Larry Beckett, who will present some of their own recent work.
The Book of Immaculate Perception / Madrigals is a tête-bêche (flip book) by Marc Zegans and Larry Beckett in which two poem cycles, “Madrigals” by Beckett and “The Book of Immaculate Perception” by Zegans can be read from their respective fronts-to-backs in a single spine format. The project developed when Marc sent Larry the manuscript for “The Book of Immaculate Perception,” a micro-chap tracing the circle from raw awareness through life mediated by language to simple awareness regained, and Larry, responding enthusiastically, shared with Marc a thematically resonant series of madrigals inspired by his daughter that trace the life arc forward from conception. The confluence between these poem-cycles extends beyond shared narrative lines to independently formed yet common imagery and complementary methods of composition. In each body of work, you will find compactness of speech, form that liberates line, and an easy flow from poem-to-poem that animates and enriches the experience of reading these two sets of poems in each other’s company.
Larry Beckett’s poetry ranges from songs to blank sonnets and 100-page narrative works. His lyric, “Song to the Siren,” is a modern standard. In the years since, he’s written the postmodern epic, “American Cycle,” including the long narratives Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, Amelia Earhart, and he has reinvented Sonnets. “The Book of Merlin” is a recovery and translation of the 6th-century Brythonic poet, and “Romances Without Words / In Solitary” is the first translation of the prison manuscript of Paul Verlaine. “Beat Poetry” is a study of the poets and poetry of the fifties San Francisco Renaissance. These madrigals are to a child from conception on. They’re dedicated to his daughter, Susannah Beckett.
Marc Zegans’s seven collections of poems include Lyon Street (Bamboo Dart Press, 2022) and The Snow Dead (Červená Barva Press, 2020). Ghost Book (Kite String Press, 2024), a fine art photo book collaboration with photographer Tsar Fedorsky, is held in the special collections of the Boston Athenaeum, the Getty Research Institute, Yale University’s Haas Family Arts Library, Haverford College, the Peabody Essex Museum, and others. Marc reviews poetry for Liberated Words in his column, “On the Cutting Edge.” Films based on Marc’s poems appear regularly at festivals around the world. He lives by the coast in Northern California.