In this video, Phillip Bannowsky re-creates the Zoom Rollout for Jacobo the Turko, June 3, 2021. The author describes his impetus for the work, the aesthetic influences on its composition, and the values that guided it thematically. In the process, Bannowsky tells something about his life as a navy brat, autoworker, international educator, and artist that provides a foundation for the work.
Premier of Jacobo the Turko:
a presentation by the author
about his novel in verses.
2nd Saturday Poets
Featured Reader
January 9, 2019
Jackson Inn, Wilmington
Excerpts Jacobo the Turko: A Novel in Verse
Performed November 15, 2017
Wilmington Public Library Commons
Videos
Performed in 1986 with the Delos String Quartet, then quartet-in-residence at the University of Delaware. Dan Rouslin, 1st violin; Jan Baty, 2nd violin; Barbara Westfall, viola; Douglas McNames, violincello. 3rd movement from Quartet in F Maj
or by Maurice Ravel.
Ivan Bannowsky and I rehearsing my translation of poet Nordahl Grieg and composer Otto Mortensen's "Til Ungdommen"
(To Youth). Here I portray Grieg for a performance at a venue called Berlin 1933, a cabaret in the Poetry with a P(o)int series organized by Bert Moniz. This song was sung by grieving Norwegians after the horrific 2011 massacre by the fascist Anders Bering Breivik of 77 Norwegians, mostly participants in a Workers Youth League summer camp. It was particularly timely given the November 2015 events in Beirut and Paris
Til Ungdommen (To Youth)
by Nordahl Grieg (my translation)
Preface to Jacobo the Turko
My preface is a mix of apologia, joke setup, rhapsody, and ophthalmological speculations about the macula, that tiny area in our visual field where we actually see things in full chromatic focus, the rest of the field being a speculative (!) reconstruction.
