Please enjoy this Summer Salon Series episode of Breaking Form Selects: Larry Levis--one of our favorite straight guys!

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Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Notes:

Larry Patrick Levis (September 30, 1946 – May 8, 1996) was an American poet and teacher who published five books of poetry during his lifetime. Two more volumes of previously unpublished poems appeared posthumously. A collected volume called Swirl & Vortex (Graywolf, 2026, edited by David St. John) makes all of Levis’s poetry available in one volume, including the five books published in Levis’s lifetime, a brilliant reconfiguration of Levis’s posthumous books, and unpublished late poems, with an afterword by St. John.

Watch this 1984 reading Levis gave with Phil Levine (~67 min; Levis reads first).

Watch the book launch for Swirl & Vortex here (~2 hours).

Watch Analicia Sotelo read Levis's "My Story in a Late Style of Fire" (with a brief commentary; ~6 min).

Read "Winter Stars" here.

Poems Read include:

"The Smell of the Sea"

"Unfinished Poem"

"The Blue Hat Band"

"My Story in a Late Style of Fire"

Read how to seduce a Libra here.

If you've never seen Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, here's the trailer.