I am Mitch Corber, veteran NYC multimedia artist—poet, filmmaker,
songwriter, producer of the weekly cable show, "Poetry Thin Air,”
still on the air since 1989.
In 2020, I was awarded the prestigious NY Kathy Acker Career
Poetry Video Award.
My published poetry books, "Quinine" (2009, Thin Air Media) and
"Weather's Feather” (2014, Fly By Night Press/Gathering of the Tribes),
were both lauded for my creative musicality. I am currently seeking
a publisher for my new poetry manuscript “Hummingbird Hearsay."
As of 1989, I founded the historic Thin Air Poetry Video Archives,
professionally videotaping 1,000 NYC poetry readings, featuring 200+
famed American poets. Up for purchase, my archives are seeking
the right home, an American university library willing to to house,
catalogue, stream and make accessible my poetry videos for posterity.
LOUD POUNDING SONICS
Portrait of Glenn Branca, Electric Guitar Mystic
Written attending Branca’s Guitar Symphony No.8
Quiver-chords, craftily plucked at the pulpit
of passion, boast a rash reliance on a rev and a rip.
Abhor the war engine, but adore loud pounding
clingwrapped earbuds in the Stratocaster meat
of the symphonic slapdash tin-can street.
Bright caskets lined with tinny bruises,
tonal signatures of demanding clef—this
metronomic continent of constant 4/4,
drowning a town in its mischief.
Redeem articulations, endure an infernal
battalion of echoes beckoning in Branca’s
Woofer-Tweeter Theater—brash cronyism
of cult dubloons in sync.
Thick in the subtle series of wicked wingspans
fanned by immortal tomtom throb,
daring drumsticks can dream the seamless
pranks of infinite blank verse.
Brace for a steady blistering, the deafening
flip-out of wrist slap — our drummer
changing snares — he must have rammed
it raw with his savvy stick attack!
I hear thrumming thirds on a higher register,
raunchy as a rabbit inhabiting the Fender furnace,
worshipping the boom-boom-boomerang
of hellbent decibels, rat-t-tat-tat.
Is this the clang of thankless serenades
surfacing at once — the worm turning
the apple to butter, cascading up and down
the supple throat of rhythm pistons?
Along the cliff’s edge of sledgehammer hands,
maestro Branca calls for crowning decrescendo,
winding down his hellcat storm of frenzied form
in the foundry of Rock and Raw Religion.
Roulette Music Hall, Brooklyn NY Nov. 2016
(Glenn Branca <> 1948–2018)
