This page offers:

• A reading of selections from the book
• A performance of the collection’s longest poem accompanied by an original score
• A radio interview

EVEN BEFORE MY OWN NAME: THE VIRTUAL READING

(AKA “A Reading for Motherless Daughters”)

Here are a selection of poems chosen to capture the subjects and themes of the book. You may listen to the full reading or to the poems individually. I invite you to read along. The page upon which you will find the poem is listed after its title.

Listen to Full Reading

Roughly 13 minutes playing time.

Listen to Individual Poems

• Dead or Alive: My Mother’s Side, 1985 (pp. 88-94)
• The Moment She Discovered She Was Mortal (p. 28)
• Community Property (p. 45)
• The Wisdom of Stones (p.13)
• Yahrzeit (p. 23)
• beginning (p. 87)
• Vespers (p. 105)

PERFORMANCE

Listen to When the Call Comes: Notes Towards Revision

Performed with an original score by Eliza Shefler at the Berkeley Art Center, March, 2008.

Roughly 20 minutes playing time.

INTERVIEW

Listen to WYEP-FM Radio Interview

Originally recorded March, 1992, as part of Mary Myers’ PROSODY program. Many of the poems in EVEN BEFORE MY OWN NAME originated during the time Tracy was an active member of the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop in Pittsburgh, PA. This interview took place just before she left Pittsburgh.

Roughly 23 minutes playing time.