Members of the Toledo Poets Museum will read excerpts from the new University of Toledo Press book titled “The Sullen Art” 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6 in Carlson Library Room 1005.

The free event will take place on author David Ossman’s 80^th birthday and is co-sponsored by the UT Press and the UT Department of English Language and Literature.

With reel-to-reel tapes recording, Ossman was on the air at WBAI in New York City, where he talked to poets and editors in 1960 and 1961. His show was called “The Sullen Art,” a reference to Dylan Thomas’ poem about the solitary nature of writing. Among those stopping by to share thoughts were Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, Amiri Baraka, Paul Blackburn, Rochelle Owens and Jackson Mac Low. Corinth Books published some of Ossman’s transcripts in 1963.

An expanded edition of “The Sullen Art: Recording the Revolution in American Poetry” recently was published by the UT Press. The 268-page work includes 28 interviews and a CD recording of Ossman’s 1961 radio documentary.

“I’m proud that this important work has been given new attention through this updated edition,” Barbara Floyd, director of the Canaday Center and UT Press, and interim director of University Libraries, said. “The interviews in this book reveal these poets at a time when their styles were still evolving, and they were only just becoming well-known and critically acclaimed.”

“At the moment ‘The Sullen Art’ was on the air, I felt was doing my listeners a service by playing out to them something they couldn’t have known unless they were grubbing around in the Beat bookstores in Greenwich Village,” Ossman said during a call from his home on Whidbey Island, Wash. “I really think [the book] is a slice of history and shows when poetry began to go in several directions. The ’60s lay spread out for the poets and the writers who were writing in 1960, and if you look at that decade, how tumultuous and political and violent it was, well, all of those things were about to happen.”

Ossman went on to help create the comedy troupe, The Firesign Theatre, which received three Grammy Award nominations. The witty writer also penned several books, including “The Ronald Reagan Murder Case” and “Dr. Firesign’s Follies.” His latest collection of poems is “Marshmallows & Despair.” Other credits include directing “The War of the Worlds 50^th Anniversary Production” and providing the voice of Cornelius in Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life.”

In 1977, thanks to encouragement from Noel Stock, UT professor emeritus of English, the University obtained the recordings of poets who appeared on Ossman’s radio show. The tapes and related materials are housed in the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections in Carlson Library.

Two years ago, Ossman and his wife, Judith Walcutt, contacted the Canaday Center about the possibility of an expanded edition of “The Sullen Art.”

“The inspiration was: Can we get this published and on CD? And the answer was yes,” Ossman said. “I love the book, and I love the way it turned out.”

“The Sullen Art” is $29.95 and available at utoledopress.com.