Andrei Voznesensky and Allen Ginsberg, Adelaide, Australia, March 1972. Photo probably snapped by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, with Allen’s camera. c Allen Ginsberg Estate
Allen Ginsberg & Andrei Voznesensky, Mexico City, 1981. photographer unknown
With Peter Orlovsky’s passing last week, we didn’t get a chance to mention that Andrei Voznesensky passed away just a couple days later, June 1st. Allen considered him the one living genius in Russian poetry. Allen met Voznesensky in Moscow, in April 1965 and the two fast became friends and would do readings together throughout the world as well as collaborate on poems. Their collaborative poem, “Angelic Black Holes” is included in Allen’s Cosmopolitan Greetings. The New York Times obit gives a decent comprehensive overview of his life & poetic & political accomplishments, calling him (“one of the) Soviet Union’s boldest and most celebrated young poets of the 1950s and ’60s.” – (see also the obituary in the London Independent – here )
Thanks for posting those very interesting photos of Allen and Andrei (in Australia and Mexico City). It's always a delight to see such photographs, the ones that aren't generally included in collections of Allen's photographs or used to illustrate Beat Generation texts.