One Hundred Thousand Poets For Change, Michael Rothenberg & Terri Carrion’s extraordinarily ambitious annual global manifestation of poetic solidarity and commitment to cultural transformation, initiated in 2011, takes place again – tomorrow!
Numerous events are planned, world-wide. For further information see here, here, and here.
Among them, as the organizers point out, at least fifteen different events in the San Francisco Bay Area alone (including this one):
& Gary Snyder, Robert Hass, and others will be performing in Berkeley (as part of this umbrella) at the 18th Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival.
The requisite Daniel Radcliffe updates. Here he gives us a quick sketch of the Beat Generation (real quick – “these are broad strokes I’m making”) and recommends W.H.Auden (two poems – “(O) Tell Me The Truth About Love” and “As I Walked Out One Evening”) and Robert Frost (Robert Frost? not Gregory Corso?)
Carolyn Cassady‘s passing last week. She had a few intemperate things to say about Allen over the years, but there’s no denying her devotion to the flame (and the flame of the most incandescent of them all – Neal Cassady!) . Here’s the initial AP wire notice Here’s her obit note (by John Leland) from The New York Times, here’s Elaine Woo in the L.A.Times and here’s (from the UK) Terence McCardle in The Independent and James Campbell in The Guardian.
Here’s Phil Hebblethwaite’s memoir in Vice
Jerry & Estelle Cimino’s 9oth birthday tribute, this past April (from the web-site of The Beat Museum), may be accessed here.
An article in Israel’s Haaretz alerted us to the little-known Allen Ginsberg-Federico Fellini connection – via his friend and collaborator, Gideon Bachmann. In January of 1956, “Fellini was supposed to travel from New York to Hollywood to attend the Academy Awards ceremony, where (his film) “La Strada” would win an Oscar for best foreign language film. But New York was hit by a heavy snowstorm and Bachmann was one of the few people able to navigate through the snow-covered metropolis, thanks to his old military jeep. So Fellini, Bachmann and Suzy (Bachmann’s partner at the time) did a tour of the city; his two American hosts showed him the Bronx, Brooklyn and Harlem and introduced him to Allen Ginsberg, Shirley Clarke, Susan Sontag, all the Beatniks who were Bachmann’s friends during that period (in those days, Bachmann, as well as being a film aficionado was a popular radio host). In the end, Fellini wound up staying in the Big Apple for ten days. Over the course of his visit, he and Bachmann became good (indeed, life-long) friends”.
Elvis Costello, on being tongue-tied in front of Allen (the date 1978, the location, the (Upper) West Side of New York) – “Allen Ginsberg was at that gig, because he wanted to meet The Clash and I could barely open my mouth to speak to him. “It’s Allen Ginsberg!” (a star-struck Declan babbled) – Yes, Elvis, it’s Allen Ginsberg!
Musings on the legendary Trocchi – Alexander Trocchi –
– Andrew Hodgson looks at the misperceptions and limitations placed on the man here.