Allen’s classic poem “Kaddish” has been featured on several occasions on The Allen Ginsberg Project (notably here, here, here and here). Today, we’re doing so again.
Today’s version (noticeably missing Part II) – (low-, but nonetheless serviceable, fidelity) is from a recording included in the Robert Creeley collection (the collection of audio tapes bequeathed by the Estate) currently available on the University of Pennsylvania’s unparalleled PennSound site.
The tape, as UPenn’s curators inform us, “appears to have been recorded at the Creeley’s home in or around 1959”, and runs for approximately twenty-eight minutes. As well as reading (from) “Kaddish”, Allen also reads “Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square“, “Laughing Gas (part 1)“, “My Sad Self (for Frank O’Hara)” and “To Aunt Rose”
The entire reading may be heard here
Kaddish part I may be heard here
Kaddish part III may be heard here
Kaddish part IV here
and Kaddish part V here