The European Beat Studies Network’s Annual Conference next week. This year – in Brussels. Among the explicitly Ginsberg-centric presentations: the whole first (Wednesday morning) opening panel – “Cross-Fertilizations From East & West – 1 – Searching For Which Ginsberg Legacy?” (chaired by Jaap Van Der Bent) – Robert Holton on “Ginsberg’s Performative “Howl”, Trevor Carolan – “Asian Wisdom Traditions, Ecological Poetics and Allen Ginsberg”, Paul McDonald – “Cosmopolitan Comedy – Allen Ginsberg’s Humour and the Challenge to Superiority Theory”, and Franca Bellarsi – “Ginsberg as Mediator Between Anglophone and Francophone Poetry” – and, that afternoon, (on the “Cross-Fertilization between the Beats and the Visual Arts” panel, chaired by Stefan Wouters) – Lisa Stein Haven – “you got that personal tickle-touch we like-love – Ginsberg’s Chaplin Fetish 1947-1963″ [sic!], and Bruno Fontes – “Vision and Sound – Allen Ginsberg’s Songs of Innocence and Experience and Blake‘s Illuminations”. On the next day, Thursday, Anna Wyrwik – “Ginsberg in Poland and in Polish Minds”, and the following day, Turkish scholar, Cansu Soyupak – “Strange Now to Think of You”-The Translation of Kaddish and the Recreation of Allen Ginsberg”. On the final day (as part of the panel “Building Bridges to the Spiritual Text”), Geetanjali Joshi Mishra addresses the Indian connection – “From “Manhattan” to “Manikarnika” – A Study of the “Aghori” Cult and Its Influence on the Life of Allen Ginsberg”, and Luke Walker discourses on the important topic of “Ginsberg and Gnosticism”. The concluding panel is entitled “The Last Word to Creativity – Contemporary Re-inventions of Ginsberg’s American Howl” and includes “Ever Feral and Chiral – the Howl” by Arpine Konyalian Grenier (announced by the organizers as “poetic recitation”)
Keynote speakers for the Conference are Anne Waldman and Daniel Kane
A full schedule of the events is available here
More Randy Roark unearthings…
Randy Roark’s accompanying note:
“I rarely had occasion to photocopy Allen’s journal pages. The corrections were made on the typescript as part of our weekly meetings. But one week I’d come upon two longish poems and Allen wanted to work on them on the airplane, so I typed them up and gave him photocopies of the pages so he didn’t have to lug the whole book around. Speaking of “the book,” Allen wrote in black legal ledgers, to accommodate his long lines (I can’t imagine him writing in a Moleskin like I do, for instance). I’m not going to type up the poem tonight, but these are the final two pages [altogether three pages] of the poem that appeared in typescript with Allen’s penciled changes a week or so ago in this group [Our Allen – and in The Allen Ginsberg Project, also, last week] , so you have the complete poem if you can read Allen’s handwriting. What strikes me is that apparently I couldn’t read the word “windowed” in the last line on the page. Now it’s perfectly clear. I also want to draw attention to the haiku that followed the wild language of “O Harper How Long!”: “Last Night, dogs/with singular white barking brainless mouths/walking the streets challenging every windowed ear.” It sounds like it could have come from a dream.”
And more, from Randy’s seemingly endless trove, to come.
Black Mountain College celebrations – continuing today and tomorrow at the University of Maine (at Orono) – a symposium – “The symposium brings together”, the organizers write, “artists, critics, curators, educators, scholars, students and writers from across the nation and across the disciplines…for a wide-ranging conversation about the people, ideas, artworks, social contexts and conflicts that defined Black Mountain College during its relatively brief but highly influential existence”. More information about that particular gathering – here
The BMC Symposium coincides with the opening of “Leap Before You Look – Black Mountain College 1933-1957″, the major exhibition curated by Helen Molesworth with Ruth Erikson at the ICA Boston and the publication of the accompanying catalog by Yale University Press”.
One Black Mountain alumnae was of course John Wieners – City Lights have now put up a podcast (audio) of their entire John Wieners celebratory reading that took place in the store last month – see here
Further celebrations took place this week in New York City and at Harvard
Read Michael Andor Brodeur in The Boston Globe on John Wieners – here
Speaking of City Lights, part two of Garrett Caples “Remembering Richard O Moore” article (that we spotlighted a couple of weeks ago) can be found here Tomorrow on KQED there’ll be a rare showing of several of Moore’s documentary films (including the episode of USA-Poetry (from 1966) dedicated to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen)
Lawrence read this week in the bookstore – “still active and full of life at 96”
Allen profiled on Dutch radio – here
Allen’s longtime-accompanist, Steven Taylor (back from “Still Howling” in Manchester, England), deservedly spotlighted – here