Summer-time reports. In Paris, at the Pompidou, the Beat Generation showcontinues
(and don’t forget (in its last weeks now) the Velvet Underground New York Extravaganza exhibit at the Philharmonie, Paris, (also, as it turns out, pretty Beat-centric), up until August 21st).
This year’s European Beat Studies Conference in Manchester, a couple of months back, did we mention it/review it/get back to you on that ? – shame on us – Fortunately, the EBSN has provided some substantial documentation on its web-site – see here
including Oliver Harris‘ convivial introduction – here
C P Lee‘s key-note address (“In The Image of the Beat”) – here, here and here
and Andrew Lees illuminating Burroughs apomorphine research presentation here, here and here
One highlight (one of many) was Jim Pennington‘s mimeo workshop, (where he, along with many others in attendance), got down and dirty and were able to produce a small facsimilie edition of the original Howl, (Howl was first published, prior to its City Lights edition, as a mimeo) – possibly the first such edition, as he points out, since Gotham Book Mart‘s reprint from the masters, circa 1977
– “that little blur on the inking, the soft age to the paper..a touch of rust on the staples and some inadvertent authentic typos here and there here and there..” – Ah! Mimeo!
Anselm Hollo‘s posthumous book of poems, The Tortoise of History, just out – highly recommended. More here – and more on that title later.
Duncan McNaughton, Clark Coolidge, Nathaniel Dorsky, Joanne Kyger and more remember Bill Berkson in San Francisco – here
A further memorial event for Bill Berkson is scheduled for New York at the St Mark’s Poetry Project on September 14