Allen Ginsberg, Steven Taylor, Peter Orlovsky and Tom Pickard reading at Warwick University, November, 1979 continues from here
AG: Steven Taylor, please favor us with a song (Steven Taylor being a poet as well as being a musician)
ST: I’m going to sing a song that I wrote after first reading the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, the Russian woman poet who was banned by (Joseph) Stalin’s government in 1929 and was not published after that time. She identified with the wife of Lot in the Bible, who was turned into a pillar of stone when God told Lot to leave Sodom and not look back, they walked over the mountains and she turned around at the last minute to take one last look at her home and was turned into stone
ST: (sings, approximately one-minute in, his own composition) “Lot’s Wife”
Peter Orlovsky is the next reader. Peter begins with “Frist Poem” – “Frist Poem – F-R-I-S-T” – (“A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified..”… “..my Gabriel horns; unfold the cheerfulness,/my gay jubilation”)
Then, “Morris” – “This was when I worked in a mental hospital, as an attendent in a hospital, in 1959, in New York City, for a year and a half, and this is a poem about a young patient there.’ (“Go on Morris, piss up your room..”….”Just a minute I’ll get a new set of pajamers”)
This is followed by “Creedmore State Mental Hospital” (“By now he’s dead and buried/in a corner of my eye”…”Piss & food”)
“Jerked Off” (“I rubbed my two cums all over my cat”….”behind the ear, near the tail”) – and “Cat Haiku” (“Cat throwing up in all the rooms…”…”well! here I am in the city tickling floors”)
“Dick Tracy’s Yellow Hat” – (“Dick Tracy’s yellow hat and black suit always.. (Dick Tracy’s a comic in the Daily News in New York City, there are the comics, the front page color comics, he’s a the detective – (“Dick Tracy’s yellow hat and black suit…”….”running thru doors”)
PO (to Allen ): Did I read “Signature Changed” yet ? –
AG Not tonight, not yet
PO: “Signature Changed” – (“A guy like me has a bank/ account…”…“monney – poor – trouble”)
then, “4D Man” ( “Laff and me go to the movies and see 4D Man…”…..”all the work is done”)
then “Let The Subway Be Our Greek Meeting Place” (“Let the subway be our greek meeting place/for there is whare everybody goes…”…..”No snow or yelloo leaves in the dark iron subway”)
and “Fantasy of My Mother Who’s Always on Welfare” (“when ever Minnerbia gets on the subway/I get off…”….”her teeth brush dream is the one she loves most”)
[Peter concludes with a song] – This is called a dildo song – “You Are My Dildo” (“You are my dildo”..…”Oh my sweet strong dildo”)
At approximately twenty-one-and-a-half minutes in, Tom Pickard begins reading, beginning with two poems, “Sleep” (“This is a poem called “Sleep” – “Sleep” – ” sleep explodes/ deep inside us’….. ‘sensual animals/move in a swarm/of warm sensations”) and “Ballad” (page 66) (“Bird chase bird across the sky”……“We’ll make love as love makes us”), followed by a selection from his Jarrow March text )
TP: And as Allen had the courtesy to mention the Jarrow March in his wonderful “America” poem, I’ll read you a couple of poems, actually one poem, on page 53, from a series of poems I wrote to accompany a documentary I compiled for the radio on that occasion. [“David Riley Stands Upon A Small Platform Beneath the Banner”] David Riley was one of the organizers of the march.
and “Étampes” (alright?) there’s a Polish word in it (and that’s page 70)..there’s a ..for those of you with your hymn books…there’s a,,. a Polish word in it, which is zamek and it means both castle and lock (as in door) – (“A city in your smile…”… “It’s blood that maks us love”)
“Cream of the Scum” ( “(It’s) on page 53, Allen” – “It requires little explanation”) – ( “It’s in the net/Not quite, pet,/Hero. Puddin…”….’Lovers lovers football brothers/Rejects, defects, clowns and crackaz/Boot im one, in the nakaz.”)
This is a poem a gentleman in the audience requested me to read and I will do gladly. It’s called “(To) My Unborn Child”, on page 11 (by the time you find it, it’ll be over, (it’s) a pretty short one!) – (“our heads met/when both of us/bent to kiss/your mother’s womb..”…”then I found;you had been there/all time before me”). – [AG [following along in the book]: I’m right with you].
(Next), “Trick Fancy Resistance” – (which.. some of which comes from the television, apart from…) ( – “shakespeare’s/birthday/ many happy returns…”…”that’s why you all smile so much/ you eat so well/ Restless.”)
We have some problems with visas more often than not – “Vis A Vis Visa” (“This pattern we must learn to live with”…”..delighted dance our own and altogether other tune’)
and “City Song” – on page 47 – (“an engine’s echo/ clatters through the streets’…”the call of bonny girls/whose echoes giggle/after gifts of love/from shadows/who share their loneliness/to taste/their naked bliss”)
and two poems to finish this, The first is called “Brother Frank” and is dedicated to my friend, Frankie Aiken (sic)? who is presently serving six years in Blundeston Prison for (a) marijuana offence..
AG: Six years?
TP: Six years, it’s a long time for someone to get.. There’s a policeman in Newcastle, actually, who, who dealt in heroin recently and got four years. Yeah, It’s great, he took an ex-junkie off the streets and sold him dope and got him to push it in London! – marvelous!
Tom Pickard concludes, reading his poem, “New Body” (“New Body” – (page 25)…._ “As you saw my leopard’s coat/I was a tiger..”…”when I appear, you tremble”)
[Audio for the above can be heard here. The concluding section of this reading (Allen Ginsberg reading) will appear tomorrow]