Sad news this week of the passing of Allen’s last great spiritual advisor, Gelek Rimpoche (1937-2017), teaching the lesson of impermanence. Gelek was there at Allen’s deathbed (see this account). Allen was deeply inspired by Gelek and did numerous benefits for his organization, Jewel Heart
Jewel Heart have opened up a page for remembrances
More word of memorial events to follow
Next Thursday and for the next five Thursdays, at the Newberry, Chicago’s independent humanities research library, our friend John Suiter will be conducting a course on “Chicago and the Beat Generation”. Course description and registration details are available here. See also further notice here
Suiter writes: “The writers of the Beat Generation didn’t just blow through Chicago on their way to New York or San Francisco. In fact, much of the movement’s radical, outspoken, spiritual edge was honed.. in Chicago.” Still plenty of time to sign up.
John Suiter is, of course, the author of the invaluable Poets on the Peaks – Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades ( 2002), (and also A Jack Kerouac Time Machine ( a photo-essay on Lowell, Massachusetts – see here). He is currently working on the biography of Gary Snyder
Anne Waldman, back from, Jaipur India (but here’s a further interview from the Indian press – (“on protest and poetry, non-competitive education and the relationship between (the) written and the performed word”)
I hope this conference focuses on the odd case of Dr. Ben Reitman (“King of the Hoboes”, Emma Goldman partner, Boxcar Bertha author). Especially his “Outcast Narratives.” These were never published but he’s written a gazillion of them. I’ve just read snippets but they are like a proto-howl, in the sense that they desperately document “best minds”, just minus the poetry, except you don’t miss the poetry so much bc the actual stories speak for themselves. Reitman was often experimenting with literary forms without literary pretensions. They are archived at UIC and this conference would be a great chance for them to be given some life. Maybe even City Lights would put out selections. Sadly Rexroth had some nasty things to say about Reitman, who he think wrongly diagnosed him with a case of syphillis or something.