Today Friday August 17, Ed Sanders‘ 79th birthday. Is there anyone more maverick, indefatigable? – ““Noli in spiritu combueri” – Salute! – Refuse to be burnt out!”
Ed’s been featured many times here on The Allen Ginsberg Project – see, for example, the two birthday postings here and here, our note on his voluminous archive – here, his notes on Allen here and here, a 1986 Naropa reading – here, a class on “Investigative Poetry” here and here, WNET footage of the ‘Sixties Ed – here
To bring us right up to date don’t miss Jennifer Seaman Cook’s interview from July – “Still Happening – A Conversation with Ed Sanders” in the Los Angeles Review of Books
and, highly recommended, Ed’s recent book, on the conspiracy around the assassination of Robert Kennedy – Broken Glory – The Final Years of Robert F Kennedy
Here’s more choice Ed Sanders. – his exorcism of the White House (from 2017)
and, from back in 2005, footage from the Prague Writers Festival, (what a mellifluous voice he has!), his beautiful heart-felt homage to Allen
Eliot Katz’s The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg is a must-read (in case you haven’t yet got around to reading it). Recently posted on his web-site – “Eight Techniques for Creating Memorable Poems” (an invaluable distillation of Ginsberg teaching lore) –
“Even when Ginsberg was setting aside many of the traditional notions of poetic meter in his own work, it was always clear that he was choosing to utilize some traditional formal tools.. and that he had most of the remaining notions of poetic meter and form in his poetic toolbox for those moments when he wanted to pick them up..”
Allen, the politician and Allen, the teacher
Noting the Blake ceremony from last week. Here’s William Blake’s new gravestone:
and here’s the group gathered around the grave – 191 candles – placement of a candle, courtesy our emissary, Roger Clarke
Noted in passing
– Burt Britton – old-time book man. Here‘s his obituary. Here’s Allen’s contribution to his Self-Portrait: Book People Picture Themselves (from 1974)
Boston (latterly New York) poet, critic, and teacher, Bill Corbett passed away August 10th, (75, he’d been battling a debilitating pancreatic cancer)
and kudos to the great great Aretha Franklin
Don’t forget ED’s masterpiece ” Poems For New Orleans “