Next week in Vienna. The annual conference of the European Beat Studies Network, starting on Wednesday and concluding Saturday October 6th
The program includes – on Friday: Franca Bellarsi – “Allen Ginsberg’s Ecopoetics: Oscillating between Sentience-in-Interdependence and Physically-Determined Embodiment” – on Saturday (on the “Transnational Beat” segment) – Antonín Zita – “Dismantling Socialist Realism: The Beat Generation in Czechoslovakia”, Josef Rauvolf – “In the Wake of Allen …”, and Polina Mackay – “Beat Poetry and Greek Austerity: George Prevedourakis Reads Ginsberg”
For more detailed notes on the program – see here
But, happening all over, before that – Tomorrow is the big day – of global resistance and celebration – a global manifestation of poetry – 100 Thousand Poets For Change
This year – “Read A Poem To A Child” – A Special 100 Thousand Poets For Change Initiative – (but read a poem to an adult (read a poem to yourself, read a poem in the air, too)). Check out the 100TPC blog – “current news and on-going events” – here
Flattering to Allen, the Swedish-Iranian poet, Athena Farrokhzad, was this year’s laureate for the Days of Poetry and Wine/Allianz Kulturstiftung “Letter to Europe” project – “Each year, the festival’s curators pick a prominent poet and give her or him an opportunity to address Europe and shine a spotlight on the problems they consider most pressing”. Athena’s poem begins: “Europe, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing./ Europe, 260 Euro and 76 cents January,/ I can’t stand my own mind./ Europe, when will you end the human war?/ Go fuck yourself with your Christ complex/.I don’t feel good, don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind/Europe, when will you retire?…When will you be worthy of your millions of guest workers?” – ring any bells? –
She goes on to declare. “Europe, I read Allen Ginsberg as a child, I confess everything” – and concludes, echoing Allen’s “queer shoulder” – “Europe, my queer shoulder has been dislocated”. To read the full poem (translated by Jennifer Hayashida from the original Swedish) – see here
Parody, hommage, evocation. We are reminded of Amy Newman‘s provocative re-written “Howl” – see here
A Jack Kerouac art exhibit – We draw your attention to the show on-going at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida’s South Western State College in Fort Myers (now through December the 8th) – “The Art of Peter Greenaway and Jack Kerouac” – seventy-two paintings and drawings from the 1940’s through the 1960’s. The show, which also features four On the Road–inspired art pieces by British filmmaker Peter Greenaway, which follows that gallery’s previous exhibit, “Jack Kerouac & Ed Ruscha: On the Road”, is the largest survey of Kerouac’s visual art ever to be shown in the United States.
The Kerouac On The Road Scroll Maker Machine – check out this little gizmo, developed by Roni Bandini
“An obscure Beat figure”? – Claude Pélieu? – Marjorie Brennan writes, in the Irish Examiner, about Pélieu, “who, with his American wife, Mary Beach, completed the first French translations of works by Burroughs, Ginsberg and other Beat writers”. “He has this reputation as a bit of an obscure figure, someone who has slipped out of the pages of history a bit”, James Horton, curator of an exhibition, “Claude Pélieu: On All Frequencies”, hoping to change that perception, declares.
Read more about Pelieu in Oliver O’Hanlon’s informative piece in the Irish Times – here
The exhibition continues at the Boole Library, University College, Cork, through till the end of this month.
Noting the passing of the great Italian publisher (and Allen’s friend) Inge Feltranelli
from the Letters of Allen Ginsberg : October 7, 1967, to Peter Orlovsky – “Spent three days with Inge Feltranelli in castle in countryside in Lombardy, just got back. I’ll send another hundred soon hopefully tomorrow. Working with Nanda (Pivano). Inge asked after you and so does Nanda, and Ettore says hello. Julius ok?” Love. Allen
and sad too to note another death – the Norwegian poet, translator, jazz aficionado, and all-around man-of-letters, (who was also Allen’s Norwegian translator – he also translated, Ulysses, Raymond Chandler and On The Road) – Olav Angell 