NAROPA‘s Summer schedule (the annual Summer Writing Program) begins next week. The theme this year – “Against Atrocity”. For full details of the month-long program – see here
This first week, (“Archive, Alchemy, Installation”), will be followed by week two, (“Nomadology and the War Machine), and week three, (“Abolition & Epic”).
Among the highlights – Anne Waldman will lecture on “Syndicates of Samsara”, Eileen Myles on Tom Clark (sic), Margaret Randall on “What We Are For”, special guests Arthur Sze, Carol Moldaw, and Joan La Barbara
Walt Whitman celebrations continue (worldwide!). Opening tonight in New York at the Morgan Library and Museum (through until September 15) – “Walt Whitman Bard of Democracy” (This exhibition, the organizers declare, will explore “Whitman’s process of self-invention, from his early years as a journalist, through the early 1850s when (he) began to write more privately and poetically, to his final years”) – and, ongoing, (until August 30), at the New York Public Library – “Walt Whitman – America’s Poet” – (“Drawing from collections across the Library, “Walt Whitman – America’s Poet” examines many of the individuals, beliefs, and experiences that shaped Whitman’s work while also noting his literary legacy and continuing cultural impact”).
A third New York exhibition – “Poet of the Body – New York’s Walt Whitman” takes place at the Grolier Club (concluding July 27) – (“Highlights include every American edition of Leaves of Grass published during Whitman’s life, the longest Whitman manuscript in private hands, photographs and artifacts from the collections of the descendants of Whitman’s printer Tom Rome and patron John Johnston, Whitman’s pen, cane, and locks of his hair encased in exquisite Victorian rings (!)”)
More Whitman notes – Jennifer Schuessler in the New York Times – “On Walt Whitman’s Big Birthday – 10 Glorious Relics“, Jeremy Lybarger, (don’t miss!), in the Boston Review – “Walt Whitman’s Boys“, Benjamin Ivry – “The Secret Jewish History of Walt Whitman” in the Jewish Daily Forward.
Karen Karbiener, Whitman scholar, writing for CNN – “Walt Whitman’s America Was A Mess So Is Ours“, Zachary Turpin, “On His Recently Discovered Works” (it was Turpin, who, not once but twice, made the discoveries) – and, last but certainly not least, on the thorny question of Whitman’s racism – Lavelle Porter – “Should Walt Whitman Be #Cancelled?”
Centennial celebrations for Lawrence Ferlinghetti a couple of months back. Emily Sernaker writes an illuminating piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books this past week – “The Gift of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 100th Birthday”
Another “birthday boy” – Allen’s 93rd was celebrated last week. Here’s a couple of images from the celebration at the Howl Happening Gallery
A new collection of Allen’s Interviews, Conversations with Allen Ginsberg , edited by David Stephen Calonne, is forthcoming from the University of Mississippi Press. More on that important title soon.
Speaking of Beat Generation books, David S Wills over at Beatdom (and author of his own recent title, World Citizen – Allen Ginsberg As Traveler), has an interesting listing of Beat books (most of which we’ve covered here, but several that we haven’t). Among themSeeing the Beat Generation – Entering the Literature through Film by Raj Chandarlapaty, Véronique Lane‘s – The French Genealogy of the Beat Generation (singular scholarship, don’t know how we missed that one), and Joan Hawkins and Alex Wermer-Colan’s – William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century, (billed as “the definitive book on Burroughs’ overarching cut-up project” – Keep your calenders clear, incidentally, for September 2020, London/Paris, CUTUPS@60, an international Cut-Up Conference marking the 60th anniversary of Burroughsian-cut-up)
Allen in India – always an enlightening subject – see Aarushi Agrawai – here and Manan Capoor – here
“Summer, 1975 rumor came around that the inspired Dylan was back, a-gathering all his forces” – Next Wednesday, and with great anticipation, Martin Scorsese’s Bob Dylan movie comes out . Here’s the trailer: