The Politics of the Beat Generation – Robert Dean Lurie‘s “Irregular Beats – The Surprising Politics of Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg” on Merion West this week brings up some intriguing thoughts about that old topic
Kerouac on the William Buckley show, Burroughs and his alleged nihilism – (guns – some debatable libertarianism) – and Allen!
We were reminded of Lee Siegel‘s bizarre article, back in 2010, in the New York Times Book Review curiously proposing Allen as “apolitical” – uh?
See responses (necessary responses) from Eliot Katz and from Ishmael Reed– here
– and, more permanently, for Eliot Katz’s more substantive, and frankly definitive, study of Allen and Allen’s politics – see here
and see also – here
Allen and his late-life qualification of Sixties activism – Lurie quotes Allen from a 1994 interview with Barry Alfonso (in The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats) – “Let us say that the spiritual and natural (themes) that were being proposed during the Beat Generation were somewhat bypassed during the political aggression of the Sixties from the New Left, who went off in an ideological direction”
and see his observations (more detailed observations) from his interview with Audun Engh in Oslo (recorded the previous year)
We noted last week German publisher, Rolf Friel (Mokolo Print) and his notable commitment to William Burroughs writings (Mokolo is the publisher of James Grauerholz‘s The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs: What Really Happened?, Alan Ansen‘s “A Burroughs Triptych, several titles by pre-eminent Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, including Minutes To Go Redux, The Poetics of Minutes to Go, The Exterminator Redux, Making Naked Lunch – Two Appetisers and Two Assassins – William Burroughs/Hassan Sabbah – and, it should be pointed out, so much more – (222 titles at last count!), among them this – Mark Terrill‘s Here To Learn -Remembering Paul Bowles
“Here to Learn is an intriguing hybrid of memoir, story and tribute. In recounting his friendship with Paul Bowles, Terrill captures something of the essence of the enigmatic and elusive writer/composer; through anecdote and insight, and with graceful simplicity, he brings to life the man veiled in Moroccan mystery—no small feat, as anyone familiar with Bowles and his work must know.”
Another literary loss – poet, anthologist, novelist, translator, film-director – Paul Auster –
see here and here
Allen and he shared a deep love of New York poet Charles Reznikoff
read Auster on Reznikoff here and. Ginsberg on Reznikoff – here
In New York tonight (6pm EST) – the launch of the latest Lost and Found chapbook series (series 9) – We’ve written before about this remarkable series.
See more (full details) about tonight’s Lost and Found celebrations here