Charley Plymell’s 90th Birthday

Charles Plymell‘s 90th Birthday today.  We wrote about him here extensively last year, and, most especially, about the much anticipated and long overdue  Over The Stage of Kansas,
a New and Selected Poems from Bottle of Smoke Press. The book had a belated book-launch at the Park Theater, Hudson, up-state New York, Springtime, last year, that was captured by filmmaker Joel Nathaniel Berke, who explains – “This footage is the first step in a highly anticipated feature documentary that covers Charley’s incredible work and life as a literary icon.”

Another great documentarian, Laki Vazakas, has for a long time now set his camera on Charley.  As a guest poster for today, he writes:

“I met Charley and his wife Pamela Beach Plymell at the Cherry Valley Arts Festival in the summer of 1998, and we’ve been friends ever since. Below are some of the videos I’ve made with and of him over the past 27 years”:

He adds: “I shot some footage of Grant (Hart), Charley and I driving over to Norwich, NY to meet up with Claude Pelieu and Mary Beach. Grant intended to select a collage by either Claude or Mary for the cover of his album Good News for Modern Man. I shot some additional material and the result is this music video:

Although intimately connected with some of the most prominent Beats, Ginsberg, William Burroughs,  Herbert Huncke,  Neal Cassady, Ray Bremser, Charley has forged his own path as a poet, essayist, teacher, publisher, artist.

Over The Stage of Kansas gathers together poems from 1966 to 2023

 

but it’s important to acknowledge his continuing engagement, continuing prolificity, over the past decade.

90 years old! and as timely and essential as ever. Happy Birthday, Charley!