Bob Rosenthal

There’s a good argument to be made that nobody knows more about Allen (Allen Ginsberg, the person, certainly, and Allen in his later years) than Bob Rosenthal, Allen’s secretary for more than twenty years, (he began working for him in the Fall of 1977), and, since his death, emeritus executor, chief honcho, primary director, of the Allen Ginsberg Trust.

This deep engagement, deep understanding and familiarity and intimacy is what made his 2018 memoir Straight Around Allen such a unique and remarkable document.

Today, August 16, we celebrate Bob’s 75th birthday!

Straight Around Allen  really is a vital text.  Bob is, as his recent collection has shown, not just a distinctive poet in his own right, but a consummate memoirist (early drafts of some of his Allen memories can be perused here  – and indeed here)

Catch Bob reading from that book – here 

Bob’s insights and recollections have happily been featured on The Allen Ginsberg Project on a number of occasions:
on “The Magic of Allen Ginsberg” – here, here and here
on Allen’s need for a secretary – here
on Allen and photography – here and here
on Allen Ginsberg and Cherry Valley – here 
on Carl Solomon
on Stevan M Weine’s groundbreaking 2023 volume, Best Minds  
on Gelek Rinpoche and the disposal of Allen’s ashes
and, most recently, a valuable reminder, March 27 of this year – Allen’s Yahrzeit

Bob’s non-Ginsberg memoirs (personal prose), similarly intimate, similarly informative,
Fifth Avenue Overhead – Stories of Poetic Survival, recently appeared, belatedly, just last year. An engaging documentary history of a life lived to the full, starting out first in Chicago, then moving to life among the poets and the poetry world of New York’s then-burgeoning Lower East Side, it’s a captivating read.

Alice Notley, in her assessment the book, writes :  “(An) outrageous beautiful book full of the energy of living, while the walls between “parts of a life” give way and art and life and jobs leak into each other. It is the 70s and 80s, I was there and I know. Bob’s exuberant poetry also sweet silliness abounding because we like it…Bob Rosenthal, a great flexible mind, funny and serious, writes prose and poetry within the similarities between them, go Jewish lilt, Chicago soft bludgeon condensare and duty…”

“The stories reflect the jobs held and the adventures doing them”, Bob writes.
“I am the Studs Terkel of poetry”, he wittily declares.

Fifth Avenue Overhead follows on from the much-loved (indeed devoted fan fave),
Cleaning Up New York (first published by United Artists in 1977, and reprinted in 2016 by New York Review of Books, with the richly-deserved moniker, “The 70’s Cult Classic” )

Richard Hell (Allen’s one-time New York neighbor) –  “I first read Cleaning Up New York when it was published in the 1970s and I’ve been recommending it to people ever since.
It’s one of those great, rare works the style of which – immaculate, with unexpected descriptor glints, and funny, low-key frankness – perfectly embodies its subject, namely the revelation of soft shine in humble corners of New York. it’s a miracle and you don’t have to be clean to appreciate it.”

Bob studied poetry under Paul Carroll, Ted Berrigan, Joel Oppenheimer, Bernadette Mayer, and Alice Notley, and has gone on to teach workshops at The Poetry Project, Snug Harbor, and the Naropa Institute.

He is the author of Morning Poems  and Rude Awakening  (both early books from Chicago’s  Yellow Press), Lies About The Flesh, Viburnum, Eleven Psalms, & most recently Here I Am
(from the CCCP Chapbooks /Subpress collective),

Bob studied poetry under Paul Carroll, Ted Berrigan, Joel Oppenheimer, Bernadette Mayer, and Alice Notley, and has gone on to teach workshops at The Poetry Project, Snug Harbor, and the Naropa Institute.

In addition, he is a noted playwright  having co-written and produced five plays with poet and dramatist extraordinaire, Bob Holman
Here‘s he and Holman performing selections from them back in March (along with spirited contributions by Bob’s talented wife, poet Rochelle Kraut (and, in addition, a reading by poet and good friend, Ed Friedman)

Wishing you all the best on your birthday Bob.   Happy Birthday, mazel tov!