Announcing today, (courtesy the devoted work of the poet, Charles Bernstein, Zach Carduner, Digital Projects Manager, and many others) – The Eric Mottram Centennial Collection, a remarkable trove of tapes (now added to the already-remarkable gathering of audio tapes that have been digitalized and made available on that extraordinary resource we’ve sung the praises of many times here – PennSound
The Eric Mottram Centennial Collection is a collection of recordings made by the British poet, editor, critic, and teacher Eric Mottram (1924-1995)
See Mottram’s own PennSound page – here
See Mottram reading at Shakespeare and Company in Paris in February, 1990 – here
Eric Mottram on the Allen Ginsberg Project – here and here
“Eric Mottram made dozens of recordings of poets’ readings and talks and interviews; he was something of the Paul Blackburn of UK poetry in this respect. Eric gave his collection to King’s College London and, with the support of Valerie Soar and Bill Griffiths, they digitized the tapes. With the permission of King’s and the support of Valerie, PennSound, under the brilliant guidance of Zach Carduner, labelled and provided metadata for each recording, building this gem of our archive.”
There are over 120 poets presented in this collection and over 90 hours of recordings
Among the poets. John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Bill Berkson, Basil Bunting, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Giorno, Herbert Huncke, Kenneth Koch, Michael McClure, Alice Notley, Frank O’Hara, Charles Olson, Tom Pickard, Tom Raworth, Carl Rakosi, Jerome Rothenberg, Philip Whalen, John Wieners…
but the list is endless. (including many key figures in the so-called British Poetry Revival)
The archive includes, of course, several notable recordings of Allen
Carl Solomon and Allen reading at the West End Bar, New York City, October 15, 1978 – (and again with Carl and others for a Naropa Benefit that same year)
“Allen Ginsberg on Censorship” – here (and here)
Allen Reading at Waterstone’s Bookshop, London, December 9, 1994 – here (continuing here)
It also contains, notably, the only known recording of New York University’s Beat Conference held in 1994, a gathering we’ll certainly be drawing from, significantly, in the months ahead
Eric Mottram on Allen Ginsberg
