Joanne Kyger on the Allen Ginsberg Project – see here and here and here
We’re featuring today on the Allen Ginsberg Project this reading (from April 14, 2015, for National Poetry Month, in San Francisco, at the San Francisco Public Library).
Joanne reads from what turned out to be her final book, On Time: Poems 2005–2014
(curiously, of her over 30 titles, her only title from City Lights)
We remember her today on her birthday
Joanne:
“Now, I’ll read you selections from On Time with its beautiful cover by Arthur Okamura. It opens with a quote by Soko Morinaga – “The truly still mind, with which you were born/is a mind that moves freely./ It reacts wholeheartedly to everything it encounters,/to everything on which it reflects”
“You Go to War with the Army You Have” – (“”The froth of rapid associations”/is entirely in the mind/ This “here” is not moving”…”Time late to find out/what went right/and what didn’t go right, right?” – And this is for the Asian calendar, “The Year of the Ram”, it’s called “Permission by the Horns”, a quote, it starts with a quote by Philip Whalen – (“It’s true, as Duncan used to say,/ We need permission for what we do/ Next we must grab permission by the forms & hang on/ It isn’t just a rant, a gift, a boon. Grab it and run/ Before they change their minds””) – “Untitled – I” (“The mocking bird nearby is perfectly replicating the quail’s/three note descending call… “….”Imptient with the young local’s posturing of “entitlement””) – “The Art of Living Slowly” – (How I wish I had had/my hair cut before being photographed/ at the local Figure Drawing show/ last Saturday which will live/. on the front page of the weekly Coastal News/ for as long as paper and air lasts”….”this ground is changing, always changing” – “Fact Checking” – (“In 1962 when I was leaving India with Gary Snyder/ I saw a necklace called “beggars necklace”/ made of semi-precious stones that I wanted/ Gary said, yes you can buy it/ if you learn the real names of all the stones….”….”Red, orange, green, milky white, blue, mossy green, mottled brown, glittery rust”) – “I’m Very Busy Now So I Can’t Answer All Those Questions About Beat Women Poets” – (“A startled melancholy underlies all/ – the party’s over for the dollar…”….”Not a very nice night/I’m stuffing a long woolen muffler/into this person’s mouth”) – “There Are Those Buddhists” – (“like myself/who do not scorn the idea/of mere “things” possessing/a sanctity/of their own” – John Blofeld“) – “Unlimited Growth on a Planet of Finite Size” – (“The brisk spring wind sets in motion the wheel/ of mind restless as five monkeys/ running in place…”…”and like sunlight/arriving without a sound”) – ““A Great Vampire Squid Is Wrapped Around the Face of Humanity”” – (“And no more “public” ownership of seeds/ which is as discouraging as the compost grinder/ disgorging sounds across the road like a semi truck…”…”Remember before it all quickly drains away/ You were practicing “patience” today.”) – “Mocking Yourself” – (“A night full of yellow rubber duckies/ leads one to the low tide of the imagination…”….”..balancing the give and take of what it takes/ to make a wholesome change into the American Dream/ going south without a jot of understanding/ about these phony wars and delirious debts.) – “Wishing You Clear New Space Upon Your Departure” – (“the space of course of foothills, mountains,/rivers, oceans and sky”…”Through the gates that open to let you pass” (for Leslie Scalapino“) – “Last Rays in the Gardens” – (“They lasted a long time didn’t they/ those rays”) – “Active” – (“As active/as an over-active imagination/ – that’s the wind/you’re hearing now”…”it blows right through you.”) – “Albert” (“When I came back from a trip to Europe and New York in the late 60s,/I found the Summer of Love/ and the Bay Area awash with psychedelic participants/ I went to visit Albert….”…”About 15 years later when I saw him next/I asked, Did you every/ when we were supposed to stop?”) – “Write Something About Poetics” (Cedar, Cedar Sigo, who asked me to write something about poetics) – (“I dream about a totem pole of poets/ Actually it was a poster Andrew Hoyem did/ for a reading of Bolinas writers in the early ’70s..”…”watching/ the great Blue/Heron strike a gopher in its hole/and gulp it down”) – “Wild Current Is Blooming Pink the Odyssey Found at Random” – (‘You are in search of some simple way to find your home/but the old gods reach out with their stories and resentments..”…”give a bit of sacrifice/so those dead ones/can speak again – “Everything I Know About You Guys Is Wrong” – (“Exhausting the intellect and the imagination /what is left?”….””You” are what remains”) – “Stoutly Maintain I Never Rewrite” – (“So what about those many sheets of drifting time /and intent/hoping to “pin down”/ the illusive tone/ that makes a poem?”…”did you do this to me?”) – “After Having My Teeth Cleaned” (“Day after day they’re numbered/ Even if you live in the “now”…” A large willow branch breaks in the wind/Now cut into pieces/ to burn when it dries/ during the summer’s. cold mornings” – “If Your Body Is Ill, Your Mind Needn’t Be” – (“Joanne McClure can’t remember Emily Dickinson‘s name/ and tells me what Jess Collins used to say -/ “At your age, do you ever think about the hereafter?”/ “Yes. When I go into a other room and ask myself/ ‘what am I here after?”) – “Post Extinction” – (“How could you forget me so quickly -/ But the way you are reached, touched, awakened/ by the world continues…”….”with sorrow, with melancholy/with sweet appreciation/ of an extinguished future/ when water becomes/ a state being”
I’ll close with “Wherever You Walk, There’s a Path” – (“When words let go of you,who are you anyway?/ Every time you go away a way opens up/ everywhere/you are,/ where words are your path/ your words are the path”) – Thank you!”
An A++++++ piece!!!!!!