The Allen Ginsberg Centennial Celebration. Yes, 2026 represents the Ginsberg Centennial. You’ll be hearing a lot about this in the coming months. Last week we were thrilled to present and unveil the Centennial logo. The design, by the super-talented Darryl Norson, is centered around an inspired water-color portrait of the poet by the late lamented Alice Notley
T-shirts with that logo are now available on our Bandcamp.
Steven Bornstein – We featured Steven on the Allen Ginsberg Project back in 2023 – here
We also featured his illuminating recollections of Neal Cassady and Ken Kesey – here
– and here
Simon Warner interviews him for Rock and The Beat Generation – here
also on Rock and The Beat Generation, Warner’s examination of the iconic 1965 photo-shoot, “The Last Gathering of the Beats” (noted here last week)
Beat aficionados, writers and scholars, Charles Plymell, Steven Taylor, Jim Cohn, David Cope Jonah Raskin, Kurt Hemmer, A.Robert Lee, Steve Turner, Ryan Mathews and K.G. Miles chime in with their thoughts about the event – here
Jerry Cimino of The Beat Museum provides further information – here
Check out also here – Simon Warner’s interview with Garrett Caples at City Lights
and, also noted here last week Kramer‘s Shimmy Disc re-release of Gregory Corso’s Die on Me. A.D.Amorosi reviews it for Jazz Times – here
and the December 2nd Allen Ginsberg-Jonas Mekas Brooklyn celebration. Video of the evening is now available here (sans Mekas but with the readings of Allen).
Conor Williams‘ spirited performance of “Capitol Air” updates the poem a little “for the year 2025” – “I don’t like RFK telling me what to eat..” “I don’t like Pete Hegseth insulting members of my sex.’..”I don’t like ICE Gestapo concentration camps..” You get the picture. Allen’s 1980 jeremiad remains hauntingly pertinent, with or without the insertions.
Speaking of agit-prop (crucially necessary agit-prop), Allen’s student and protégé (author of The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg), Eliot Katz, has just come out with a timely and provocative collaboration (with musician Adam Bernstein), Peace Talk Poems.
Learn more about it – here
&, a week this Sunday, in his loft in New York, dancer Douglas Dunn, photographer, filmmaker Jacob Burckhardt, and poet Anne Waldman will be celebrating their collaborative new book, Quantum’s Wing from The Grenfell Press
Anne Waldman’s son, Ambrose Bye, music producer (Fast Speaking Music) and interdisciplinarian in his own right, is profiled here –
My publishing arm is intending to publish an anthology of stories, memories etc of Ginsberg next year. It will be the 20th or 21st publication from Like A Blot From The Blue.
Some of those names above already have, or agreed to send in pieces. If anyone else would like to contribute I’d be happy to include them