If you’re anywhere near New York this week, don’t miss this evening!
A key figure at this week’s Ginsberg Centennial is photographer, filmmaker, editor, author, all-around Ginsberg scholar, Gordon Ball
Gordon is, of course, the author of the immensely readable, and pretty much definitive. account of Allen’s rural sojourn in up-state New York, Cherry Valley – East Hill Farm – Seasons With Allen Ginsberg
For more on Cherry Valley – see here, here and here
He was also, notably, the editor of three important books of Allen’s writings – Allen Verbatim, Journals Mid-Fifties and Journals Early Fifties and Early Sixties.
He was also instrumental in the drive behind Bob Dylan being nominated for the Nobel Prize!
& also the-man-behind-the-lens on the famous army-cadets-reading-Howl photograph.
(It was Gordon who invited him down, in 1991, to where he was teaching, the Virginia Military Institute – See remarkable documentary footage of that occasion – here)
2026 – We are thrilled to announce that he has a brand-new book (photo collection) just out from Hamilton College’s Couper Press – Ginsberg & Beat Fellows
The publishers salute “over the course of sixty years, this gathering of image and information across sites as various as New York’s Lower East Side, San Francisco’s North Beach, Allen Ginsberg’s farm near Cherry Valley, New York, Boulder, Colorado…(and beyond)”
The book features “unique photographs of America’s celebrated poet” (Allen) “in the company of “sacred companions”, including Peter Orlovsky, William S. Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, Carl Solomon, Gregory Corso, Anne Waldman, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many others.”
“Within its pages artist Robert LaVigne, who introduced Peter and Allen in 1954, serves the poet oatmeal and raisins for breakfast forty years later; Ginsberg and fellow Russian poet Andrei Voznesensky “conspire” together just ten feet from police; Shig Murao, who went to jail for selling Howl, welcomes visitors behind the register at City Lights; photographer Allen Ginsberg shoots rock star Lee Ranaldo reading from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
The historical and aesthetic value of this treasure of personality and imagination across time and space is immense.”
“Ginsberg & Beat Fellows, Photographs 1969-1997”, the exhibit, was on physical display in Leyburn Library of Washington and Lee University from May 2016 to August, 2016.
A digital presentation is available – here
His Gallery and Home Page (including a portfolio of photos) can be accessed here
An earlier statement, Unknown Collaborators, can be found – here
Gordon will be presenting a sideshow of his photos this coming Thursday at the Howl! Archive, (as part of the event “Allen Ginsberg at 100 – A Brief Walk Through Ginsberg’s Life”,alongside other photographic treasures of Allen (by Allen) by Bill Morgan (an event not to be missed!).
Copies of Allen & Beat Fellows will be available at the event.