T.V. Baby

5 days ago June 20, 2018Simon Pettet

“Television Was A Baby Crawling Toward That Death Chamber”, Allen’s scorching jeremiad of a poem that featured as the opening poem of his 1967 Cape Goliard/Grossman collection TV Baby Poems is our focus today, and a live reading of it that took place, March 15, 1968, at California State University, Sacramento.

“…Here I am – Old Betty Boop whoopsing behind the skull microphone wondering what Idiot soap opera horror show we broadcast by Mistake/hypnotizing millions of regional-eyed detectives to commit mass murder on the Invisible/which is only a bunch of women weeping hidden behind newspapers in the Andes, conspired against … Read More

Wichita Vortex Sutra (Automobile Poesy to Nebraska, 1967)

May 5, 2018Simon Pettet

“Turn Right, Next Corner/ The Biggest Little Town in Kansas/ Macpherson/Red … Read More

Christopher Smart – 4

April 25, 2018Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg on “the mad poet”,  Christopher Smart continues

AG: Smart is amazing – “Smart went crazy”  (Jack) Kerouac and I wrote a little poem called “Smart Went Crazy” in 1948, talking about Kit Smart).  Kerouac loved this. Kerouac’s long line comes somewhat out of Christopher Smart also. If you notice… Remember that  long one that ended  – da-da da da-da da da-da – dadada-da-da-da da da da….. “the magnifical and mighty” – that long one, that… Kerouac remembered that – that ..gives some… gave Kerouac some kind of inspiration for his own long line.  (and for … Read More

Christopher Smart – 2

April 19, 2018Simon Pettet

For I pray God to bless improvements in gardening until London be a city of palm-trees.
For in my nature I quested for beauty but God, God hath sent me to sea for pearls
For the nightly Visitor is at the window of the impenitent, while I sing a psalm of my own composing.
For there is a note added to the scale, which the Lord hath made fuller, stronger and more glorious.
Let Magdiel rejoice with Ascarides, which is the life of the bowels—the worm hath a part in our frame –
… Read More

Gregory Corso (K – Libre) – 2

April 1, 2018Simon Pettet

[Gregory Corso, 1957 – Photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries]

continued from yesterday.  Gregory Corso begins by reading/explaining his poem, “The Whole Mess…Almost”

“I went to my room/, sat down,/ opened my pen-knife to open a letter./ Halfway I stopped, /put letter and penknife down, went to the window and opened it up -Six floors up – enough to kill a human shot. So, who goes first? – Faith – (you) can’t trust it. You take it, Faith is not Knowledge. It’s something you believe in because you don’t understand it. Out the window with it! Took Truth, and … Read More

Gregory Corso (K – Libre) -1

March 31, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, New York City, 1985. Photo: Hank O’Neal]

This weekend we feature just one of the innumerable treasures in the Archives at Stanford University (there’ll be many more to come)

Today (in two parts, the second tomorrow) Allen Ginsberg’s tape from 1977 of a reading by Gregory Corso. (“K-Libre”? Kerouac Library? a benefit of some sort? We’re not exactly sure)

With significant detour and deviation (sic) and against a boisterous audience he (Gregory) organizes the reading along mathematical lines.

The poems he reads are “Verse”, “Alchemical Poem”, “As long as we live…”, “The Whole Mess…Almost”, “The … Read More

More Vintage Ginsberg Footage/Ferlinghetti – Assassination Raga

March 28, 2018Simon Pettet

More vintage footage of Allen here (and also, more prominently, of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and of the San Francisco Mime Troup Gorilla Band, courtesy the Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operario e Democratico (AAMOD)

1968 Vietnam War protest – The San Francisco Mime Troup Gorilla Band begin with “When The Saints Go Marching In“ and follow it with a protest-laden rendition of the U.S. National Anthem – Ferlinghetti then reads from the podium his recently-composed “Assassination Raga“ (in memory of Robert Kennedy)

(“…..United States of America/takes off/& wings away with that Body/Tune out the tv … Read More

Allen Ginsberg 1985 Naropa reading

December 31, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in 1985]

Continuing from yesterday’s Eric Mottram-Philip Whalen reading

Allen Ginsberg  (following some brief announcements of upcoming readings by Anne Waldman)

Anne Waldman introduces Allen Ginsberg:;

AW: Allen Ginsberg – Guggenheim Fellow and member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters, the author of Howl, Kaddish, Planet News, The Fall of America, Mind Breaths, Plutonian Ode, Poems 1977-1980. His Collected Poems was published in January 1985 by Harper and Row. He has recently returned from China where he has been lecturing at the invitation of the Chinese Writers Union. He’s sung with Bob Dylan and The Clash,… Read More

Gary Snyder – 1994 at Naropa

May 28, 2016admin

[A section from “Mountains and Rivers Without End” – Lu Yuan (China, Qing dynasty, late 17th Century – handscroll ink on paper – from the Freer/Sackler Smithsonian Museums of Asian Art, Washington DC]

Gary Snyder reading at Naropa 1994

We featured a few weeks back a reading by Allen and Miguel Algarin from 1994 celebrating (among other things) the dedication of the Allen Ginsberg Library and the twentieth anniversary at Naropa (“Beats and Rebel Angels”). We continue today, with the second half of that reading, featuring Gary Snyder (and – tomorrow – David Amram)

Andrew Schelling: Welcome … Read More

Allen Ginsberg and Miguel Algarin – 1994 Naropa 20th Anniversary Reading

May 14, 2016admin

[Miguel Algerin]

The following is the first part of a July 1994 Naropa reading, celebrating, as is pointed out, the twentieth anniversary of Naropa (Naropa now girding up for its forty-second summer season). The readers on this occasion are Allen Ginsberg and Miguel Algarin (Miguel Algarin reads first). Introductions are by Andrew Schelling and by Anne Waldman. A second part, the concluding part, to this reading (featuring Gary Snyder and David Amram) will be posted here on the Allen Ginsberg Project in the weeks ahead. Andrew Schelling begins by welcoming the company and noting the significance … Read More