July 12 1995 – Part One (Ginsberg, Blaser, Brown)

July 12, 2017Simon Pettet

Anniversaries. We love anniversaries.  July 12, 1995.  The above group-reading at Naropa, twenty-two years on. The above six were joined by Steven Taylor (on several pieces, as accompanist) and Andrew Schelling and Max Regan giving introductions).  The tape begins in media res with Allen reading  from his “visionary dream”  of the past January (January 14. 1995) , followed by “Newt Gingrich Declares War On “McGovernik Counterculture” , “The Ballad of the Skeletons”  (“Skeleton Keys”),  and “New Stanzas For Amazing Grace”

Allen Ginsberg: “(Poetry America was born before us & will live after us — and would’ve been visible … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 315

May 12, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg teaching at Naropa Institute – Photograph  Steve Silberman]

From Steve Silberman‘s review of the new Allen Ginsberg book, Bill Morgan‘s selection of Allen’s lectures, Best Minds of My Generation, which appeared last weekend in the San Francisco Chronicle:  

“Scholarly, wide-ranging and full of penetrating insight and fascinating literary gossip, the book is a major contribution to the core Beat canon, and provides an astonishingly intimate view of a homegrown American literary movement that would have a generative influence worldwide, inspiring generations of writers, visual artists, filmmakers, musicians and political activists across the globe..”… Read More