Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 358

March 23, 2018Simon Pettet

[“Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his office with pooch, Whitman photo, files, coatracks, bookbags, posters, at City Lights up on balcony, B’way and Columbus Avenues, San Francisco, October 1984.”]

Tomorrow is Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s 99th birthday. There’ll be more about that tomorrow. Meanwhile, for today…

Lawrence Ferlinghetti interviewed by John McMurtrie in the San Francisco Chronicle – don’t miss it!

[Bai Juyi (772 AD – 846 AD)]

Don’t miss too David S Wills of Beatdom and his fascinating research into Allen’s “great China poem” – “Reading Bai Juyi” – “The Mystery of Allen Ginsberg’s “Reading Bai Juyi”

“It is the final … Read More

Elazar Larry Freifeld Tel Aviv 1988 Interview

March 3, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in Jerusalem, 1988, praying by the Western Wall.  Photograph by Steven Taylor]

Allen Ginsberg in Israel.

This interview with Elazar Larry Freifeld was conducted at Tel Aviv University in 1988, and published in Moznaim (in Hebrew). It appeared a year later (In English) in The Tel Aviv Review, and most recently in the Jerusalism Review.

LF: Welcome to Israel, Allen. You come at a very troublesome time [civil war in Lebanon].

AG: Ah, it’s the same all over the world. Everyone has their own tsurus [“trouble”, in Yiddish]. In Nicaragua, the CIA is fomenting trouble, in Columbia … 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

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 344

December 1, 2017Simon Pettet

We promised we’d have word for you, and now it’s finally out! A definitive Chinese edition of the Collected Poems 1947-1997, from Chinese publishing house Shanghai 99  has just hit stores in China – a stunning three-volume set, with translations by Hui Ming.   More details on the publisher’s Chinese language web-site- here.  (and more details from us in the weeks ahead)

More news (Beat Generation news) :

[Two (undated) images by Jack Kerouac – “Untitled” and “Raven” – from the upcoming MA*GA Museum, “Beat Painting” show – courtesy ANSA]

Jack Kerouac’s Beat Painting show opens on Sunday at The … Read More

Allen and Louis and the Vietnam War – November 1965 Letter

November 29, 2017Simon Pettet

A passionate letter today from 1965  (at the height of the Vietnam War), Allen, in San Francisco, on this day (November 29), writing to his father. The naivety, indeed myopia, on his father’s side exasperated Allen (the simplicity of the goad that he was a “Communist”  that the “Commies infiltrated and used guerilla tactics to ravage and despoil and murder countless peaceful S(outh) Vietnamese”, that somehow an evil manipulating Communist China was the true force behind things and that America, far from being an aggressor, was somehow welcomed there as “protector”.   “I’m not playing that game”, Allen declares .… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 336

October 6, 2017Simon Pettet

[The Boott Mills seen from Centralville  /  Lowell, Massachusetts, 1989 -Photograph  © John Suiter – see “Kerouac’s Lowell – A Life On The Concord and Merrimack Rivers“]

Just a reminder that it’s Kerouac celebrations in his home-town of Lowell this weekend. Festivities have already begun, but plenty’s still happening –  you can see the full-schedule (all the events taking place over this weekend, and into next week) – here.

[Jack Kerouac]

And also from last week’s Round-Up – (following on, and as part of, the “Big Beat Night“) – the Lawrence Ferlinghetti exhibit in Brescia… Read More

Ginsberg and China – 2 (Zhang Ziqing Questionnaire)

September 10, 2017Simon Pettet

Continuing from yesterday

Chinese scholar and poet Zhang Ziqing was in correspondence with Allen in 1990 regarding his knowledge and experience of Chinese poetry.  He sent on a questionnaire. Allen wrote back that he would be happy to answer it but needed to know “whether the questions refer to classical, XXth century, or Contemporary, Chinese literature & Poetry” “And also, is Tibetan poetry & Buddhist.. literature to be counted in as Chinese?”

There followed a letter to the Professor in which Allen details a number of influences  and significant texts (both Chinese and  Tibetan) . Allen’s handwriting (always unique, and … Read More

Ginsberg and China

September 9, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, Yangtze River Gorge, China, 1984]

 [Allen Ginsberg: Selected Poems –1947-1997, (Chinese translation by Wen Chu-An)  (2000)]

Allen Ginsberg in China is our focus this weekend.

Allen and China – great news! -.a new (first-time!) edition of his Collected Poems is due out very soon in that country  (hopefully in November)  – translated and edited by the young Ming Hui and published by  Shanghai ’99.…..

There’s, a little Chinese background.

From our friend Jim Cohn‘s estimable web-site, The Museum of American Poetics: “In 1982, Allen Ginsberg was a member of a U.S. Writers’ Delegation that hosted … Read More

“Just Old Chinese Philosophy”

August 28, 2017Simon Pettet

Chinese fishermen with cormorants – Photograph by Bobby Joshi

Student: I’ve got a couple of Chinese poems translated by (Kenneth) Rexroth that each have three sentences if you want an example (of tri-partite structure)

AG: Rexroth has a fuzzy brain. Do they fit?   I don’t want a example if it doesn’t fit!.

Student: Well…

AG; Let’s try one

Student: It’s got three sentences – “In The Evening I Walk By The River” – “The frozen river is drifted deep with snow”

AG: Okay

Student: “For days, only a few spots near the bank have stayed open/In the evening when … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 312

April 21, 2017Simon Pettet

Great news! – Omnivore Recordings, and Pat Thomas, (who gave us last year the extraordinary The Last Word on First Blues), are issuing, as a two-CD package, Allen Ginsberg’s The Complete Songs Of Innocence And Experience,  is both a reissue of Allen’s original Blake release from 1969 on MGM, with the unreleased 1971 recording sessions that were to be Blake Volume 2.  The release will include, along with the two CDs, a booklet featuring several unseen photos, alongside revealing new interviews, conducted by Thomas himself, with the original session musicians. Release-date is June 23.  

 … Read More