Allen Ginsberg Reading at St Marks Poetry Project 1977

August 5, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg and Robert Lowell, St Mark’s Church, February 23, 1977. Photo: Martin Wechselblatt]

We featured one, from the extraordinary trove of recordings of Allen readings, last week, from PennSound (from the Robert Creeley collection – 1971 at Intersection, San Francisco). Here‘s another, six years later- from the St Mark’s Poetry Project in New York. The occasion was a now-legendary coupling of Allen Ginsberg and Robert Lowell (it was on this occasion that Lowell was memorably heckled by Gregory Corso). Allen reads a variety of works, referencing his recent visit to Australia, his Vajrayana Buddhist … Read More

Allen Ginsberg Reading in Baltimore – 1978 – 3 (Contest of Bards)

December 17, 2016Simon Pettet

vain3

[Väinämöinen in the Kalevala, the model for the Old Bard in Allen Ginsberg’s “Contest of Bards”]

continuing from last weekend

Allen presents, as the last part of his reading at the Maryland Institute College of Art, February 16. 1978, a complete reading of his recently-completed epic poem,  “Contest of Bards”

AG: (The poem was written in) 1977..so, just about a year and.. a year and a month ago, here in town. (in Baltimore) – -[Editorial note – Ginsberg also elsewhere noted that sections were written in Washington DC] It’s divided into three parts. and I had been reading all … Read More

Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman Reading (Naropa, April 1977)

November 23, 2013admin

Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman

We’ve already featured them reading together before – from 1974 here, and from 1976, here, but here, from 1977 is vintage audio of Allen and Anne Waldman reading. Allen begins, thanking his sponsors and setting out his plans. AG: We owe thanks to Naropa and Peter Lieberson and Meg for arranging this luxurious space for us to orate in, because, actually, it turned out to be a nice situation. I’m going to begin where I left off last summer (1976) in poetry reading with a series of poems on my father’s death – called  “Don’t Grow Old”  … Read More

Ginsberg Sings “The Rune” Conegliano 1995 (ASV #23)

November 26, 2011admin

The shakey hand-held camera, the amateur nature of the document, almost doesn’t diminish this – Allen’s beautiful (haunting) presentation of “The Rune”, from “Contest of Bards”, (accompanied by guitar, no, mandolin – and a Celtic harp, no less! – that’s Vincenzo Zitello, incidentally, on the harp). The occasion, Conegliano, in 1995, the Teatro Accademia – “America America” – an evening in hommage to the great Italian translator (and Beat scholar), Fernanda Pivano. Others on the bill that night were Francesco Guccini, Claudio Lolli, the late great Fabrizio De Andre, Andrea Zanzotto (who passed
… Read More