Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 356

March 9, 2018Simon Pettet

Beyond Beat, the five-day Los Angeles Beat  convention continues. Among the highlights tonight, a group reading of “Howl” (also a performance of Gregory Corso’s “Bomb”, and a poetry reading by Neeli Cherkovski and Paul Vangelisti). Tomorrow (Saturday) will include a “Punk and Beat” panel  (with V. Vale, Jerry Casale, and S.A.Griffin), a panel on Bob Kaufman, and a showing of Billy Woodberry‘s documentary on Kaufman, And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead.  Sunday includes Steve Silberman (on the Legacy of “Howl”), a “Howl” panel (with Steve Silberman, Marc Olmsted, and … Read More

International Women’s Day 2018

March 8, 2018Simon Pettet

International Women’s Day today – The Allen Ginsberg Project stands in solidarity with International Women’s Day.

Recognizing Women and the Beats have a.. complicated relationship.

Tonight in LA – the opening of a five-day “Beyond Beat” festival at Beyond Baroque – a “Women of the Beat Generation” reading, with Eve Brandstein (reading Diane di Prima), Pegarty Long (reading her twin sister, Philomene Long), Phoebe MacAdams (reading Joanne Kyger), Skira Martinez (reading Janine Pommy Vega), Lorraine Perrotta (reading Carolyn Cassady) and Susan Heldfond Saunders (reading Aya Tarlow) 

There’ll also be … Read More

Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971)

December 4, 2017Simon Pettet

Remembering today one of the great Buddhist teachers, Suzuki Roshi,  Shunryu Suzuki, influential Soto Zen priest and founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (the first Soto Zen training monastery in the United States and one of the very first Buddhist training monasteries to be established outside of Asia)

Suzuki was also the author of the hugely popular Zen Mind, Beginners Mind  (1970). a key book from a key figure in the spreading in the West of the dharma.

Here’s Allen – from an interview, circa.1996, with David Chadwick: 

DC: Can you remember the … Read More

Diane di Prima continues

August 7, 2017Simon Pettet

[The Seven Joys of Mary (1480), Hans Memling (c.1433-1495) ]

Diane di  Prima – continuing from yesterday

DD: Okay, part five of this poem [ “Loba‘]  was going to be –  [(it) makes me nervous when people take notes] – part five was going to be kind of.. was going to be a study of the Mary legend, you know. based on… partly started of from a Hans Memling painting – The Seven Joys of The Virgin – But before Mary showed up all these other ladies showed up first and I did a whole lot of other … Read More

Diane di Prima

August 6, 2017Simon Pettet

[Diane di Prima, Boulder, Colorado, 1987 -Photograph by Allen Ginsberg – (c) Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

It’s Diane di  Prima’s birthday. She’s 83. We send her greetings on her birthday and celebrate with this remarkable vintage tape (it’s another of the Bay Area Writers series at Novato, California – see here, here and here) , June 2, 1976, she reads from (and comments on) her epic masterpiece, Loba ( as well as reading, at the end, several sections from the earlier  Revolutionary Letters).

 DD: I’d like to start by reading parts of this long thing that’s five … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 323

July 7, 2017Simon Pettet

“Driving The Beat Road” – Jeff Weiss‘ recent detailed (and profusely illustrated ) survey, in The Washington Post, “in search of surviving members of the Beat Generation“,  is another  (well, we keep using this term, but it’s true) – “must-read”.

Weiss recounts the circumstances and the details of his interviews (conducted earlier this year) with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, the novelist Herb Gold (“Gold would be the first to tell you that’s he’s not a Beat, but his legacy and historical context remain inextricable from his more well-branded peers”), and, in conclusion, … Read More

Michael McClure’s Mephistos

November 20, 2016Simon Pettet

screen-shot-2016-11-23-at-12-01-19-pm

[Michael McClure, Mephistos & Other Poems, City Lights Books, November 2016]

Michael McClure‘s new book of poems has just been released by City Lights:    “A landmark work of bio-romanticism, Mephistos and Other Poems is (McClure’s) first completely new collection in five years…. The title sequence, “Mephistos” stems from (his) ongoing “grafting” experiment, growing new poems from fragments of his older works. “Some Fringes: is a series of haiku-like nature poems, while the seventeen-part “Rose Breaths” derives from the poet’s practice of meditation. The freestanding poems grouped under the title “Being:” pay homage to many of McClure’s collaborators and fellow … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 286

September 23, 2016admin

 

     
Allen Ginsberg and his life-long partner, Peter Orlovsky, New York City, 1977 – Photograph by Gordon Ball

 

The Beat Generation exhibit at the Pompidou Center draws to a close with a number of specially-scheduled events – a colloquium and a series of films. Last chance to catch this extraordinary exhibit in its Parisian manifestation.

Here‘s Joseph Nechvatal‘s review in Hyperallergic

.

Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg

et aussi à Paris Next week sees the publication of Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, edited by … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 235

September 11, 2015admin
Featuring shots last week from 1967’s fabled Human Be-In. Here’s another one – from Lisa Law

[Allen Ginsberg, Human Be-In Golden Gate Park, 1967- Photograph © Lisa Law]

and here’s Lisa Law’s famous ecstatic one

[Allen Ginsberg, Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, 1967- Photograph © Lisa Law]

And here’s a couple more from the generous and talented Lisa

[Allen Ginsberg, Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, 1967- Photograph © Lisa Law]

[Allen Ginsberg, Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, 1967- Photograph © Lisa Law]

[Allen Ginsberg, Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, 1967- Photograph © Lisa Law]

… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 230

August 7, 2015admin

 

Yesterday was Diane Di Prima‘s 81st birthday. Here’s the extraodinary class she gave last May (with Professor Steven Goodman) at the California Institute of Integral Studies – in two parts, here and here 

Earlier Diane Di Prima birthday shout-outs on the Allen Ginsberg Project here, here, and here

Here‘s a two-part story on another prominent Italian-American – Lawrence Ferlinghetti – here and here and  an excerpt from his forthcoming book – Writing Across The Landscape (a further excerpt may be found – here)

& keeping the Italian theme, Gregory Corso’s Gasoline appears in

… Read More