Saturday May 20 (Robert Creeley)

May 20, 2017Simon Pettet

Robert Creeley would have been ninety-one tomorrow, May 21st (he died in 2005). In honor of the great man and his birthday, we present, this weekend, another transcription from the extraordinary Bay Area Writers series (from back in 1975-76) – (see also here and here) – Rudimentary recording equipment, so there are, understandably, a few technical problems (particularly at the beginning and the end of tape one (the main tape) but.. what a treasure! , what a remarkable record!

RC: I’m curious, like.. I gather some of you.. that this is a class for some of you and some … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 236

September 18, 2015admin

 

Allen Ginsberg in 1994, throwing the opening pitch at a San Francisco Giants game – Photograph by Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle

Steve Silberman gives a little of the back-story (in Our Allen) – “I was with Allen on this day when he got booed at Candlestick Park after throwing out the first pitch in a Giants game. When someone asked him if he was into baseball as a kid, he replied, “Are you kidding? I was a four-eyed sissy”. Jack Kerouac, however…  Here’s our 2010 post on that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 169

March 21, 2014admin

Neal Cassady Collected Letters

March 21, in case you didn’t know it, has been officially declared by the UN (by UNESCO) “World Poetry Day” Fanny Wallendorf‘s wonderful translations into the French of Neal Cassady‘s Letters (“Un truc tres beau qui contient tout”)  (“It’s a beautiful thing, with everything in it”) –  (the title, taken from Neal’s 1948 letter to his pal, Bill Tomson) have just been (just this past month) published.  See here and here. ( note – texte en francais) We should point out that the book only covers the years 1944-1950 (a second, concluding, volume is due … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 112

February 8, 2013admin

Today, February 8, is Neal Cassady‘s birthday. He would have been 87 today. See our illustrated and highly-annotated last-year’s post. 
 
In a move that would no doubt have bemused Cassady, Denver Mayor, Mayor Michael Hancock made official proclamation of (a) “Neal Cassady Day”, and, last week, in honor of it, and of Neal, Denver Beat historian Mark Bliesner, hosted, (at the Mercury Cafe down on California Street), the (now 4th) annual “Neal Cassady Birthday Bash”.
 

More mayoral intervention. The late Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, was, it seems, a big Allen Ginsberg fan. Here’s an interesting document, … Read More

Spontaneous Poetics – 30 (Reading List – 1) (Dorn,Smart,Bunting Wieners)

January 28, 2013admin

Allen’s 1976 Spontaneous Poetics Summer lectures continue with this, his fifth lecture, dated June 18, 1976. He continues from his earlier classes on the ballad form, but in this class begins by sketching out a brief bibliography, offering suggestions for reading. He consistently refers students to the then-growing Naropa Institute library. Ed Dorn, Christopher Smart, Basil Bunting and John Wieners are the first of a number of figures that he mentions.

AG (begins, distributing a leaflet with various writers names) : There’s something by everybody, here in the library. So it’s a reading-list, or it’s a list of … Read More