Allen Ginsberg – Richland College reading – part 2

October 1, 2017Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg’s 1980 Richland College reading – continuing from yesterday

AG: So I would say now move on to.. 1956- moving on from 1956 to 1976. I have a series of poems which will require some music also – “Father Death Blues” – if we can get together on the stage –

My father died in 1976 in midsummer and I wrote a series of poems while he was alive because I spent a lot of time with him during the previous..during the winter that he was wasting, He was quite old and not in pain because it was a … Read More

Studs Terkel interviews Allen Ginsberg, 1976 – part two

May 14, 2017Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg and Studs Terkel continuing from here

[At approximately half-way through their conversation, approximately thirty-two minutes in, Allen sings “Gospel Noble Truths” (“Born in this world, you’ve got to suffer..”) making several improvised additions –  (“no permanent soul!”,  “the dharma chakra”,  “Look what you’ve done – 1968” – “Let go, Studs!”)

AG: You looked like you didn’t want to “let go” of  “earth heaven and hell” there!.

ST: And as Ned Kelly, the bandit, said, before they hanged him, and they sprang the trap –  “That’s life! “. You said,  “Die when you die”. I was about to … Read More

Allen Ginsberg Reading At Warwick University, 1979

January 22, 2017Simon Pettet

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[Allen Ginsberg at the Atheneum Bookshop, Amsterdam, November 1979. photo: Hans van Dijk / Dutch National Archives]

Allen Ginsberg Reading At Warwick University, 1979  (continuing from yesterday)

AG: I’ll begin since – oh we were discussing the subject . I’ll begin with a song dedicated to another fellow in prison, David Solomon who’s in Brighton…in Bristol jail, as he was sentenced to ten years as part of that big LSD conspiracy bust about a year or two ago – what was the name of that? Julie Operation Julie

[Allen sings a version of “Dope Fiend Blues”- “Dope Fiend Blues Shuffle”]… Read More

Allen Ginsberg Reading in Baltimore 1978 – 2

December 11, 2016Simon Pettet

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[Mind Breaths: Poems 1972-1977, the volume of poems by Allen Ginsberg published in 1978 by City Lights]

continuing from yesterday

AG: So, actually, I was in the hospital and I actually went out of my skull, I was full of antibiotics and fever and it seemed like it was about time to take a meat axe to that dirty Jew’s skull or something, (that was what I was telling my poor Jewish brother about Kissinger). So, finally, I wound up in a sort of state of punk ecstasy. So two poems about sickness, one a description and one a … Read More

Manhattan Poetry Video Project 1984

November 27, 2013admin

Rose Lesniak’s Manhattan Poetry Video Project, from 1984 (three poetry-videos, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and Bob Holman) was, unquestionably, pioneering in its time. This was a good decade-and-more before the United States of Poetry, and the subsequent rise and development of now-ubiquitous video technology (a good two-decades-and-more before, even, the baby-steps of You Tube!) Allen’s contribution, reading “Father Death Blues”, is particularly poignant, because the film shoot was on Ellis Island (the old Ellis Island, before it had been refurbished and given its $156 million make-over/restoration) “Father Death, Don’t cry any more/Mama’s there, underneath the floor/ … Read More

Spontaneous Poetics – 47 (Shelley and Hart Crane 1)

March 6, 2013admin

[Joseph Severn (1793- 1879) Posthumous Portrait of Shelley Writing Prometheus UnBound (1845), oil on canvas, Keats-Shelley Memorial House, Rome, Italy]

AG: We were onto the subject of time and breath and (now) I want to skip a couple of centuries and shift to (Percy Bysshe) Shelley, to hear another kind of breath. (Also, I should say, as far as I know, I will be staying here until the end of the session. I won’t be here in the second session, (or I certainly won’t be teaching in the second session, because I’ll be called home. My father isn’t … Read More

Allen Ginsberg – 1994 Greek TV Interview

February 2, 2013admin

Here’s a find – courtesy “redfox60” and “Daily Motion”. Allen in 1994, in performance and being interviewed (lucid as always), on Greek tv – the presentation, by one Giorgos Kappa (a film with Greek sub-titles). Please excuse (we know you will) the fact that it’s not exactly synch-sound, but.. more than made-up for by substance. (excuse also the possibility of a little advertising sneaking in at the beginning there!)

The piece opens with black-and-white footage of Allen with his harmonium performing “Father Death Blues”, also fleeting shots of New York City, and then the first segment of the interview.  … Read More