Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 385

September 28, 2018Simon Pettet

Next week in Vienna. The annual conference of the European Beat Studies Network, starting on Wednesday and concluding Saturday October 6th

The program includes – on Friday:  Franca Bellarsi –  “Allen Ginsberg’s Ecopoetics: Oscillating between Sentience-in-Interdependence and Physically-Determined Embodiment” – on Saturday (on the “Transnational Beat” segment) – Antonín Zita – “Dismantling Socialist Realism: The Beat Generation in Czechoslovakia”,  Josef Rauvolf – “In the Wake of Allen …”,  and Polina Mackay – “Beat Poetry and Greek Austerity: George Prevedourakis Reads Ginsberg”

For more detailed notes on the program – see here 

But, happening all over, before that – … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up -360

April 6, 2018Simon Pettet

[Protest in front of Brazilian Varig Airlines with the Psychedelic Venus Church, San Francisco 1971, demanding the release of The Living Theater then jailed in Brazil.  Photo courtesy Harold Adler]

National Poetry Month in America this month. “April is the cruellest..” and all that. We’re very much of the opinion of noted poet Charles Bernstein.

`Beats and Buddhism. We mentioned David S Wills’ essay, “The Intersection of Buddhism and the Beat Generation”, a few weeks back, here’s another one, Michael Amudsen’s essay in Empty Mirror – “Jack Kerouac – Avatar of American Buddhism”

The Other Minds’ Sound Poetry … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 341

November 10, 2017Simon Pettet

Several more images from the upcoming show of Jack Kerouac’s art at the Maga Museum in Gallarante, Italy, have been made available – here – on the Ansa web-site.

Jack Kerouac. Beat Painting’,  curated by Sandrina Bandera, Alessandro Castiglioni and Emma Zanella, is set to open December 3rd, and also includes photographs by Robert Frank and Ettore Sottsass, a project by Peter Greenaway and the video of the classic 1966 tv interview with translator Fernanda Pivano.

Did we mention? (yes, we did, it was his birthday yesterday) a new book, a biography, on the legendary Robert Frank… Read More

1967- Ginsberg-Corso-Berryman at Spoleto

June 17, 2017Simon Pettet

The recordings of Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso (and of an unlikely third-party, John Berryman, at the 1967 Festival of Two Worlds (“Festival dei Due Mondi”) at Spoleto in Italy, organized by Gian Carlo Menotti is the focus of this weekend’s post

[Allen Ginsberg, Spoleto, 1967]

Allen’s reading (which was also subsequently featured in the recording Ginsberg’s Thing (1969)), was the subject at the time of some controversy.   As his biographer Bill Morgan explains:

“The police in Spoleto seemed to be waiting for him and they picked up copies of the Italian translation of his poem “Who Be Kind … Read More

Keats and Shelley – (Keats’ Last Poem)

December 19, 2016Simon Pettet

keatsgrave

[John Keats’ grave at the The Cimitero Acattolico (“Non-Catholic Cemetery”) in Rome, Italy]

 On Keats and Shelley  continued

Student: Have you seen the grave (of John Keats)?

AG: Yeah, sure, many times. I went there with Gregory.. (I) went there alone once and I went there with Gregory (Corso)

Student: I went there and it was closed but there was a little chink in the wall

AG: Yeah, and you can look in..

PO: I don’t think I was there.

AG: I think we went this time with (Fer)nanda (Pivano)

PO: Oh my god!

AG: ..in June, that one … Read More

Adonais

December 15, 2016Simon Pettet

screenshot-2016-12-07-17-39-15

[Sketch of the poet John Keats, July  1819,  by Charles Armitage Brown]

AG: Then a similar thing to Shelley was a very great poet at this particular colossal rhyme, the colossal breath, heroic or colossal breath, I guess, is Adonais (do folks know that? Adonais? – how many have read through Adonais? – how many have not? – Adonais – well, that’s a great one. That’s his elegy on the death of poor old John Keats, (it’s on (page) 685, well the verses I want are on 685). That’s really best… You notice it begins on page … Read More

Remembering Pasolini

November 2, 2016Peter Hale

pasolini_h1

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975)

Our earlier (2013) posting on Pier Paolo Pasolini, due to a technical error, was unfortunately, and unintentionally, deleted. On the occasion of the anniversary (now the 41st year anniversary) of his assassination, we now restore and republish it here. Today marks the date (the 38th year anniversary) [now 41st – sic] of the assassination of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Following the recantation of his confession in 2005 by Pino Pelosi (“Pino the Frog”), the precise details of his homophobic and racist murder still remain unclear. Andreas Pichler’s recent documentary (made as a co-production for French tv, … Read More

Remembering Jack Kerouac – 2

March 29, 2015admin
 
The 1982 memories of (Jack) Kerouac session at Naropa continues
(For the first part of this panel see yesterday)
Audio of these recollections can be found here

The transcript picks up at approximately twenty-seven-and-a-quarter minutes in, with a curiously subdued Peter Orlovsky

[Peter Orlovsky and Jack Kerouac=Photographs by Allen Ginsberg]

AG: Next will be Peter Orlovsky.
Gregory Corso: (And) what year for Peter?
AG: So that would be  probably around nineteen fifty…
Gregory Corso: … four
AG:  …four, Christmas, or fifty-five, maybe mid fifty-five.
Peter Orlovsky – July was it?
AG: I guess. Sometime around then, yeah… Read More

Meditation and Poetics 33 (Reznikoff – 5)

January 20, 2015admin

 

  [Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976)  – Photo by Gerard Malanga]  

AG: “Sunday Walks in the Suburbs”  [by Charles Reznikoff] –  “(2) – Scared dogs looking backwards with patient eyes – /at windows stooping old women, wrapped in shawls./ old men, wrinkled as knuckles, on the stoops” – (Okay, so if he’s going to get poetic, he’s going to get very realistically poetic – “wrinkled as knuckles”. If he’s going to make a simile, it’s going to be a really totally close-to-the-bone simile – “wrinkled as knuckles”) Student: If you.. If you read the book, you can just look at your knuckles … Read More

Meditation and Poetics – 21

December 15, 2014admin

Allen Ginsberg’s 1978 lectures on Meditation and Poetics at Naropa resume with this July 24th, 1978 class AG: I wanted to start off on (Charles) Reznikoff today. How many here have read Charles Reznikoff? Just since this term or before? How many have read it before? [to Student] Where’d you get to read Reznikoff ? (I forgot your name). Student: Where? AG: Yeah Student: In libraries. AG: Where?

Student: And bookstores. New York. AG: How come? Student: Because I try to read all I can. AG: What led you on to him? Student: Interest. And I try to read … Read More