Allen Ginsberg Reading at The Intersection, San Francisco, 1971

July 29, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, 1971]

Another archived reading today (courtesy the irreplaceable PennSounds) – Allen Ginsberg reading at The Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco in 1971

AG: I’ll begin. Most of what I’ll read tonight is poetry from the last twelve months (sic), but I want to begin, prefatory, by a poem written in 1949, part of a book called Gates of Wrath, which will be published by Four Seasons Press, “Stanzas Written at Night in Radio City”      (“If money made the mind more sane…”…”Man runs after his own shadow”) – “Gary Snyder Reading Poesy … Read More

Buddhism and The Beats (Ginsberg 1993 – 2 – Trungpa Rinpoche)

July 16, 2017Simon Pettet

Continuing from yesterday.

[Buddha doodle. Allen Ginsberg. April 5, 1991]

[Mantra: Benefit for Kama Dzong Meditation Center, May 6, 1972. Macky Auditorium, Boulder, CO]

[Allen Ginsberg and Chögyam  Trungpa,  Rinpoche. Benefit for Kama Dzong Meditation Center, May 6, 1972. Macky Auditorium, Boulder, CO. Photo:  Bob Morehouse]

AG : Then, 1972 Trungpa Rinpoche invited me to Boulder to give a poetry reading to raise money for Rocky Mountain Dharma Center along with Robert Bly and Gary Snyder. So I was really pleased to go out and see him in his home territory and went out there and he invited … Read More

Buddhism and The Beats (Ginsberg 1993 – I – Introduction)

July 15, 2017Simon Pettet

A real treat this weekend – with gratitude to Robyn Brentano and students from the NYU Ethnographic Film Program – “Buddhism and the Beats.”. “In 1993, Allen Ginsberg spoke to a gathering of students of the Tibetan Buddhist monk, Lobsang Samten, about the impact of Buddhist thought and practice on himself, the Beat writers, and American culture at large”. The full hour-and-a-half tape is transcribed below (continuing tomorrow, and with the Q & A session to be featured here next weekend)

AG: Well, good evening, Rinpoche [Lobsang Samten Rinpoche] and I met very recently at the house … 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

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 – 316

May 19, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg with Jon Sholle at the recording for Allen Ginsberg/William Blake – The Songs of Innocence and Experience]

Excited to have received early advance copies  of  Pat Thomas‘ remarkable follow-up to the The Last Word on First Blues  CD-set, (release-date isn’t until June 23) – the  two-CD re-packaging of the Blake songs – The Complete Songs of Innocence and Experience.

For a previous announcement on that important and highly-anticipated project – see here

Did we mention, May 8th, Gary Snyder‘s recent 87th birthday – this?  (an extensive and illuminating interview in Lion’s Roar ) –  … Read More

Gary Snyder’s Birthday

May 8, 2017Simon Pettet

Gary Snyder is eighty-seven years old today.  Happy Birthday Gary Snyder!

Here’s Gary, accompanied by The Parkington Sisters, at the Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey in 2014, performing “Prayer For The Great Family”

and here’s Gary’s reading at that same event:

One more recent Snyder reading, from the University of California, Berkeley, Holloway series, in 2016

Saluting one of America’s great national treasures!… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 300

January 27, 2017Simon Pettet

[“Ground Zero for the Beat Generation” – Unidentified Woman reading from “Howl” inside the 7 Arts Coffee Gallery in New York City, c.1957 – Photograph by Dave Heath]

No Friday-Round Up last week, so a little catch up today, starting with Sean Elder’s Gary Snyder interview, “National Treasure,” in Lion’s Roar.

 [Gary Snyder at the Center For Interfaith Relations’ 2014 Festival of Faiths: Sacred Earth, Sacred Self]

GS: “The first time I met Allen Ginsberg was at Rexroth’s house—Allen had just come up from Mexico. The first time I saw  Kerouac was when Allen brought him to … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 291

October 28, 2016admin

The big news today. Upcoming on the Ginsberg site, we’re working on a number of upgrades and changes. Stay tuned (and bear with us as we iron out all of the issues of transition). Starting next week, we’ll no longer be with blogger, the blog will be accessible, instead, via a newly-vamped and considerably-improved ginsberg.org site. We anticipate a few problems vis a vis access to some of the older posts (the archives), but, don’t worry, we’re on the case with this and we’ll have everything back up, accessible and better-than-ever, before too long.… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 234

September 4, 2015admin

                                                       [Allen Ginsberg]

                                                                     [Antonin Artaud  (1896-1948)]

                      [John Cage 1912-1992] It would have been Antonin Artaud‘s 119th birthday today. It would have been John Cage‘s 103rd. It will be Nicanor Parra‘s 101st tomorrow! – ¡Feliz cumpleaños! – Happy Birthday! – 101 years old ! – amazing!

                                                                     [Nicanor Parra] Allen Ginsberg’s archives – the repository at Stanford –  Geoffrey C Willard, the Media Production Coordinator, notes –  “The Allen Ginsberg Papers in the Department of Special Collections is truly the collection that keeps on giving. We here at the media lab have digitalized a huge portion of the media … Read More