Raymond Foye on Allen Ginsberg’s Photography – part 2

July 31, 2018Simon Pettet

Raymond Foye on Allen Ginsberg’s photography – continued from yesterday

JS: Robert Frank was obviously an important influence for Allen.

RF: For most people I knew, Allen was a real hero, but Allen had his own heroes, and Robert was certainly one of them. Allen worshipped Robert. So the photography was a way for him to bond with Robert, and to be his student. He had another friend who was a photographer, who lived above Strand Books (in New York), Hank O”Neal. He was the commercial agent for Berenice Abbott. He was another person whom Allen relied on for … Read More

Harry Smith

May 29, 2018Simon Pettet

[Harry Smith, Second Avenue and Twelfth Street (NYC), 1987 – Photograph by Brian Graham]

Harry Smith‘s birthday today (born May 29, 1923, Portland, Oregon) . For more Harry birthday postings on the Allen Ginsberg Project – see here, here, here,  here,  here and here 

Allen Ginsberg on Harry Smith – here

[Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, 1987 – Photograph by William R Ferris]

 … 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

Harry Smith

November 27, 2017Simon Pettet

[“Buddha’s Footprint” – Harry Smith’s logo for Allen Ginsberg]

Twenty-seven years since the passing of Harry Smith on this day, Monday the 27th, (Harry would, of course, have enjoyed the numerological alignment)

Harry has been profiled and featured often on The Allen Ginsberg Project. most recently and extensively – here (see that page for links to several of our other Harry Smith postings)

Next Friday (December 1st) at New York’s Howl Happening Gallery, Raymond Foye will host a celebration of Harry’s life and work – featuring the screening (a New York premier) of a 1984 film by Robert Frank… 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

Memorial Day – Harry Smith’s Birthday

May 29, 2017Simon Pettet

Harry Smith‘s birthday today, born in Portland, Oregon, May 29, 1923.

Allen certainly admired, and took a great many pictures of Harry (more indeed than almost any other subject).  Here is just a sampling of a few of them, various locations, but mostly in Allen’s kitchen, East 12th Street NYC, 1984-1989.

See also other Harry Smith Birthday postings on the Allen Ginsberg Project –  here, here, here, and here. Also, for example, here and here. 

 … 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

Basil Bunting’s Lectures on Poetic Origins – 2 (The One-Eyed Ford)

August 16, 2016admin

[Rusty 1941 One-Eyed Ford Coupe – Photograph by Jeffery Wells via flickr]

Student: Is the “one-eyed Ford” something you just made up now?

AG: No , the “one-eyed Ford” is a famous American-Indian twentieth-century.. It’s a great line! – It’s one of the great lines in America .. of the, as-yet, unacademicized poetry. The many many versions of the “one-eyed Ford” song (South-West – Oklahoma, actually – I heard it last year… last heard it (with Harry Smith) in Anadarko, Oklahoma) – “My one-eyed Ford”! – It’s a great line!

So… I don’t know. He [Basil Bunting… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 249

December 18, 2015admin

 

Allen Ginsberg – Photograph by Cynthia Macadams

Lawrence Ferlinghetti on Reddit – on what is his favorite Allen Ginsberg poem – “Aunt Rose” because it’s a very touching, deep and profound expression of love and empathy of his old Aunt Rose. It’s even more powerful than his long poem [“Kaddish‘] about his mother.”

 
Harry Smith, Second Avenue and Twelfth Street (NYC), 1987 – Photograph by Brian Graham

John Wieners  (1934-2002)
… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 242

October 30, 2015admin

 

 

 

Just out this month, from Blackberry Books, Franco Beltrametti’s posthumous collection, From Almost Everywhere  Gary Snyder on Franco Beltrametti: “Franco Beltrametti’s smooth-barked Muse leads him across the grids of latitude and longitude to the source of good medicine poems. A suavity masks these elemental songs – or rather, gives these elder faces a modern “human” mask. Civilized in the best sense”. and Joanne Kyger: “From “a crowded place called “future” Franco Beltrametti arrives, once again, with subtle eloquence to surprise us with his unexpected nuances and turns. These poems give us his presence….calling up … Read More