Miltonic Psalm Notations

March 19, 2018Simon Pettet

[ Portrait of John Milton –  (circa 1803) – by William Blake]

Allen Ginsberg’s 1980 Basic Poetics class (at Naropa) – continuing from here

AG: So, the next experiment I did (was) with Miltonics – Milton. This is my Miltonics. It was pretty sick Miltonics.  Because what it is,  is a total – 1949 -it’s a.. I think I was either coming or..  going to-and-fro from.. Bedlam – New York State Psychiatric Institute, and I was convinced that there was a supernatural consciousness that I had to achieve and I was not achieving it, and that I wouldn’t achieve … Read More

Vojo Sindolic’s 1986 Belgrade Interview – part one

February 24, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in Belgrade, 1986]

Vojo Sindolic‘s 1986 interview with Allen in Belgrade (in two parts – the second part will follow tomorrow) is our focus on The Allen Ginsberg Project this weekend.

Vojo’s translation of Cosmopolitan Greetings  (Kozmopolitski pozdravi ) has just appeared from Hrvatskoga društva pisaca  (h,d,p) (the Croatian Writers Society) 

Here, he introduces the interview:

“Allen Ginsberg and I were very close friends for twenty years from 1977 until his death in 1997. I felt and still feel deep love for his poetic insight, or as one may call it – it was literary … Read More

Vowels and Music – (Poundian Poetics)

October 2, 2017Simon Pettet

continuing with Allen’s commentary in his 1980 Basic Poetics Naropa class on “Ezra Pound’s Manifest”

AG: I was talking about it [about “melodic coherence” and Hart Crane’s “Atlantis”].  There’s partly some element of cadence – da da da da-da da da da –da – “O Thou steeled Cognizance whose leap commits” – that’s the rhythmic cadence.   So melodic cadence of those vowels – “encintured sing/ In single chrysalis” – “encintured sing/ In single chrysalis” – that’s melodic coherence – That make sense? Mel-o-dy? tune-al coherence

And “of the tone-leading of the vowels” -. “tone-leading of the vowels”  (… Read More

Hart Crane’s “O Thou steeled Cognizance”

September 28, 2017Simon Pettet

AG: Of “melodic coherence” – “O Thou steeled Cognizance” – that’s a line of Hart Crane – “O thou steeled Cognizance” – “O Thou steeled Cognizance” – “Oh-ow-ee-oo!” – “O Thou steeled Cognizance”  (it’s the beginning of a stanza of Hart Crane’s “Atlantis”

“O Thou steeled Cognizance whose leap commits/The agile precincts of the lark’s return//Within whose lariat sweep encintured sing/ In single chrysalis the many twain;/Of stars/Thou art the stitch and stallion glow/And like an organ, Thou, with sound of doom – Sight, sound and flesh/ Thou leadest from time’s realm/As love strikes clear direction for the helm.”… Read More

Hart Crane’s Hurricane

August 17, 2017Simon Pettet

[“After The Hurricane”  (I938)  Marsden Hartley (1877-1943)]

AG: If Shelley’s “Ode to The West Wind” brings the breath theme to the height of inspiration, or, you know, some great tempest of inspiration, this brings it up to a hurricane, in terms of the emotions, the imagery, and also the energy used to pronounce it and the meters used   (and, as I said, the kinds of meters used are the meters that are used, that were used, at the height of classical Greek tragedy, at the moment of revelation). So,  “The Hurricane”,  by Hart Crane written in 1927, one of … Read More

Breath Poems

August 15, 2017Simon Pettet

[Zephrus. God of the winds (detail from “The Birth of Venus,” Sandro Botticelli]

AG: .. ..(I cited some lines)  from Hart Crane’s poem “Hurricane” as an example of dochmaic meter… and the whole poem is really interesting, and it’s just in the sequence of poems I’ve been referring to, one time or another, like William Carlos Williams’ poem about Thursday  (air – coming in and out of his nose) , Shelley’s “Ode To the West Wind – (“Make me thy lyre even as the forest is’”… “Be thou me spirt fierce (the wind)”, or, “The breath whose might I have … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 325

July 21, 2017Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg in the Archives at Stanford University

Today big news to report, Stanford University have finally completed a monumental task – the audio/video elements that were reformatted from the Ginsberg papers are now available as streaming media through their catalog. We’ll be focusing more on this in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile to access the Ginsberg catalog immediately – see here

(and read Stanford’s announcement of this, indeed,  major “cause for celebration” – here)

Today, please be aware,  is Hart Crane‘s birthday (born 1899. died off the Gulf of Mexico).

Allen to his Naropa students (in 1978):  “Does … Read More

Peter Orlovsky Parinirvana

May 30, 2017Simon Pettet

Peter Orlovsky’s Parinirvana.  Allen Ginsberg’s long-time companion, died, seven years ago, on this day.  Those who knew him will certainly never forget Peter. His remarkable and inspired book of poems, Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs, idiosyncratic spellings and all, is quite like any other book of poems. His papers (now residing at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin) yielded the posthumous companion-piece Peter Orlovsky – A Life In Words.  There is also the sadly-out-of-print 1980 volume, Straight Hearts’ Delight. We’ve quoted from it before. Here’s another letter from Peter … Read More

More on the Dochmiac

April 18, 2017Simon Pettet

 

[Marble Mask – Ancient Greek –  (c. 1st Century BC) – from the Archaeological Museum of Athens]

Allen Ginsberg on metrics continues

Student; What’s it called?

AG: Dochmiac, the dochmiac or dochmiac meter – D-O-C-H-M-I-A-C. However, when you reverse it like this [Allen shows on the blackboard] – where the two long feet or two (stresses) come first –ba-boom-boom ba-boom-boom – you get the hypo-dochmaic . Now this is a dochmaic or dochmaic meter (in) that form, and the one that we’re using (which you’ll come to again, so you might as well find out what this is … Read More

Remembering/Misremembering A Little Hart Crane

April 17, 2017Simon Pettet

Hart Crane read by Tennessee Williams,

AG:  Is that in.. “Hurricane“, I wonder,  is that in our book? by Hart Crane – (could that) just by any stray chance be here? [in the Norton Anthology]  – same meter (as Ben Jonson’s  “Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount..” – “Lo, Lord, Thou ridest!” – C-R-A-N-E (Allen continues to rifle through the book)

Student: Seven eighty-one?

AG: What number?

Student: (Page) seven eighty-one, Hart Crane begins?….

AG: Let’s see, if they’ve got it in here. It might not be, but it’s a great poem. I’ll bring it in on another occasion if … Read More