Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 364

May 4, 2018Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg

[Allen Ginsberg – Photograph by Allan Tannenbaum]

Continuing today in New York, the inaugural St Mark’s Poetry Project Allen Ginsberg Symposium – For more on that (proposed annual event) – see here

On public television this week, (presented by WGBH Boston and distributed by American Public Television) the beginning of a new tv series and multi-platform digital initiative, Poetry In America.  Allen’s poems (“Hymmnn” (from “Kaddish“)  and “Hum Bom!” are featured in the opening program

From the program credits:

“Although we think of a poem as something read from a book, poet Allen Ginsberg knew that poetry’s power … Read More

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

Allen Ginsberg at Cheltenham 1993

May 27, 2017Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg, in 1993, reading at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in England. The feature today on The Allen Ginsberg Project. Allen reads a selection of poems, (mostly from White Shroud and the, subsequently-published Cosmpolitan Greetings

Introduction: Good evening everybody and some of you I’m sure came to the event where Allen Ginsberg was being interviewed by John Calder here today and will have suffered as Mr Ginsberg did the problems of the weather and British Rail. Years ago Allen Ginsberg wrote of Jack Kerouac that he was the sole full-moving thing, earlier today I’m afraid Allen Ginsberg was the sole … Read More

Hum Bom – (Bono & Juan Felipe Herrera)

April 9, 2017Simon Pettet

Sadly Allen’s “Hum Bom!” is all too pertinent and prescient  ( “Whydja bomb?/We didn’t wanna bomb!/Whydja bomb?/We didn’t wanna bomb!”) – Lisa New, creator and host of Poetry in America, a new poetry intiative from Harvard, has just released  the video above.   – U2’s Bono reciting the poem and US poet-laureate Juan Felipe Herrera quoting and discussing it.  Bono is, of course, a long time fan of Allen’s – see here – and Herrera too (we would have loved to hear Herrera’s reading)  – but “Hum Bom!” is not an easy poem to read  (despite seeming … Read More

Allen Ginsberg & Steven Taylor at Texas State 1996 – Q & A -1

October 11, 2014admin

Following on from our recent posting of Allen’s 1996 Texas State University reading, here’s a transcription of the Q & A that followed

Good morning. We have an hour I would ask you to speak clearly, there’s a lot of people in here (that’s what we like) and I want to thank Mr Ginsberg again for the wonderful show last night, it was amazing  AG: Considering that I was half-dead!  (but) I get inspired when I work with Steven (Taylor), who’s a good guitarist and a good scholar, (and) who came along  for the seminar You can’t hear … Read More

Hum Bom

August 3, 2014admin

We featured one yesterday, so here’s another poem from the collection, Cosmopolitan Greetings – Poems 1986-1992   Inserted here without comment (and for all the obvious reasons)                                                     

HUM BOM!

I

Whom bomb? We bomb’d them! Whom bomb? We bomb’d them! Whom bomb? We bomb’d them! Whom bomb? We bomb’d them!
Whom bomb? We bomb you! Whom bomb? We bomb you! Whom bomb? You bomb you! Whom bomb? You bomb you!
What do we do? Who do we bomb? What do we do? Who do we bomb? What do we do? Who do we bomb? What do we do? Who do … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 50

November 18, 2011admin

“Gog and Magog. Gog and Magog. Armageddon did the Job” – that’s the voice of David Shapiro (and glimpses too of David Amram, Joyce Johnson, Ann Douglas, and others from this video footage of the Columbia (University’s) Alumnae Association’s annual Beat hommage (“A Celebration of Columbia’s Beats”), held earlier this year. The line is, of course, from “Hum Bom!” (included in Cosmopolitan Greetings). Here’s footage of Allen reading that poem, on stage, in London).
Allen’s lovely spidery scrawl. We’ve not much to add, but here’s a four-page typically-exhaustive (exhausting?) fax sent to … Read More