Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 359

March 30, 2018Simon Pettet

[Carl Solomon at home in the Bronx, 1991 – Photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries]

Today, Friday March 30th. is Howl dedicatee, Carl Solomon‘s birthday. For last year’s Carl Solomon posting (“Remembering Carl Solomon”) – see here)

It’s also the anniversary of Rimbaud‘s lover, the poet, Paul Verlaine‘s birthday.  (For a posting on Verlaine’s “Chanson d’Automne” – see here)

And, while we’re on the subject of anniversaries – Our dear friend Bob Creeley died on this date thirteen years ago. Much missed, thinking of you, Bob.

David S Will’s Beatdom continues to deliver challenging A.G. … Read More

Ginsberg in 1967 Rare Footage (Antonello Branca Footage)

March 17, 2018Simon Pettet

Recently up-loaded to You Tube by the Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico (AAMOD) in Rome, vintage footage of Allen by the legendary documentary filmmaker Antonello Branca (see his 1967 film featuring Allen, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and others, What’s Happening?, fearured in an earlier posting – here)

Today (time-stamped -out-takes from a longer reel), two pieces, beginning with a mantra (chant) om sri maitreya  (“anyone who knows it, chant”, proposes Allen) , followed by,  (at 01-48-18-00, approximately six-and-a-half minutes in), a spirited recitation of “Wales Visitation” – (“written first … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 357

March 16, 2018Simon Pettet

[Howl & Kaddish & a selection of Allen Ginsberg Interviews (translated into Bengali by Malay Roychoudhury and edited by Utpal Bhattacharjee and published by Kabitirtha)]

[Malay Roychoudhury]

Allen Ginsberg in India – Allen and the Hungryalists (we’ve pointed out this crucial connection before) – Rima Bhattacharya’s “The Common Thread Between The Beats and The Hungryalists“, (the abstract of a PhD thesis), can be read here (from the same site, another doctoral abstract – Marina Reza on The Hungryalists – here). Essential listening on this topic – Jeet Thayil’s  BBC radio documentary (now available on the … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 354

February 23, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, Venice, Italy, 1995, Enzo Eric Toccaceli,  “Beat Generation, Travels in Italy” exhibition, Rome]

“Beat Generation, Ginsberg Corso, Ferlinghetti Viaggio in Italia”, (Beat Generation, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti Travels in Italy), a show of over 200 black-and-white photos (accompanied by an apparatus of over 600 documents (books, first editions, printed ephemera, etc)  curated and presented by photographer Enzo Eric Toccaceli, opened at La Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma (The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome) last week, and will be up until April 2nd.. For more images from the show see … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 352

February 9, 2018Simon Pettet

Opening this past week, and on through April 27, at the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library  – Fleeting Moments, Floating Words, and the Beat Generation – The Photography of Allen Ginsberg.

[“Fleeting Moments , Floating Words and the Beat Generation – Photographs by Peter Hale]

 

from Thomas Marks’  interview with the Italian painter  Giorgio Griffa  (in Apollo) – (Griffa’s current one-man show at London’s Camden Arts Centre, currently up, is up until the 8th of April):

“The work of Allen Ginsberg has also provided a touchstone; Ginsberg’s elegy for his mother, ‘Kaddish’, is … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 336

October 6, 2017Simon Pettet

[The Boott Mills seen from Centralville  /  Lowell, Massachusetts, 1989 -Photograph  © John Suiter – see “Kerouac’s Lowell – A Life On The Concord and Merrimack Rivers“]

Just a reminder that it’s Kerouac celebrations in his home-town of Lowell this weekend. Festivities have already begun, but plenty’s still happening –  you can see the full-schedule (all the events taking place over this weekend, and into next week) – here.

[Jack Kerouac]

And also from last week’s Round-Up – (following on, and as part of, the “Big Beat Night“) – the Lawrence Ferlinghetti exhibit in Brescia… 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

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 308

March 31, 2017Simon Pettet

Heads-up for next Friday! (Friday April 7) – Ginsberg Green – “A spoken word & musical gathering honoring the life and Green activism of Allen Ginsberg” – a unique celebratory event, organized by our good friend Patrick Warner, scheduled to take place at The Sprinkler Factory in Worcester, Mass, starting approximately 6 o’clock.

The event will include Ann Charters (reading from Lospecchio Press’ Best Minds – A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg),  Gordon Ball (reading from his Cherry Valley memoir, East Hill Farm), and  Warner himself reading  “selected Ginsberg texts & interviews that exemplify & manifest Ginsberg’s Green … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 301 (il Saggiatore)

February 3, 2017Simon Pettet

screenshot-2017-01-24-18-46-10

screenshot-2017-01-24-18-40-51

Ginsberg celebrations in Milan this weekend  (in celebration of the recent publication of the Italian translation of Wait Till I’m Dead  (Non finché vivo)

non-finche-vivo

il Saggiatore, Allen’s publishers, feature Allen in the fifth edition of their Writers series. Today, Friday, “Dal cuore dell’America all’India” (From the heart of America to India), a recital by Giuseppe Cederna

diario-indiano-358x550

Tomorrow – Allen and Pasolini by Vittorio Lingiardi (with readings by Luca Formenton) – directed by Vincenzo Zampa, “Allen Ginsberg in una lingua hostile” (Allen Ginsberg in a foreign language) with Leopold Carra and Luca Fontana, and Emanuele Bevilacqua in conversation … 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