International Women’s Day 2018

March 8, 2018Simon Pettet

International Women’s Day today – The Allen Ginsberg Project stands in solidarity with International Women’s Day.

Recognizing Women and the Beats have a.. complicated relationship.

Tonight in LA – the opening of a five-day “Beyond Beat” festival at Beyond Baroque – a “Women of the Beat Generation” reading, with Eve Brandstein (reading Diane di Prima), Pegarty Long (reading her twin sister, Philomene Long), Phoebe MacAdams (reading Joanne Kyger), Skira Martinez (reading Janine Pommy Vega), Lorraine Perrotta (reading Carolyn Cassady) and Susan Heldfond Saunders (reading Aya Tarlow) 

There’ll also be … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 348

January 12, 2018Simon Pettet

Reposting and restating last week’s big news – “Howl’,  a newly-assembled red vinyl  box-set will be available soon – next month – from Craft Recordings.  February 23 is slated as the release-date. Hold your breath!

A couple of weeks back,  Chris Agg uploaded a scattering of short Beat-related video-clips onto You Tube. See here (a few selected examples). We start off with Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading his prose-poem “Look Homeward, Jack – Two Correspondences”  from the book Wild Dreams of A New Beginning. (Ferlinghetti can also be seen here, reading “Constantly Rising Absurdity”, from A Coney Island of the … Read More

Eric Mottram and Philip Whalen 1985 Naropa Reading

December 30, 2017Simon Pettet

 

Eric Mottram]

A vintage Naropa reading from July 21 1985 in two parts for this weekend.

Today, the first part, features Eric Mottram and Philip Whalen. Anne Waldman gives the introductions.

Allen Ginsberg tomorrow.

AW: We’re pleased to have Eric Mottram, Philip Whalen and Allen Ginsberg reading – and Eric and Philip will be reading first and then we’ll have a short break and Allen will complete the evening

I have a couple of announcements to make. Please no smoking in this room and no flash photographs and also I’d like to announce there’ll be copies of this … Read More

Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971)

December 4, 2017Simon Pettet

Remembering today one of the great Buddhist teachers, Suzuki Roshi,  Shunryu Suzuki, influential Soto Zen priest and founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (the first Soto Zen training monastery in the United States and one of the very first Buddhist training monasteries to be established outside of Asia)

Suzuki was also the author of the hugely popular Zen Mind, Beginners Mind  (1970). a key book from a key figure in the spreading in the West of the dharma.

Here’s Allen – from an interview, circa.1996, with David Chadwick: 

DC: Can you remember the … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 343

November 24, 2017Simon Pettet

Cartoon Comix Allen. We’ve  featured this manifestation several times before, notably in the thoughtful and lively work of Nathan Gelgud.

and, back in the 70’s, not forgetting Pat Ryan and Allen’s Chicago Trial Testimony in comic form 

Keeping that tradition going, a shout-out to talented Sasha Velour‘s on-going graphic novel on Stonewall.

Allen makes an appearance, of course.

Who is that who’s sitting there in the back of the cab?

Beatdom – Here’s the current print issue of Beatdom

and  Beatdom on-line is always a good place to head to – recently posted:  editor, David S … Read More

Joanne Kyger – There You Are

September 3, 2017Simon Pettet

Published on Tuesday – We unequivocably sing its praises –  from Wave Books, There You Go – Interviews, Journals and Ephemera by the late-lamented Joanne Kyger 

From the publisher’s site:

“The inaugural book of Wave’s new interview series, There You Are combines 40 years of interviews, letters, poems, and journals to present a narrative of the remarkable poet Joanne Kyger, who intersected with the most influential movements of late twentieth-century poetry yet remained rooted in her daily practice with a forthright attention to our present moment.”

We recently featured footage of Joanne reading  (from 1976 in Novato) –  … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 331

September 1, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, 1968.  Photo: Larry Keenan Jr.]

More Ginsberg memories (see last week) – Judy Goldhaft, director of The Planet Drum Foundation, recollects an unusual seder:

“For the first time since the crucifixion, there was a total lunar eclipse on the night of the seder in 1968. That apparently happened also on the night of the Last Supper and we were all aware of this. We had a seder near Duboce Park. [San Francisco] The Hells Angels were there and the Diggers were there. My son asked the Four Questions, and…asked  Allen Ginsberg [as tradition … Read More

Naropa Summer Writing Program 2017

June 10, 2017Simon Pettet

Starting tomorrow – the 2017 session of the Naropa Summer Writing Program.

Here are all the details. From June 11 to July 1st – “The New Weathers” – Anne Waldman explains: “By The New Weathers, we intend to name the ramifications of climate change wrought in the Anthropocene. The luminous details evidencing these changes abound, and daily the case of inevitably grows. These are urgent days, and a new world is possible––and this world is yet worth struggling for. To face facts with creative and spirited resolve; to see through webs of ignorance and power; to witness and study, … Read More

Sunday May 21 (Robert Creeley)

May 21, 2017Simon Pettet

[Robert Creeley (1926-2005)]

Robert Creeley continued (from yesterday)

Sunday May 21 – Robert Creeley’s birthday today.

We continue with our transcript of his 1976 Bay Area Writers reading

RC  I thought possibly to read a few of the poems that would’ve come from that time of ..of being in the city…just seeing their titles and…let’s see…”The Bed”  [continues searching] – oh well.. this may get so awkward I won’t bother to ….

“Jack’s Blues” was sort of written with Jack (Kerouac)  in mind (“I’m going to roll a monkey and smoke it…’…’gone like a sad old candle”) … Read More

Bobbie Louise Hawkins – 1976 – Novato

April 29, 2017Simon Pettet

A few weeks back we featured Joanne Kyger’s reading in the Spring of 1976 for the Bay Area Writers group. Here’s the other reader on that occasion, Joanne’s then-fellow-Bolinas resident, Bobbie Louise Hawkins.  Bobbie reads some early drafts of some of her celebrated short-stories (finished drafts, the only real change being the subsitution, in some cases, of some pseudonyms for some of the characters’ original names). She also reads a number of poems

BLH: I’ll read some stories out of a book that’s called Back To Texas. It’ll be out sometime..next..early..early in the Fall..if I can find a good … Read More