The Counter-Tradition of Williams
February 27, 2018
AG: So that [“Love Letter”}  was like a real serious attempt to get the depths and solemnity of, you know, a love poem by (John) Donne, (and that was taken to be[…]
“Love Letter” (to Neal Cassady)
February 26, 2018
AG: Then, Donne – I tried an imitation of  (John) Donne. That was really early. This is like the vers de college, the verse of college days. That was an imitation of… where is our Donne (here(?… There’s a line of Donne’s that I[…]
A Brief Anthology of English Lyric
November 2, 2017
Allen at Naropa on “Basic Poetics” continuing from here AG: So we’ll go back to Edmund Waller or do a bit more of (John) Milton. But I would like to get to Edmund Waller for a while, for a brief while. Is that alright? Is that… “Go, lovely rose”  (on page three-oh-five).[…]
The Decline of English Poetry
August 9, 2017
Allen’s been discussing the poems of Robert Herrick AG: There’s a nice, … but then, something that happens now, from here on out. It started. You got a shot of it in (John) Donne with that masochistic religion, and the[…]
Catching Up – Ben Jonson, John Donne)
June 20, 2017
[Ben Jonson (1572-1637) & John Donne ( 1572-1631) 1980 -Allen was absent and unable to teach one week, so poet Dick Gallup took over his Naropa “Basic Poetics’ class. Allen, on his return, was eager to find out what happened. AG: What happened with Dick (Gallup)? How was the class? Student: It[…]
John Donne – 15 (Conclusion)
March 23, 2017
Allen Ginsberg on John Donne concludes AG: There is a poem of (John) Donne‘s which is not in the book which I would like to lay out. I think it may be his last poem or toward his last poem, his last, death, poem – “A Hymn to God The Father”, which[…]
Two Experiences (John Donne – 14)
March 22, 2017
From a March 1980 classroom, Allen Ginsberg and Naropa students discuss John Donne and the experience of love, ecstasy, and hallucinations – continued from yesterday AG: No, it says that they’re one  …they become one. Well, maybe everybody’s[…]
“Common Hallucination” – (John Donne – 13)
March 21, 2017
Allen Ginsberg on John Donne continues from yesterday. Student: Is he (John Donne) known as a mystic poet like (William) Blake? AG: No, more of an intellectual. Some mystic towards the end but more..more, I guess..religious… divine, divine.. Student:[…]
John Donne continues – 11
March 16, 2017
Allen Ginsberg on John Donne’s “The Ecstacy” – continues AG:  “This ecstacy does unperplex/…and tell us what we love” – What “unperplex” means is that  this ecstasy that we experience clears up, clears up the mystery. It wasn’t sex that we loved necessarily, directly. We had not seen before what was moving[…]