On Jack Kerouac’s Spontaneity

July 24, 2018Simon Pettet

AG: (“Sense seeks and finds the thought” (William Blake) ) So “genius finds thought without seeking & thought thus produced finds the sense.”  Is that clear?  Is that clear?  I mean, does anybody not understand that reversal?  Because the sort of squarer, more rationalistic or literalistic thought is that you’ve got to know what you say before you say it. So, as Robert Duncan says, “How do I know what I mean until I say it?” Or how do any of us know what we think until we say it?  And actually the whole poetic process shares that.  … Read More

Allen Ginsberg – Ars Poetica – Dallas Texas 1980 – Joe Stanco Interview

October 14, 2017Simon Pettet

Following on from last weekend, and complimentary to an earlier tape that we featured (from Richmond College, Dallas Texas), another video gem from the Stanford Archives – Ars Poetica – An Interview with Allen Ginsberg conducted by Joe Stanco

[The participants begin, caught in conversation, in media res]

JS: Oh. – My name is Joe Stanco and I’m talking today with Allen Ginsberg and, at the moment, we were discussing Ezra Pound who’s certainly..in fact you said, at one point, “the most important American poet since Whitman”

AG: I guess. Yeah. Well… (Because ) he had more effect … Read More

Buddhism and The Beats (Ginsberg 1993 – Q & A)

July 22, 2017Simon Pettet

Following on from last week’s “Buddhists and The Beats” video -the Q & A, the final segment.

Do we have time for questions.?

AG: Yes, sure

Q: You said that your poetry is a practice as well, so..is it..do you meditate every day? do you use poetry as a practice?

AG: It’s a form of practice. I sit now about forty minutes to an hour every day. There have been long periods where I’ve sat for an hour, two hours, every day, and there have been long periods where I have been on retreats where I would sit all day, … Read More

Buddhism and The Beats (Ginsberg 1993 – 2 – Trungpa Rinpoche)

July 16, 2017Simon Pettet

Continuing from yesterday.

[Buddha doodle. Allen Ginsberg. April 5, 1991]

[Mantra: Benefit for Kama Dzong Meditation Center, May 6, 1972. Macky Auditorium, Boulder, CO]

[Allen Ginsberg and Chögyam  Trungpa,  Rinpoche. Benefit for Kama Dzong Meditation Center, May 6, 1972. Macky Auditorium, Boulder, CO. Photo:  Bob Morehouse]

AG : Then, 1972 Trungpa Rinpoche invited me to Boulder to give a poetry reading to raise money for Rocky Mountain Dharma Center along with Robert Bly and Gary Snyder. So I was really pleased to go out and see him in his home territory and went out there and he invited … Read More

Revisiting Jack Kerouac’s Poems – 2

June 7, 2017Simon Pettet

AG: And… more on death… was..(224th Chorus, Mexico City Blues) – “Great God Almighty/, What’s to be done?/O what’s to be done?/ Sings the majestical keener/and moaner/At the Mexican Funeral home -/And from a clap in the up clouds/Comes a clap of clouts,/”All has been done”/As Theravada say “Nothing”/Nada moonshine number, whats been done?/All been done – all singly blessed – /All has been done? The mansion’s/been built and Damema/grown old & died/in burning house within?…” [Damema is Milarepa‘s teacher, Marpa‘s, mother…er wife! – so, odd,  he knew Damema. I think his knowledge of Damema  … Read More

Revisiting Jack Kerouac’s Poems – 1

June 6, 2017Simon Pettet

AG: We don’t have that (Jack) Kerouac poem, let’s see -Kerouac’s serious death shot (you know, mortality) was a poem that ends “Poor!  I wish I were…”  [“Poor! I wish I was..”] – Yeah, I got it, okay… number 211 (in Mexico City Blues)  – (the) 211th Chorus, in Kerouac.. Just to bring this up to “Like To The Falling of A Star” or the little (George) Herbert poem that we had wherein all died – “Virtue”? – “The root is ever in its grave/ And thou must die”, “My music shows ye have your closes,/ And … Read More

Kerouac / Shakespeare

November 2, 2015admin

 

Allen’s  1979 Naropa  class on Basic Poetics continues. He continues surveying the early English poems in the Norton Anthology     AG:  “Merciles Beaute” by Chaucer – (page)  53  –  What I’m hitting are the prettiest.. the prettiest rhythms, prettiest rhythms and images that I remember, that I’ve learned when I was going to high school and college. Apparently, (except, to say. maybe in Canada), most of these texts are no longer taught, even in college, so that most of you who have gone through some sort of schooling haven’t run into them. What really got me was, the first year … Read More

A Detour (Exuberant Shakespearean Parody)

October 27, 2015admin

 

Student:  I have two questions, one is this – that the first time at a poetry reading, (which you’ve referred to here), when you get into writing poetry, do you think that first type of flowery, primary thing… I think, that anyone can, if they want to write poetry, can follow up and get naturally into that, you know. And if you’re crummy at it, it sounds like greetings cards…

AG: Yes Student:  …and if you’re good at it, it sounds like (Ken) Kesey gets into on grass here, when he’s doing all those Shakespearean rants and stuff.  And … Read More

Ginsberg at UMass, Lowell – part 1 (Burroughs and Kerouac)

August 29, 2015admin

 

 

Allen Ginsberg at the UMass (Lowell)

Courtesy the video archives of the Jack and Stella Kerouac Center For Public Humanities (scroll down), Allen Ginsberg speaking on and reading from William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen, Nanao Sakaki, Robert Creeley, Gregory Corso, and John Wieners, recorded at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, 1991 Following a broef introduction by Bill Roberts, the head of the English department (who notes Robert Creeley is in the house) and Hamid Shirvani, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Allen begins speaking AG: Actually, my understanding is that this … Read More

Allen Ginsberg on Jack Kerouac (1982 Workshop at the Kerouac Conference)

August 15, 2015admin

 

[“Jack Kerouac wandering along East 9th Street after visiting (William) Burroughs at our pad, passing statue of Congressman Samuel “Sunset” Cox, “the letter-carrier’s friend” in Tompkins Square toward Corner of Avenue A, Lower East Side, he’s making a Dostoyevsky-mad face or Russian basso be-bop Om, just walking around the neighborhood, then involved with The Subterraneans, pencils & notebook in wool shirt-pocket, Fall 1953, Manhattan” – (Photograph and Inscription by Allen Ginsberg) – c. Allen Ginsberg Estate.]

We’ve been in the past weeks spotlighting Clark Coolidge and Robert Creeley’s remarks at the 1982 symposium on Jack … Read More