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

Allen Ginsberg & Bob Dylan at the Grave of Jack Kerouac

December 23, 2013admin

This little excerpt, this classic excerpt, from Bob Dylan’s lost epic, “Renaldo and Clara” (courtesy of the essential “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg“, Jerry Aronson‘s deluxe two-disc DVD set).  Bob and Allen, in 1975, in Lowell cemetery (Edson cemetery), on the occasion of a stop-over on the legendary Rolling Thunder tour, famously standing together, beside Jack Kerouac’s grave, musing, (Allen’s certainly taking the lead), in memento mori.  Allen (gesticulating towards the grave):”So that’s what’s gonna happen to you?”  Dylan: “No, I want to be in an unmarked grave.” The clip begins with … Read More

Is There A Beat Generation? (Brandeis/NYC 1958)

October 27, 2013admin

Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr and Allen Ginsberg

Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg]

Our thanks to the wonderful Open Culture for alerting us/reminding us of this one, the legendary 1958 discussion at the Brandeis University Club in New York City on the subject  “Is There a Beat Generation?“. Joseph Kauffman, Dean of Students at Brandeis University serves as a moderator to a panel consisting of authors, Jack Kerouac and Kingsley Amis, New York Post editor, James Wechsler, and anthropologist, Dr Ashley Montagu. Kerouac’s heart-felt, erratic, passionate drunken talk is, quite simply, priceless. (“The question [Is There a Beat Generation?] is very silly … Read More

Jack Kerouac’s Birthday

March 12, 2013admin

[Jack Kerouac – 1942 Naval Reserve photograph – courtesy The Archive – Sketches on Kerouac]

[Jack Kerouac – Staten Island Ferry Dock, New York City 1953 (Photo c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

Jack Kerouac’s birthday today! – Happy Birthday, Jack! – Had he lived, he would have been (strange vision!) 91 years old.

Here are some of our more choice Jack Kerouac posts from the Allen Ginsberg Project:

Here‘s Allen reading from Dharma Bums, here‘s Kerouac reading from American Haiku (for more vintage Kerouac recordings, check out these resources here). Here and here are the (video) record … Read More