Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 370

June 15, 2018Simon Pettet

[Issa (1763-1828) – Portrait by Muramatsu Shunpo (1772-1858) (Issa Memorial Hall, Shinano, Nagano, Japan]

It’s the anniversary today (born 1763) of the birth of the great Japanese haiku poet, Issa

[Nanao Sakakai –  “Inch By Inch” – translations of Issa – “Katatsumuri Sort-soronobore Fujinoyama” (“Inch by inch -/Little snail/Creep up and up Mt.Fuji”)]

For more of Allen-on-haiku – see here and here – and here

For Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche‘s  informative insights on haiku – see here

For Allen’s Mostly Sitting Haiku – see here

For some of  Jack Kerouac‘s haiku – see here 

Happy Birthday Issa!

Beat Attitude… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 339

October 27, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, photographed by  Kiyohide Hori]

Never did get around to mentioning Kiyohide Hori’s photo-show of Allen and of the Howl manuscript that took place (sadly now it’s down) in Japan this past summer

More Japanese news… “the Allen Ginsberg-inspired capsule”? – Some fervid debate in the “Comments” section here – “This is everything Allen Ginsberg stood against. These guys obviously know nothing about Allen Ginsberg or what he was all about. The poor guy must be turning in his grave” – (which elicits the response: “Please enlighten us. He was against materialism, which could be related … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 242

October 30, 2015admin

 

 

 

Just out this month, from Blackberry Books, Franco Beltrametti’s posthumous collection, From Almost Everywhere  Gary Snyder on Franco Beltrametti: “Franco Beltrametti’s smooth-barked Muse leads him across the grids of latitude and longitude to the source of good medicine poems. A suavity masks these elemental songs – or rather, gives these elder faces a modern “human” mask. Civilized in the best sense”. and Joanne Kyger: “From “a crowded place called “future” Franco Beltrametti arrives, once again, with subtle eloquence to surprise us with his unexpected nuances and turns. These poems give us his presence….calling up … Read More

Ginsberg at UMass, Lowell, part 2 – (Whalen,Sakaki, Creeley,Wieners, Corso

August 30, 2015admin

 

Allen Ginsberg’s Beat class (at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell) continues

 
AG: There’s another interesting poet almost as old as (Jack) Kerouac, that was part of the..what was called San Francisco Renaissance – Philip Whalen. Anybody ever heard of him? [a show of hands] – a few – He’s… Now, as you know, there is some interest n Buddhism and Zen – Kerouac’s Dharma Bums – and Philip Whalen was a prototype for Kerouac’s character, [Ben Fagan in Big Sur] Warren Coughlin, in Dharma Bums.

And Whalen now is the Abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center

… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 180

June 20, 2014admin

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[Bill Morgan, Joanne Kyger and Michael McClure at the San Francisco launch at City Lights Bookstore June 18 2014, for Peter Orlovsky – A Life In Words]

Wednesday-night saw the launch in San Francisco of Peter Orlovsky – A Life In Words – Intimate Chronicles of A Beat Writer.  Next stop, Boulder, Colorado.

 

Frank O’Hara, whose poems, Allen memorably wrote, “taught me to really see New York for the first time” (“like having Catullus change your view of the Forum in Rome” (!)) is currently being feted by City Lights, with a brand-new, expanded, … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 178

June 6, 2014admin

 

Two weeks since the last “Round-Up”, so let’s get right down to it… Not-to-be-missed – Distant Neighbors, the Selected Letters between Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, just published by Counterpoint. Watch the video of the two together, in conversation, at the recent (2014)  Festival of  Faiths in Louisville, Kentucky (moderated by publisher, Jack Shoemaker).  There’ll be conversing again on June 27 in Santa Rosa. An interview with Gary Snyder on “Buddhism, Beat Poetry and Environmentalism” may be accessed here.  Jack Kerouac‘s notebooks –  Joshua Rothman at The New Yorker reminded us of … Read More

New Years Eve (Looking Back on 2013 & Forward to 2014)

December 31, 2013admin

[“Buddhist (and one non-Buddhist) Action Figures” Photograph by Reverend Danny Fisher 2013]

Last posting of 2013, we thought we’d list a few of our “greatest hits” from the past year – January – Nanao Sakaki and Allen Ginsberg singing “Birdbrain” in Osaka, Japan, February – William Burroughs’ 99th (next year will be Burroughs centennial), March – (speaking of nonagenarians) Ferlinghetti was 94, April – the Beats and the rock muse – “Text and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, May – our Bob Dylan birthday posting, (this year – “The Night Bob Came Around” (and the night… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round Up – 139

August 16, 2013Peter Hale

Sometime last Monday, the one millionth page-viewing of The Allen Ginsberg Project took place. Thank you anonymous page-viewer. We sort of like the idea of not knowing who you are. Thank you all our page-viewers, all our visitors, all our regulars (most especially, our “Google Friends” – here’s another request/invite to become a “Google Friend”, if you’re not already one – also, another previously-offered request, don’t be shy in getting back to us on individual posts, using the “Comments” button).

Now, on with our regular “Friday Round Up”.

Well, a relatively quiet one this week. Patti Smith (and collaborator/accompanist, Philip … Read More

Friday Weekly Round-Up – 126

May 17, 2013admin

The DVD documentary – Jerry Aronson’s The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (2008) was re-released this week by Docudrama. What can we say? – If you still don’t have it, an essential item.

Michael Kammen’s essay on Jack Kerouac in the L.A. Review of Books, “Jack Kerouac’s Restless Odyssey and His New Life ‘On The Road'”, (reviewing, among other things, Joyce Johnson’s recent biography), has had some tongues wagging.

Speaking of L.A, here‘s Elaine Woo’s obituary of Taylor Mead in the L.A.Times (more memories and obituary notices on Taylor can be found here, here and … Read More

What The East Means To Me – Allen Ginsberg at Kyota Seika

May 12, 2013admin

Yesterday’s transcription of Allen’s Q & A at the Kyoto Seika University, Japan, on November 2 1988, is followed today by footage (and transcription) of the full lecture – “What the East Means To Me” – Katagiri Yuzuru is once again the accomplished interpreter/translator. Our thanks, once again, to videographer, Ken Rodgers.

AG: So.. the subject is “What the East Means To Me”. So I will give a chronological account. One of my first memories was of the Pop figure, Pop art figure, kitsch figure, or comic-strip figure of a sinister Oriental, a Chinaman, Fu Manchu. He had a long … Read More