Bob Rosenthal Interview (On Photography) – 2

August 28, 2018Simon Pettet

John Shoesmith’s interview with Bob Rosenthal continues

JS: Would the captions change much then, the more he was captioning? Especially some of the iconic ones which he must have captioned dozens of times.

BR: Sometimes the difference would be the change of an adjective, a tweaking, but sometimes something will come up and it gets longer and longer. They all build on each other. Writing about it is the memory of the sacred. This is what the prints represent. But those silver gelatin prints, they have an eternal etching to them, and the way the eyes look, the communication is … Read More

Jacqueline Gens Interview – part 2

August 21, 2018Simon Pettet

Robert Frank – New York City, September 1993 – photo: Allen Ginsberg]

John Shoesmith interviews Jacqueline Gens on Allen Ginsberg’s Photography – continues

JS: Do you have any favourites from the collection?

JG: I loved the portraits from the 1980s. The one of Juanita Lieberman, from the Twelve Trees book, one of the few females he photographed, I think that’s a magnificent one, the stress that’s going on between Peter (Orlovsky, her boyfriend) and Juanita is clearly seen in her face. And then there’s Anne Waldman, Allen’s long-time friend and colleague, the famous Joanne Kyger photo taken … Read More

Sid Kaplan Interview – part 2

August 14, 2018Simon Pettet

[Sid Kaplan – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg]

John Shoesmith interview with Sid Kaplan on his work as printer of Allen Ginsberg’s photography continues 

 

JS: I’m sure that famous Kerouac photo on the fire escape was one you probably could have done in your sleep, seeing as you probably printed it dozens of times.

SK: That was very tricky print to do. It was very underdeveloped, and at the time, I didn’t have the magic fluid handy. What happened with the Kerouac thing, we had it printed on a very hard grade of paper. The difference between the face and … Read More

Brian Graham on The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg

August 6, 2018Simon Pettet

[Brian Graham – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg]

Brian Graham‘s journey from his birthplace of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia to New York City bgan in the early 1980’s when he met the famed photographer Robert Frank, who for many years has spent his summers in the Maritimes. Sensing that Graham was curious about photography, Frank invited him to New York City. While he began with carpentry work at Frank’s Bleecker Street apartment, it eventually led to helping Frank in the darkroom. “I learned how to print with Robert in the darkroom, which was really something.” Graham eventually established his … Read More

Kerouac-Cassady (Jack Kerouac Scat Singing)

June 25, 2018Simon Pettet

[Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac – Photograph by Carolyn Cassady]

We continue this week mining the treasure which is the extraordinary trove of audio at the Allen Ginsberg archives, now housed at Stanford University.

Today, a remarkable discovery – Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. The tape (there are two copies, actually, 131 and 132) is simply (and with no further information ) titled “Kerouac and Cassady, San Jose, 1952, William Burroughs“. (Burroughs, in fact, doesn’t appear on the tape (in those days ayahuasca-hunting in South America), but there’s some wonderful speculation on him)  … Read More

Seymour Wyse

May 19, 2018Simon Pettet

[Seymour Wyse, Horace Mann School, 1940 (courtesy of Dave Moore)]  

Returning to the extraordinary trove of tapes of Allen now in the archives at Stanford University, here’s a recently-discovered gem – Allen, in 1981, at Leicester University, in England, in conversation with the figure who turned on the young  Jack Kerouac to a rich and life-long appreciation of jazz,  his old Horace Mann schoolmate – Seymour Wyse. 

Edie Parker Kerouac (remembering Seymour Wyse, in Boulder, the following year) : “Yeah and he used to scat, and he and Jack used to do this together. And the first time, … Read More

Sapphic Concision (“On Neal Cassady’s Ashes”)

May 7, 2018Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg’s 1980 Naropa “Basic Poetics” class continues from here

AG: I took a poem that I had written, that was in an almost-Sapphic style, in 1968, “On Neal Cassady’s Ashes”, (which is a little classic, which is in some anthologies already. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with it) …Yeah…and I re-wrote it last night, also, so it would fit (the) Sapphic form. I had to take out about six words and it all fit, so it goes… And I found it..  I had done it unconsciously already, because the original first line was … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 359

March 30, 2018Simon Pettet

[Carl Solomon at home in the Bronx, 1991 – Photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries]

Today, Friday March 30th. is Howl dedicatee, Carl Solomon‘s birthday. For last year’s Carl Solomon posting (“Remembering Carl Solomon”) – see here)

It’s also the anniversary of Rimbaud‘s lover, the poet, Paul Verlaine‘s birthday.  (For a posting on Verlaine’s “Chanson d’Automne” – see here)

And, while we’re on the subject of anniversaries – Our dear friend Bob Creeley died on this date thirteen years ago. Much missed, thinking of you, Bob.

David S Will’s Beatdom continues to deliver challenging A.G. … Read More

Allen Ginsberg’s Psalm

March 20, 2018Simon Pettet

[“”Ah, but to have seen the Dove of still/Divinity..” – (Allen Ginsberg) – see above – painting by Jack Kerouac]

continuing from yesterday

AG: Okay, I’ll finish this (poem) [“Psalm”], it’s not that much, I’m going to read it through and we’ll have it – “And I write shadow changes into bone/To say that still Word, the prophetic image/Beyond our present strength of flesh to bear./ Incarnate in the rain as in the sea./Watches out for us out of our eyes/What sweet dream to be some incorruptible/Divinity, corporeal without a name,/Suffering metamorphosis of flesh/  Holy are the Visions of the … Read More

Jack Kerouac’s Birthday

March 12, 2018Simon Pettet

Jack Kerouac’s birthday today. Strange to think he would be 96! From our good friend, Kerouac literary executor, Jim Sampas:

Excerpt from Letter Jack Kerouac to Neal Cassady, Dec. 28,  1950

“All my life I was fascinated by the first thaws of New England March; not until I was told I was actually born in the midst of one did I vaguely remember the day of my birth, or is this too far-fetched? Not in the least (my darkface protests across the continent to thee.) I remember it, I remember the day of my birth. I remember the … Read More