Jack Collom (1931-2017)

July 2, 2017Simon Pettet

Following the death of Larry Fagin, news reaches us this morning of the death of another of the great Naropa poet-teachers, Jack Collom. When Allen and Anne Waldman set up the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in 1974 in Boulder, Colorado, Colorado already had one distinctive inventive joyful maverick poet at hand, Jack Collom. He was swiftly engaged in the experiment and soon (not soon enough, as we recall) became an integral part of the faculty. This page (from the Naropa University Archive) provides links to countless instances of Jack’s participation. We might, arbitrarily, single out … Read More

Naropa Summer Writing Program 2017

June 10, 2017Simon Pettet

Starting tomorrow – the 2017 session of the Naropa Summer Writing Program.

Here are all the details. From June 11 to July 1st – “The New Weathers” – Anne Waldman explains: “By The New Weathers, we intend to name the ramifications of climate change wrought in the Anthropocene. The luminous details evidencing these changes abound, and daily the case of inevitably grows. These are urgent days, and a new world is possible––and this world is yet worth struggling for. To face facts with creative and spirited resolve; to see through webs of ignorance and power; to witness and study, … Read More

Allen Ginsberg Is Sidney The Lawyer

November 26, 2013admin

It Don’t Pay To Be An Honest Citizen, Jacob Burckhardt‘s 1985 movie with Reed Bye, Yoshiko Chuma, David Brisbin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and cameos by both Allen (“Sidney the lawyer”) and William Burroughs (“Paul, the neighborhood mafia don” [not included in the excerpt given here]), is a curiously-dated, rarely-seen, but priceless, “lost”, underground “Beat” treasure.  The plot revolves around (the charmingly-wooden) “Warren” (Reed Bye), a documentary film-maker, the titular “honest citizen”, (victim of a late-night mugging, with the resultant theft, not only of his money but, of his precious stolen film – He desperately needs to … Read More