Sapphic Concision (“On Neal Cassady’s Ashes”)
May 7, 2018
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[…]
William Carlos Williams’ Sappho
May 2, 2018
We continue today with transcription from Allen’s May 29, 1980, Basic Poetics classes at Naropa.  We’ve almost come to the end of this series of transcriptions.  Following on from an examination of Christopher Smart and his “Jubilate Agno”, Allen examines William Carlos Williams‘ translation (in Paterson) of a fragment of Sappho.’ AG[…]
Basic Poetics Continuing – (Sappho)
April 9, 2018
We’ve been transcribing and  serializing Allen’s 1980 Basic Poetics classes at Naropa and we’re almost at the end. In May 15, May 18, and May 22, he discusses Sappho and the Sapphic meter and gives various examples of poets working with this ancient form  (see our previous transcription of these classes, for[…]
Allen Ginsberg – Richland College reading – part 2
October 1, 2017
Allen Ginsberg’s 1980 Richland College reading – continuing from yesterday AG: So I would say now move on to.. 1956- moving on from 1956 to 1976. I have a series of poems which will require some music also – “Father Death Blues” – if we can get together on the stage –[…]
Composition and Condensation – 1
August 21, 2017
AG:  And then there was another thing.. I was talking with…Rachel …with Rachel..and we were talking about composition and condensation of poems and ..some ideas crystallized that might be useful. I’ve talked about it before I thought but apparently I had never said it[…]
Allen Ginsberg Reading At Warwick University, 1979
January 22, 2017
Allen Ginsberg Reading At Warwick University, 1979  (continuing from yesterday) AG: I’ll begin since – oh we were discussing the subject . I’ll begin with a song dedicated to another fellow in prison, David Solomon[…]
Ginsberg on Late Auden
September 29, 2015
W.H.Auden (1907-1973)   AG: So from that (from Robert Bridges),  we get into, I think you have the Vernon Watkins and the.. Student: Auden AG: There’s[…]
Swinburne, Pound and Bridges
September 28, 2015
AG: Did I do that last time? . If you listen to the way he handles it, it’s a direct transmission from him up to Ezra Pound up to modern days and into this classroom – “In the month of the long decline of roses/I, beholding the[…]
Sapphics continued – (Tennyson)
September 24, 2015
                Alfred, Lord Tennyson ( 1809-1892)- Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron Allen continues with his survey of Sapphics, going through further pages of his xerox-compiled classroom anthology  AG:   – You can take one of those that says “Sapphic anthology, two bucks”…and then the bag.. not two bucks for one[…]
Anselm Hollo on Fragments
September 19, 2015
  Sappho, fragments of  poems, Graeco-Roman Egypt, 2nd Century AD, in the collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford   Anselm Hollo (1934-2013) teaching at Naropa The following is a transcription of a class, given on June 25 1986, at Naropa, by the late much-missed poet-translator, polymath  Anselm Hollo, nominally on “The Greek[…]