Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 368

June 1, 2018Simon Pettet

June 3 – this Sunday – is Allen’s birthday. To celebrate the Howl Happening Gallery in New York City has organized once again it’s now-annual event.  This year it features David Amram, Ed Sanders, Hettie Jones, Eileen Myles, Simon Pettet, and Peter Hale (manager of the Ginsberg Estate), amongst others. The event will be hosted and m-c’d   by Ginsberg’s “right hand man“, his long-time secretary, the poet Bob Rosenthal (whose long-awaited memoir, Straight Around Allen, is due out this Fall). There’ll be a film presentation, and an energetic group-reading of “Howl” (“I saw … Read More

Celebrating Joanne Kyger

November 19, 2011admin

Today is the wonderful Joanne Kyger‘s birthday. We salute and we celebrate her. We draw your attention first to our last year’s posting (which included various photographs, and links to her 2007 reading at the University of California, Berkeley). Here’s another Kyger reading (from Columbia College, Chicago, the following year. Here is her page on PennSound which includes such gems as her appearance in 1965 at the Berkeley Poetry Conference, a 1971 (and 2011!) reading in Bolinas, a 1976 reading at San Francisco’s Intersection, reading (rare video) in New York in 1978, a reading … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up 1

November 12, 2010admin

[Allen Ginsberg & Steven Taylor, Passaic Falls, Paterson, NJ, May 1978. photo: c. Terry Sanders]

NEW JERSEY ‘S BARD

Allen was always proud of – and rightly so – his New Jersey roots. This past weekend, several young poets from that State gathered together at The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College for the annual Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, “honoring Allen Ginsberg’s Contribution to American Literature.”

In a related story, Allen is – and, perhaps surprisingly, given the company – among those nominated for the 2011 New Jersey Hall of Fame in what appears to be a spirited … Read More

Peter Orlovsky Memorial – Wednesday September 22, 2010, St. Mark’s Church

September 16, 2010admin

Dated material: There will be a memorial reading for poet, Peter Orlovsky on Wednesday, September 22,  (2010) 8pm. St. Mark’s Church. 10th St at 2nd Ave, NYC. The event is free.

Peter Orlovsky (July 8,1933-May 30, 2010) Poet, singer, farmer, yodeler, banjo-picker, Buddhist practitioner, Allen Ginsberg’s lifelong-companion, Kerouac’s Simon Darlovsky in Desolation Angels & George in The Dharma Bums, the generous & wonderfully whimsical Peter Orlovsky, was an unforgettable & hugely colorful presence in the East Village, and in and around the Poetry Project.

Please join us in a night of music, video, song and poetry, as some of his … Read More

Some More YouTube Gems

December 3, 2009admin

Our friend, poet Simon Pettet, has been scouring the web this last few weeks and tracked down some things we had no idea existed, others we’d forgotten.

First off is “The Ballad of the Skeletons,” directed by Gus Van Sant, from 1996. This aired on MTVs buzz chart through the month of October during the last days Clinton/Dole Presidential race. Tom Freston was wanting more politically engaged content for the days leading up to the election and had suggested Allen do a video for his Ballad of the Skeletons track he’d recorded with Paul McCartney, Lenny Kaye and Philip … Read More

The Poetry Project/School of Visual Arts/NYU & Columbia University Present: Naked Lunch @ 50

September 24, 2009admin

Three New York locations this week celebrating the 50th anniversary of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch 

screen-shot-2016-11-18-at-11-31-25-amWednesday October 7- Saturday October 10

School of Visual Arts (SVA), in conjunction with Columbia University and New York University (NYU), are presenting a series of free events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch, with Screenings, talks and readings at all locations. Check the SVA website for complete schedule & list of guests, which will include poet Michael McClure, Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris (editor Yage Letters Redux, The Letters of William Burroughs 1945-1959) , Barry Miles (The Beat Hotel), Regina … Read More