Czeslaw Milosz

September 30, 2015admin

 

 

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg, courtesy the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Allen Ginsberg Collection

TO ALLEN GINSBERG Allen, you  good man, great poet of the murderous century, who persisting in folly attained wisdom I confess to you, my life was not as I would have liked it to be  And now, when it has passed, is lying like a discarded tire by the road It was no different from the life of millions from which you rebelled in the name of poetry and an omnipresent God It was submitted to customs … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 228

July 24, 2015admin

From the interesting collection – Literary Ephemera – 14 Postcards From Popular Authors:

 – “Dear Ed (White) – Sorry we keep missing each other, love to Justin. I have been occupied learning music, recording new original songs, collecting all my old recent poetry, returning from traveling. I just haven’t had time to stop & renew nostalgia everywhere – fancied – see you one xmas or another soon I hope – Saw a little magazine with one of your letters of Jack [Kerouac]. I visited his mother and widow in St Petersburg this year, [1970] finally, & sang them Blake’s … Read More

Meditation and Poetics – 37 (Wales Visitation)

January 27, 2015admin

 

 [Allen Ginsberg – Autograph and Typescript Working Draft of a portion of the 1967 poem “Wales Visitation“]

AG: I want to follow that up [that reading and discussion of Wordsworth’s “..Tintern Abbey”] with a poem of my own related to that, taking off from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”, approaching a similar problem, or taking a similar approach to the problem – in this case, how to deal with phantasms, thought-forms, furies, monsters, of an acid trip, in poetry.  First of all, how to deal with the problem of in that exalted, or high, state of acid … Read More

Ginsberg – Scribble

December 21, 2014admin

[Kenneth Rexroth  & Edith Piaf]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here‘s the very first poem that opens “The Lion For Real”  (published in Reality Sandwiches) – Kenneth Rexroth and Edith Piaf – a brief but poignant lyric, Scribble     

Steve Swallow‘ s on piano, Michael Blair on guitar, Ralph Carney on clarinet. Allen’s sleeve note – “Casual note, a long melancholic affectionate 1956 thought about the late irascible Bay Area anarchist Poet, Kenneth Rexroth, might be 4 A.M. in the soul that Michael Blair’s music mirrors”

Scribble 
Rexroth’s face reflecting human            tired bliss … Read More

Nicanor Parra’s 100th Birthday

September 5, 2014admin

 

[“Nicanor Parra Anti-Poet, professor of Newtonian physics, University of Santiago Chile, my host a month 1960. We couldn’t get a cab downtown from his daughter Catalina on 110 St. N.Y.C. so took Subway to N.Y.U.– here  stopped between stations, September 5, 1984 – Nicanor Para Anti-Poet on Subway from 110 Street Broadway downtown to N.Y.U. September 5, 1984”- Photo: Allen Ginsberg]
[Nicanor Parra, Miguel Grinberg, Allen Ginsberg, Maria-Rosa, Havana, February 1965. Photographer unknown]

 

[Allen Ginsberg and Nicanor Parra, National Arts Club, New York City, January 1984. Photo: Beryl Sokoloff]

Today’s a momentous day –  it’s Nicanor Parra‘s … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 22 (Lorca – 3)

January 29, 2014admin

AG: We might get on to this [Lorca’s “Llanto por la muerte de Ignacio Sanchez Mejias“  (“Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias“)], because this is a very amazing piece of rhetoric, depending a lot on repetition. (It’s at the end of the book) “A las cinco de la tarde” (I guess the Spanish would be subject more to intelligence) – “tarde“- “A las cinco de la tarde/Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde” – It was exactly five in the afternoon  – “Eran las cinco en punto..” – Right on the point – “…de la tarde/Un … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 20 (Lorca -1)

January 27, 2014admin

[Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)]

[Lorca’s Passport]

AG: How many know this poem? – Lorca’s “Ode to Walt Whitman”?  One, two, three, four, five, six. seven. Anybody else over there? How many do not? Oh great, great.  I think this is my idea of the greatest poem of the century, or this is my idea of what.. between this and (Guillaume) Apollinaire’s “Zone” (“Zone”, because it was original, it was the first one that invented Surrealist mind, breaking-apart, this, because it took elemental Spanish lyric passionate intensity and mixed it up with Surrealist cut-up, so to speak – the Surrealist … Read More

Friday ‘s Weekly Round-Up – 162

January 24, 2014admin

Allen Ginsberg, el poeta beat visitó Córdoba hace veinte años

For all our Spanish-speaking readers, Luis Costa Palacios’ piece, in Diaro Cordoba, recalling, twenty years ago, Allen’s visit to that city, is well worth a read. He came, as part of a delegation to the XVII Congreso Internacional de Aedean [Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo Norteamericanos], and his appearance, in Palacios’  words, “suscitó una enorme expectación” (sparked a huge buzz), “fue sorprendente” (was surprising) – “su producción poética, una de las más poderosas e influyentes de los últimos cincuenta años, es magnífica y variada, como se puso de manifiesto en aquel recital. Había en su tono y actitud algo grandioso, … Read More

Arabic America

July 25, 2013Simon Pettet

We featured this past July 4, Allen’s still-surprisingly-relevant 1956 poem, “America”. Here’s Moroccan poet & scholar, El Habib Louai‘s, Arabic translation. He is currently working to translate Allen’s complete collected poems into Arabic.

America

أمــــــــــــــــــريـــــــــكـــــــــــــا

. أمريكا لقد منحتك كل شيء وها أنا الآن لا شيء

أمريكا، دولارين وسبعة وعشرين سنتيمات،

سبعة عشر ينايرألف وتسع مائة وست وخمسين

. أنا لا أستطيع أن أحافظ على رأيي الخاص

أمريكا متى سننهي الحرب على الإنسانية؟

انكحي نفسك بقنبلتك الذرية!

أنا لا أشعر أنني بحالة جيدة

. لا تزعجني

. لن أكتب قصيدتي حتى يستقيم رأي

أمريكا متى ستصبحين بريئة؟

متى ستخلعين … Read More