The Barry Farber Interview – 1

April 7, 2018Simon Pettet

 

[Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1966. photo: Larry Keenan Jr. ]

Drawing this weekend from the remarkable Stanford archives. We begin with a tape from 1976, Allen and company in conversation with conservative talk-show host Barry Farber, a two-hour radio appearance (We’ll be featuring it in segments – In the first, today, the opening salvos, he has to defend himself against Farber’s avuncular but also barbed and somewhat patronizing knee-jerk anti-Communism)

BF: Broadcasters all like to do different things with Allen Ginsberg. I’m going to copy what Bill Buckley did with him one time on television I … 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

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 349

January 19, 2018Simon Pettet

Opening tonight in New York, at the New York Public Library, You Say You Want A Revolution – Remembering the Sixties – a comprehensive exhibition, drawn from the library’s holdings, “exploring the breadth and significance of this pivotal era—from communal living and forays into expanded consciousness to tensions around race, politics, sexuality, and the environment”.  Items on display, include manuscripts from Allen, (and from Burroughs and Kerouac), “Changing of the Guards”, (an original typescript by Bob Dylan),  and notations from Timothy Leary on his LSD research, (alongside much else).

It’s Edgar Allan Poe‘s birthday today! – … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 316

May 19, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg with Jon Sholle at the recording for Allen Ginsberg/William Blake – The Songs of Innocence and Experience]

Excited to have received early advance copies  of  Pat Thomas‘ remarkable follow-up to the The Last Word on First Blues  CD-set, (release-date isn’t until June 23) – the  two-CD re-packaging of the Blake songs – The Complete Songs of Innocence and Experience.

For a previous announcement on that important and highly-anticipated project – see here

Did we mention, May 8th, Gary Snyder‘s recent 87th birthday – this?  (an extensive and illuminating interview in Lion’s Roar ) –  … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 282

August 26, 2016admin
[Allen Ginsberg working late]

                                           [Allen Ginsberg’s Desk – Drawing by Allen Ginsberg]

The second-part of an in-depth interview with Michael Horowitz, Timothy Leary’s longtime archivist, recently appeared. The first (posted back in November 2015) can be seen here.  The second, brings Allen in to the picture (Lisa Rein, the Archives digital librarian, is the interviewer):

LR: What was the dynamic between Ginsberg and Leary? MH: The synergy between them was powerful. There’s a … Read More

Investigative Poetics – 9 (Smoking Typewriters – 2 – “The Sixties”)

November 13, 2013admin

[National Guardsmen wielding rifles with bayonets advanced along Springfield Avenue in Newark on July 14 1967 – Photograph Don Hogan Charles for The New York Times]

AG: “Investigative Poetics, I think, at this point, would have to go into the whole cultural and social and political and artistic history of the “Sixties, (which was quite a vast, traumatic, revolutionary time), and re-investigate a great many things that happened of an intellectual-symbolic nature, to find out what was the story behind it. Because a great deal more of it was manipulated than we realize” and one of the major … Read More

McClure & DiPrima

October 21, 2013admin

[Michael McClure and Diane Di Prima in 1997 in San Framcisco “Remembering The Summer of Love”]

Following up from yesterday’s post (on Michael McClure‘s birthday), here’s two great San Franciscans, Michael and the beloved Diane di Prima (for more on Diane’s current health crisis – see here), reading on the 30th Anniversary of 1967, the fabled “Summer of Love”. Michael begins with a brief haiku – “NOTH/ING/NESS/OF/Intelligence;/silver/sunlight/ through/ closed/ eyelids”. Diane reads a poem for Timothy Leary and then follows it with her elegy to Allen –  “Allen Ginsberg – A Moment of Grieving”  – “Allen’s face … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 146

October 4, 2013admin

Joep Bremmers‘ “Ik en mijn plasje – Allen Ginsberg in Vlissingen” (“Me and my peepee”), his study of Allen’s January 1, 1983, visit to the Dutch town of Vlissingen (and the occasion of the poem “What The Sea Throws Up At Vlissingen” (included in White Shroud – Poems 1980-1985)), will be celebrated tomorrow in Vlissingen with a gala event, featuring, among others, Eddie Woods, Bremmers himself – and The Mondriaan String Quartet, who will perform, not only “September on Jessore Road” as they originally recorded it (Bremmers in his book discusses that recording), but also, several other poems, … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 144

September 20, 2013admin

[Leonardo DiCaprio and Allen Ginsberg – Photograph by Jerry Aronson]  

“The film of the year”? – “The film of the year”? –  Well, obviously, we had to run this one! – Rebecca Cope, in Harpers Bazaar, on Kill Your Darlings.  Kill Your Darlings “buzz” continues to roll on, full pace. Here’s Timothy M Gray, in Variety: “The chief lure of “Darlings” for mainstream audiences and kudos voters will be word of mouth about (Daniel)Radcliffe’s breakthrough performance [as Allen Ginsberg], though the film has many other assets…Radcliffe said he’s dissimilar to Ginsberg, but added, “We are both

… Read More

Spontaneous Poetics – 119 (Wordsworth – 6)

August 16, 2013Peter Hale

[William Wordsworth (1770-1850)]

Allen’s Spontaneous and Improvised Poetics Naropa lectures of the summer of 1976 pick up again on August 4th, 1976

AG: I want to continue a little bit more with Wordsworth, because what I did was leave him with disillusionment with the French Revolution. (I left him) with his troubles, his political troubles, which are similar to the troubles that we’ve got [USA, 1976 – sic]. I was looking over “The Prelude” yesterday, where he continues, at great length, about his disillusionment, and I’ll read you just a couple of sentences from that (because it’s not … Read More