July 19 (Mayakovsky’s Birthday)
July 19, 2017
Today, July 19, the great poet, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, was born in Baghdati, Georgia. We’ve featured Mayakovsky numerous times here on the Allen Ginsberg Project. For example, here and here. The fourteen-part series, Allen’s 1981 focus (with in-class presentation by Ann Charters)  begins here, and continues  here, here and […]
Peter Orlovsky Parinirvana
May 30, 2017
Peter Orlovsky’s Parinirvana.  Allen Ginsberg’s long-time companion, died, seven years ago, on this day.  Those who knew him will certainly never forget Peter. His remarkable and inspired book of poems, Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs, idiosyncratic spellings and all, is quite like any other book of poems. His papers (now[…]
Studs Terkel 1959 Radio Interview – Part 2
September 11, 2016
Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg, 1959 continuing from yesterday – the Studs Terkel interview Studs Terkel: :Question, question. Anybody can answer it –  Do you believe you represent the young generation of poets today? Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky: No, no, no, no, we’re pariahs! ST: Oh,[…]
Expansive Poetics — 95 ( Q & A – Classroom Scraps)
August 7, 2014
Classroom Scraps – Here’s some Q & A at the end of Allen’s August 11 1981 Naropa Class – AG: Well, I’ve been talking steadily , so now I’ll shut up. Student: Did (Vladimir) Mayakovsky and his group..[…]
Expansive Poetry – 60 – (A Quick Review)
May 5, 2014
] AG (looking back on “Expansive Poetics”, so far): We had started with a few early precursors. I started, (since this was an international shot  – or, at least, a Western shot), I started with a couple of[…]
Expansive Poetics- 57 (Mayakovsky – At The Top of My Voice)
April 29, 2014
Ann Charters: So we’d like to do a few more things before we end, and the poem which you have in your anthology, “At The Top of My Voice“, which was written a few months before the suicide, in January 1930. AG: Should we have that in Russian first?[…]
Expansive Poetics – 56 (Mayakovsky-The Bedbug)
April 28, 2014
Ann Charters: How much time do we have?   AG: We actually have have half an hour, but what I would like to do is get a piece of that  then go to “..At The Top of My Voice” (which Richard Poe has prepared in Russian, and we have in English).[…]
Expansive Poetics – 55 – (Mayakovsky and Tatiana)
April 24, 2014
Ann Charters:  Well, again, with Mayakovsky, this his public declaration – “Conversation with a Tax Collector About Poetry“  – was followed shortly on by another private experience that actually marks the end, or the beginning of the end, of his life.  […]