Allen Ginsberg 1985 Naropa reading

December 31, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in 1985]

Continuing from yesterday’s Eric Mottram-Philip Whalen reading

Allen Ginsberg  (following some brief announcements of upcoming readings by Anne Waldman)

Anne Waldman introduces Allen Ginsberg:;

AW: Allen Ginsberg – Guggenheim Fellow and member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters, the author of Howl, Kaddish, Planet News, The Fall of America, Mind Breaths, Plutonian Ode, Poems 1977-1980. His Collected Poems was published in January 1985 by Harper and Row. He has recently returned from China where he has been lecturing at the invitation of the Chinese Writers Union. He’s sung with Bob Dylan and The Clash,… Read More

Ginsberg and China

September 9, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, Yangtze River Gorge, China, 1984]

 [Allen Ginsberg: Selected Poems –1947-1997, (Chinese translation by Wen Chu-An)  (2000)]

Allen Ginsberg in China is our focus this weekend.

Allen and China – great news! -.a new (first-time!) edition of his Collected Poems is due out very soon in that country  (hopefully in November)  – translated and edited by the young Ming Hui and published by  Shanghai ’99.…..

There’s, a little Chinese background.

From our friend Jim Cohn‘s estimable web-site, The Museum of American Poetics: “In 1982, Allen Ginsberg was a member of a U.S. Writers’ Delegation that hosted … Read More

Allen Ginsberg at Cheltenham 1993

May 27, 2017Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg, in 1993, reading at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in England. The feature today on The Allen Ginsberg Project. Allen reads a selection of poems, (mostly from White Shroud and the, subsequently-published Cosmpolitan Greetings

Introduction: Good evening everybody and some of you I’m sure came to the event where Allen Ginsberg was being interviewed by John Calder here today and will have suffered as Mr Ginsberg did the problems of the weather and British Rail. Years ago Allen Ginsberg wrote of Jack Kerouac that he was the sole full-moving thing, earlier today I’m afraid Allen Ginsberg was the sole … Read More

Francesco Clemente

October 29, 2014admin

[Allen Ginsberg (Portrait)  1982-1987 – Francesco Clemente – Water-color on paper 14 x 20 ins]

 

Six beautiful images from Francesco Clemente’s web-site today (all from the ‘Eighties). One water-color portrait and five elegant collaborations (three from Black Shroud, one from White Shroud, and a concluding work, from “Images from Mind and Space“). No particular reason to be featuring Clemente today, other than that these are breath-taking images. Reason enough.  A previous post on The Allen Ginsberg Project on Francesco Clemente, incidentally, may be seen here 

[from “White Shroud” – Allen Ginsberg &  Francesco Clemente, 1983 – Ink, … Read More

Allen Ginsberg 1990 Loyola University reading

March 22, 2014admin

A Night With Allen Ginsberg – Allen Ginsberg’s reading at Loyola University, New Orleans, 1990. An eye-witness recalls:  “The overflow crowd filled up the aisles and the outside lobby, so he (Allen) invited audience members to sit on the stage with him. (we see them on the stage there)/ He also (that same visit) did a meditation workshop, and his Collected Poems had just appeared so he spent a whole afternoon signing copies and illustrating each with a drawing”.

 
AG: So, I’ll begin with music in honor of the President and the great phony war on dope. This is … Read More

Tom Vitale Interview – (ASV #18)

October 22, 2011admin

[Allen Ginsberg]
ASV – Annotated Streaming Videos – additional notes on Ginsberg videos, continues with notes on Tom Vitale’s 1990 New York City PBS profile. [This video is no longer available via You Tube. We have, however, retained the notes and transcription below]
(Vitale’s 2006 NPR radio report,”Revisiting Allen Ginsberg’s Howl at 50″, can, incidentally, be read and/or listened to here).
Notes
The film begins with Allen reading from “White Shroud” (the poem) – “I am summoned from my bed/To the Great City of the Dead/Where I have no house or home/But in dreams may … Read More

Allen with R.D.Laing at the ICA

October 8, 2011admin

The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in London has recently released a wonderful archive video from 1980. Allen Ginsberg and Steven Taylor perform, following a sit-down discussion with Allen and psychiatrist R.D.Laing (part of the Writers in Conversation talks series). The Laing-Ginsberg unrehearsed exchange spotlights Allen’s candor and is great, but the real treat here is.. an impromptu one-minute meditation (recalling this – or, perhaps, this, for that matter). Can you get away with it? – “Yeah, you can “get away” with it, why not?”. Laing is a little nervous, to begin with, looking at his watch, but soon … Read More