Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 366

1 week ago May 18, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in Benares, India, 1963]

Allen Ginsberg in Asia – another early taste of David S Wills’  World Citizen – Allen Ginsberg as Traveller, (due out later this year – his fourth book, and another must-read from Beatdom‘s spirited editor).

Also from Beatdom this year (we mentioned these titles last week), The Buddhist Beat Poetics of Diane di Prima and Lenore Kandel  by Max Orsini, and, Straight Around Allen – On The Business of Being Allen Ginsberg by Bob Rosenthal.

Must-read, certainly, would also be Sudarsan Raghavan‘s piece (first appearing in The Washington Post… Read More

Barry Farber Interview – 4

April 15, 2018Simon Pettet

[Barry Farber]

We continue with the transcription of Allen’s appearance on Barry Farber’s 1976 radio broadcast.

In this episode, a punk Jonathan Robbins appears to the consternation of Barry Farber, and Allen discusses, among other things, ecology (eco-consciousness) and the apparent difficulty (alleged impossibility) of translation. 

BF:  (The Beat Generation) ….was every feature-writer’s security blanket tranquillizer and pacifier. (I want to know, technically, how you attracted that much attention?)

AG:  I think, mainly, it was we said what we really thought, rather than what we were supposed to think or what we thought would be, you know, palatable for the … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 361

April 13, 2018Simon Pettet

Changes to our site you may have noticed.  Bear with us as we iron out a few more wrinkles..

Among the information freshly disseminated above, forthcoming autumn publications including Iron Curtain Journals: January-May 1965 edited by Michael Schumacher, tracking Allen’s most turbulent six months, his expulsion from Cuba, travels to Russia, Poland, Warsaw Ghetto, to Prague where he’s expelled by Czech police immediately after his May King crowning, only to land in London to meet the Beatles, film with Bob Dylan and host the The International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall.  We can’t wait for this one.

 &… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 357

March 16, 2018Simon Pettet

[Howl & Kaddish & a selection of Allen Ginsberg Interviews (translated into Bengali by Malay Roychoudhury and edited by Utpal Bhattacharjee and published by Kabitirtha)]

[Malay Roychoudhury]

Allen Ginsberg in India – Allen and the Hungryalists (we’ve pointed out this crucial connection before) – Rima Bhattacharya’s “The Common Thread Between The Beats and The Hungryalists“, (the abstract of a PhD thesis), can be read here (from the same site, another doctoral abstract – Marina Reza on The Hungryalists – here). Essential listening on this topic – Jeet Thayil’s  BBC radio documentary (now available on the … Read More

Vojo Sindolic’s 1986 Belgrade Interview – part two

February 25, 2018Simon Pettet

[Dubrovnik, in the old city – Photograph -Beth Leonard]

Allen Ginsberg interview – continuing from yesterday

VS: When you first visited me in my home in my birthplace, the old city of Dubrovnik, in October of 1980, you were so delighted by its beauty that you decided to stop and stay for a long four weeks!  During that time we spent any happy hours together, talking just about everything, making plans for the first book of my translations of your poems. It was there in Dubrovnik that you wrote two of your best later poems – “Birdbrain”. and “Eroica” … Read More

Vojo Sindolic’s 1986 Belgrade Interview – part one

February 24, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in Belgrade, 1986]

Vojo Sindolic‘s 1986 interview with Allen in Belgrade (in two parts – the second part will follow tomorrow) is our focus on The Allen Ginsberg Project this weekend.

Vojo’s translation of Cosmopolitan Greetings  (Kozmopolitski pozdravi ) has just appeared from Hrvatskoga društva pisaca  (h,d,p) (the Croatian Writers Society) 

Here, he introduces the interview:

“Allen Ginsberg and I were very close friends for twenty years from 1977 until his death in 1997. I felt and still feel deep love for his poetic insight, or as one may call it – it was literary … Read More

On “Stanzas Written At Night in Radio City” 

February 20, 2018Simon Pettet

[Radio City Crossing. photo by Henry Silberman]

On “Stanzas Written At Night in Radio City” 

[hear Allen in a recording of him reading the poem (from the LP/CD “The Lion For Real”)  here  – (and. here (in 1980), and, from a recording from 1981, in San Francisco  at The Intersection – here]

AG:   “If money made the mind more sane./ Or money mellowed in the bowel/ The hunger beyond the hunger’s pain,/ Or money choked the mortal growl/ And made the groaner grin again,/ Or did the laughing lamb embolden/ To loll where has … Read More

Steven Taylor – 2

February 18, 2018Simon Pettet

[Steven Taylor, Allen Ginsberg & Lawrence Ferlinghetti,  New York City, 1985. Photo: Hank O’Neal]

Continuing from yesterday – a Steven Taylor weekend. What a range of music to hear!

False Prophet – Field Notes From The Punk Underground  (a must-read) is still very much in print

“From 1988 through 1993, guitarist/vocalist Steven Taylor toured the U.S. and Europe with the alternative rock group False Prophets, keeping a detailed journal with the intent of documenting the role of musicians in the international anarchist youth movement. His field notes form the core of the book, accounting with honesty and aplomb the sometimes … Read More

Burroughs’ Birthday

February 5, 2018Simon Pettet

William Burroughs’ birthday today

Here’s a guest-posting from our good friend and Burroughs aficianado, Oliver Harris

“How does Burroughs manage to stay so young? After all, he’s 104 and has been dead for over 20 years, and yet he still seems to have more life in him than most so-called living writers. Is it because he was always more than a writer? I’m thinking of a remark he made to Paul Carroll in June 1959, the same week that Maurice Girodias asked him for a manuscript of Naked Lunch and so launched his “career”; that he was carrying out “research … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 351

February 2, 2018Simon Pettet

Next week, Neal Cassady‘s birthday.,   On Friday and Saturday, next week, they’ll be the big celebration in Denver (with special guests, Jami Cassady and David Amram – for more information on those celebrations – see here).

Monday,, it’s another Beat birthday – William Burroughs. There’s a celebration of that tonight – Three Rooms Press (publishers of the upcoming Don’t Hide The Madness – William S Burroughs In Conversation with Allen Ginsberg) present, at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe (starting at 6 o’clock), a William Burroughs Birthday Tribute, featuring Anne Waldman, Steven Taylor, and … Read More