On Ferlinghetti’s Americus, I

For Dianne Lee and Lynette D’Amico When I first read Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Americus,I just before The Book of Mev was published, I was energized by discovering how much it is a mish mash, full of…

Dear Mark

Dear Mark, Here is my reflection of Dear Layla, I thought at first that I should apologize for the scatter-brained style of writing I’m sure this letter will take. Then I thought, he probably doesn’t…

Reading/Writing/Seeing

for Emily, Kelley, and Lindsay 1. In reality every reader is, while she is reading, the reader of her own self.  The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to…

Writing To Wake Up Course

Writing to Wake Up: A Course in Creativity and Community Think about it: Even with all our technologies and modes of communication, who has enough time?  And yet, we need time, as community activist Grace…

Epistolary Ecstasy

A while back, I read a selection of letters of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: Hand-written, wild-typed marvels and postcards, written and sent from around the world—on work, books, loves, life, loss, Dharma, and gossip….

Exit-Interview

She’s spent four years at SLU And is moving on I’ve spent fourteen years at SLU And am moving on We had class together fall 2008 Her tender sophomore year We’ve met ten or twelve…

A Lifetime of Letters

The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan (Da Capo Press, 2008) I have a file titled “Noam Chomsky” that contains several letters from the linguist during the 1990s. I first began writing him…

An Influential Neurotic Bodhisattva Bard

A few months after Mev died, I read all of Allen Ginsberg‘s poetry and several volumes of essays and journals. Somehow, his spirit cheered me. Recently, I’ve read several books about Ginsberg and what follows are…