Blasts from the Past
Hold It All It must have been 1983, springtime: I asked former classmate Ray Pruitt what he’d been reading. “Last night, Kierkegaard, Proust, and Phil Berrigan.” Things Have Changed It was back in 1982 We…
Category: Beats
The Way It Looked in 1969
Now the age of 101, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has composed poetical works about most U.S. presidents since the administrations of Eisenhower in the 1950s. I recall with appreciation his poem “Tale Tale of the Tall Cowboy”…
Gleanings and Connections
Anne Waldman and Laura Wright, editors, Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics—An Anthology Dear Layla: “modernist textual montage/collage of a wide-ranging array mixing the personal and the historical” Dear Layla: “Ezra Pound’s Cantos gave me a way…
“It’s the Old Thoreau Tradition”
This morning I was reading a 1972 interview with poet Allen Ginsberg and came across the following exchange… YLP: I was surprised to see the importance young Americans grant now to the Do It Yourself…
“Action Needed, Goethean Action”
Allen Ginsberg, Journals: Mid-Fifties 1954-1958, edited by Gordon Ball During winter and spring of 1996 I went on a binge of poet Allen Ginsberg’s books: poems, letters, photos, journals (I was taking a break from…
Anne Waldman on The Art of Writing, Reading, and Sharing—Winter Class/Arco-Online 2020
Imagine you are not alone. Consort with other writers. You are in a League of Writing. You are part of a conspiracy to lift the discourse and practice of writing higher. Think of your writing…
Note to a Friend on Back of Ginsberg’s 1977 poem, Grim Skeleton
Beginning 23rd year proffing this past week Turned 59, Ginsberg 51 when he “Grim Skeleton” sounded off Ah, what to do with disasters near and far, Dave Chappelle should be prez, Laughter good for soul,…
Note to a Friend alongside Copy of Ginsberg’s 1973 Poem “Yes and It’s Hopeless”
And so, if it’s (still) hopeless, 2019, all the more reason to cultivate garden, play with Dominic, work on yr Italian pronunciation, sing aloud Carole King songs, have CTSA reunions, host STN skull sessions, seek…
Take Your Pick
1. Do not be angry, not even at a dog or an insect. Strive to give whatever actual help you can. If you cannot help, then think and say: May this sentient being or troublemaker…
What’s Possible
1. If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an “artless art” growing out of the…