Beatnik Shindig this upcoming weekend. We spotlighted it last week but are reminding you again. The place to be right now - Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Hot hot news - Allen Ginsberg 's recently-(re)discovered pro-Bernie Sanders poem "Burlington Snow".
Here's the hand-written poem courtesy the University of Vermont Library (written in 1986, when Sanders, current Denocratic Party Presidential candidate, was that town's colorful and controversial mayor)
Burlington Snow
Socialist snow on the streets
Socialist talk in the Maverick Bookstore
Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops
Socialist poetry in Socialist mouths
- aren't the birds frozen Socialists?
Aren't the snowclouds blocking the airfield?
Social Democratic Appearances ?
Isn't the socialist sky owned by
the Socialist Sun?
Earth itself socialist, forests, rivers, lakes
furry mountains, socialist salt
in oceans?
Isn't this poem Socialist? It doesn't
belong to me anymore.
Maverick Bookstore 5.30 PM February 21 1986 Allen Ginsberg
Stephanie Nikolopoulos's account of, and pictures from, the New York launch of Michael Schumacher's wonderful recently-published collection The Essential Ginsberg
can be accessed here
can be accessed here
[Michael Schumacher - Photograph by Stephanie Nikolopoulos]
Jonah Raskin's detailed account of much-missed "Beat painter", Robert LaVigne - "Robert LaVigne - Naked Artist" may be seen here
John Wieners this month in Poetry magazine - a few choice excerpts from the forthcoming heroically-compiled Collected Letters, edited by Michael Seth Stewart.
Supplication-Selected Poems by John Wienersis due out later this year (in October) from Wave Books
& more book news - David Schneider's eagerly-awaited Philip Whalen biography appears next month. Here, from Shambhala Times is an early pre-publication review. The author reveals the source of the book's all-embracing title - "..the title was something that Philip said in a hardware store in the Castro district of San Francisco…Mostly blind and attended by writer Steve Silberman, (he) began to feel overwhelmed by the selection of merchandise. Turning to Silverman, he quipped, "Get me out of here, I'm feeling crowded by beauty."
