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Andy Clausen
Introducing Andy Clausen's "Without Doubt" in 1991, Allen wrote: "Andy Clausen's character voice is heroic, a vox populi of the democratic unconscious, a "divine average" thinking working man persona....
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Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 112
Today, February 8, is Neal Cassady's birthday. He would have been 87 today. See our illustrated and highly-annotated last-year's post. In a move that would no doubt have bemused Cassady, Denver Mayor,...
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Allen Meets The Beatles/ The Beatles Meet Allen
It's that Ginsberg mis-spelling thing again! (see here) - but, as with Trent Harris' Allen interview clip, this brief clip on You Tube of (Barry) Miles "telling the tale" of the infamous 39th-birthday...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 33 (Reading List 4) (Antonin Artaud, Ted Berrigan,...
Allen's 1976 annotated reading-list continues with comments on Antonin Artaud, Ted Berrigan and Philip Whalen. AG:Antonin Artaud. The text I like best is "To Be Done With the Judgement of God" - Pour...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 34 (Reading List 5) (Vachel Lindsay,John Ashbery,...
Vachel Lindsay, only nineteen people (in this class) have read. He wrote a poem called "The Congo". How many here know "The Congo"? How many don't know of "The Congo", have never heard of "The Congo"?...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 36 (Reading-List 7) - (John Dryden)
Student: Allen, can you speak up, please? AG: Yes. (John) Dryden.“In Memory of Mr. Oldham” ["To The Memory of Mr. Oldham"] by John Dryden, is just one single poem that gives you his quality. There is a...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 35 (Reading List 6) (Frank O'Hara, Hart Crane, John...
AG: Frank O'Hara.Lunch Poems is an easy way to get into O'Hara. Put out byCity Lights.Anne Waldman: Selected Poems would be the best buy tho'AG: YeahAnne Waldman: And there are some (of them) in it.AG:...
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Valentine's Day Post - Love Forgiven
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!LOVE FORGIVEN Straight and slender Youthful tenderLove shows the way And never says nay Light and gentle- Hearted...
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Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 113
From last weekend's Round-Up: Beat Memories - the show of Allen's photographs currently up in New York, at the New York University's Grey Gallery (until April 6), has inspired some intelligent...
View ArticleNaropa - Chuck Lief Inauguration
Today's an auspicious day at Naropa (University). Charles G Lief, ("Chuck") Lief, whose tenure as president began in August 2012, gets officially sworn in as the 6th (we think it is) President..Here's...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 37 (Reading List 8) - (Robert Duncan, Andrew Marvell)
AG (Regarding Robert Duncan) – “A Poem Beginning with A Line by Pindar” (in) and (indeed, the whole book) “The Opening of the Field”is quite beautiful. His comments on Walt Whitmanin that are very...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 38 (Reading List 9) (Charles Olson, Pablo Neruda)
AG: I was thinking originally, when I came in to move on from ballads to those songs – (Thomas Nashe, James Shirley– and I will get, I think, to Shirley at any rate), but I want to just finish off with...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 39 (Reading List 10) (Shakespeare and Webster)
[The Shepherd (1886) - Edward Frederick Brewtnall ( 1846-1902)]AG: I wanted to get on to.. having run through all this (reading list)..to go back slower, just in case people don't know a couple of the...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 41 (Campion's Music)
AG: George [sic -a Naropa student], were you ever able to figure out the music? There's a book of (Thomas) Campion in the library, with his own music. And those of you who are interested in music and...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 40 (Marlowe & Ralegh and Campion)
[ The tape begins in media res, Allen is reciting Christopher Marlowe's "A Passionate Shepherd To His Love"] AG: "...Fair lined skippers for the cold/ With buckles of the purest gold,/ A belt of straw...
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Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 114
[Neal Cassady & Natalie Jackson, San Francisco, 1955. Photo c Allen Ginsberg Estate] Another notice (see the flood of notices last week) of Allen's photographic Beat Memories show - Tim Keane (on...
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Yugen & Jed Birmingham's Call To Beat Scholarship
Jed Birmingham's bibliographic work over at the Burroughs-centric, cannot-recommend-it-too-highly, Reality Studio is truly amazing. This past December, he published a sensitive screed against...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 42 (Ben Jonson)
[Ben Jonson (1572-1637) - portrait by Abraham Bleyenberch (c.1617), oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, London]AG: I want to move on to Ben Jonson, who's not so read as a poet among lowbrows like...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 43 (Robert Herrick)
[Robert Herrick (1591-1674)]AG: How many have read any (Robert) Herrick? Raise your hand? And how many have not read no Herrick? How many haven't read Herrick? Come on, raise your hands. Okay, so I'd...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 44 (George Herbert)
[George Herbert (1593-1633)]AG: On George Herbert, there are a few poems which.. I mean, there is a great deal to read. Has anybody read any of Herbert? How many have read Herbert? And how many don't...
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