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Spontaneous Poetics - 121 (Whitman and Wordsworth Comparison)
There's an odd "personism" (like in late Frank O'Hara) that you get inWhitman (or Whitman established the personalist, which sustained him. In other words, he was dealing in direct phenomena,...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 122 (Wordsworth - 7)
[Benjamin Robert Haydon - plaster cast of life mask, 1815, of William Wordsworth (via the National Portrait Gallery, London]There's the famous nostalgic "Ode on Intimations Of Immortality from...
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Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 140
[Time Magazine cover (Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon) November 12, 1956]Side-swipes. Time magazine. The voice of "the establishment". Allen memorably excoriated its pomposity and hauteur in 1956...
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Ginsberg on Kerouac and Kesey and Cassady
1973 Salem State College’s Jack Kerouac Festival - hereand here. (We’ve even previously featured an “out-take” here),. Here’s another one, (similarly focusing on the poignancy and tragedy of late Jack...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 123 (Wordsworth - 8)
[William Wordsworth (1770-1850)]Why don't I just go through a few little fragments of not-very-well-known poems by Wordsworth, from "Poems of the Imagination". (I'll) just pick out a few lines here and...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 124 (William Blake and the French Revolution)
[William Blake (1757-1827)]We'll leave (William) Wordsworth for a moment. There was another mind dealing with revolution - (William) Blake, also disillusioned - and there are a couple of brief comments...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 125 (Blake - The Mental Traveller)
[William Blake - The Mental Traveller - original ms. circa 1803]AG: There is another odder way of looking at it that I always dug, in Blake, in "The Mental Traveller". Does anybody know that poem? -...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 126 (William Blake)
[William Blake (1757 - 1827) - Jerusalem, Plate 27, "To The Jews..." via Yale Center For British Art, Paul Mellon Collection]AG: I'd like to finish this quasi-political section with a song by (William)...
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Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 141
[Johnny Depp at Allen Ginsberg's kitchen table, New York City, 1994. c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]["Harry Smith with Flowers and Cigarette in the kitchen 437 East 12th Street NYC, August 3, 1986. c. Allen...
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Charles Reznikoff's Birthday
[Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976) - Photograph by Abraham Ravett, 1975]It's Charles Reznikoff 's birthday today. We've featured him here before, with great pleasure, quite extensively. Previous "Rezzy"...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 127 (Morning Meditation - 1)
[Philip Whalen in ceremonial Zen garb at the Hartford Street Zen Center, San Francisco, circa 1991] Allen Ginsberg's Spontaneous Poetics/Improvised Poetics class continues, August 6 1976.[Original...
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Spontaneous Poetics 128 - (Morning Meditation - 2)
AG: How many here sit? (How many) have sat? And how many have not? Raise your hands. Of those that raised their hands, how many have not gone to get instruction in sitting? Do you know? I guess you...
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Spontaneous Poetics- 129 (Blyth and Haiku)
AG: I got some complaints that last time (that) I was getting up in the air, reading too much and boring people, (which is probably true, because my attention wavered occasionally when I was reading...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 130 (Ginsberg & Whalen - Oriental Influences)
[R(eginald) H(orace) Blyth (1936-1964)]AG: There's another book by (R.H.) Blyth called Senryu NotesStudent: Called what?AG: Senryu Notes - S-E-N-R-Y-U - Is that right? [Senryu - Japanese Satirical...
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Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 142
[Michael C Hall ( David Kammerer) and Daniel Radcliffe (Allen Ginsberg) in John Krokidas' "Kill Your Darlings"(2013)][Daniel Radcliffe (and John Krokidas - Radcliffe speaks on Ginsberg, Krokidas speaks...
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Allen Ginsberg June 1986 Radio Interview
City Lights put up (as a podcast, on-line) earlier this summer, an interview (a phone-interview) with Allen, dating from the mid-1980's, the (Ronald) Reagan era, (June 2 1986, in fact, the day before...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 131 (Henri Michaux)
Student: I wanted to ask you about Henri MichauxAG: YesStudent: And Ed Dorn, and James TateAG: Henri Michaux, Ed Dorn and James Tate! - Well, once I was standing on a street corner in Paris, talking...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 132
Student: I'd like to ask you and Philip Whalen what languages that you read poetry in besides English and in what ways you find it useful?AG: I read Spanish - (Federico Garcia) Lorca and (Pablo)...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 133
AG: That was one of the most influential (books) that I ever read - Being Geniuses Together. That's what determined my particular attitude toward companionship in the Beat Generation.Student: Can you...
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Spontaneous Poetics - 134
AG: Has everybody here seen the illustrated colored version of Songs of Innocence and Of Experience? Raise your hands if you have not. How many have not. Well, very few haven't, there is a copy here...
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