Allen GinsbergJimmie Schuyler dining with artist Bill Katy and friend Raymond Foye from Chelsea Hotel, November 7, 1987 in Soho, Chanterelle Restaurant.Allen GinsbergJimmie Schuyler dining with artist Bill Katy and friend Raymond Foye from Chelsea Hotel, November 7, 1987 in Soho, Chanterelle Restaurant.![Robert Frank, his Bleeker [sic] Street house New York January 1984, old Polaroid 195 gives negative, portrait for my _Collected Poems 1947-1980_ back-jacket--Peter Orlovsky present snapped us both that hour., Allen Ginsberg, 1984](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/76333592-2835-44e9-9082-88e8b84ef654/full/!400,400/0/default.jpg)
Allen GinsbergRobert Frank, his Bleeker [sic] Street house New York January 1984, old Polaroid 195 gives negative, portrait for my _Collected Poems 1947-1980_ back-jacket--Peter Orlovsky present snapped us both that hour.
Allen GinsbergJack Kerouac, railroad brakeman’s rule-book in pocket, couch-pillows airing on fire-escape three flights up overlooking backyard clotheslines south. He’d already published _The Town & the City_ and completed a treasury of half-dozen unprinted classic volumes including _On the Road_, _Visions of Cody_,_ Doctor Sax_, early books of Blues and Dreams, & had begun _The Subterraneans’_ adventurous love affair with Alene Lee, “Mardou Fox.” Alene typed for W. S. Burroughs then in residence editing Yage Letters and Queer mss., unpublishable that decade, censorship ruled. I scribed “The Green Automobile,” Gregory Corso visited that season, 206 East 7th Street near Tompkins Park, Manhattan, probably September 1953.
Allen GinsbergI got conscious of my kitchen breakfast-table window backyard’s seasons’ daily view, here morning snow-dropped window-sill, white roofed tool-shed, bare branched “trees of Heaven” (ailanthus), fences & fire-escapes lined with snow, N.Y. Times January 23, 1987.
Allen GinsbergGregory Corso, my room Hotel Metropole Brussels May 20, 1984
Allen GinsbergEllie Dorfman in her big breakfast room, holding up a Xerox copy of N.Y. Times _White Shroud Poem_, January 1985. _Elsa's House Book_ photos fixed many Cambridge Poetry visitors.
Allen GinsbergFrancesco Clemente looking over hand-script album with new poem I’d written out for his Blake-inspired watercolor illuminations, we’d done two books before; entrance corner of his loft overlooking Great Jones Street Manhattan, October 1984. He liked this picture.
Allen GinsbergPeter Orlovsky in my room 1010 Montgomery Street looking tender and mad, hopeful & happy.
Allen GinsbergPoet John Giorno & Bill's secretary Jim Grauerholz aghast at William S. Burroughs' whip-fast draw of flexible blackjack- - Bowery junkies try to steal his wallet watch out Muggers! Age 71 Burroughs'd returned to his old "Bunker" (formerly gym locker-room) in N.Y. with mss. _Place of Dead Roads_, second novel of trilogy. Scar on Giorno's belly from cancer operation decade earlier; Giorno by then resident had set up wall black- clothed with stage-lights for his poetry rock & roll rehearsals. March 26, 1985.
Allen GinsbergAl Sublette, & Peter Orlovsky as I first knew him 1955 S.F.
Allen GinsbergWilliam Burroughs ready to leave "the Bunker" for supper, he was visiting New York staying in his former Bowery loft, maybe back from Europe where he was awarded rosette Chevalier des Arts, visible below the round American Institute of Arts & Letters pin on his lapel, very distinguished gentleman, March 26, 1985, just beginning his late additional career as a painter.
Allen GinsbergBill Burroughs and Jack Kerouac locked in Mortal Combat with Moroccan dagger versus broomstick clear on the couch—they had its hold still a full second which I steadied camera on back of chair. They’d known each other nine years by then. Jack came in from Richmond Hill he’d finished Maggie Cassady, Bill stayed with me in two room apartment consolidating Yage Letters, he’d sent over the year from Peru and Ecuador. 206 East 7th st. Apt 16 Manhattan, September-October 1953.
Allen GinsbergDorothy Norman in her house East 70th street Manhattan. We'd met in late 1950's, I'd known of her (b. 1903) as 1930's Civil-libertarian editor/ Publisher of _Twice-A-Year_ journal. Same decade she'd been Alfred Steiglitz' love, he'd photographed her face and hands. New York City, January 3, 1987. Still alive May Day 1995!
Allen GinsbergPeter Orlovsky (b. 1933 –) visiting his family — Lafcadio then age 47 had lived with us S.F – N.Y. 1955 – ’61 & intermittent years later on; Mother Katherine aged 78 totally deaf lip-reading some after botched mastoid operation N.Y. Eye & Ear Hospital 1933, drunken surgeon; Laff’s twin sister Maril who’d roomed with Peter & me East 2’nd Street Lower East Side 1959 while attending baby-nurse school in Jersey, later a half-dozen years she quit hospital job angry hearing other nurse voices’ “filthy gossip” she said about Me and My Brother, Robert Frank’s film on Orlovskys— all this two decades before this moment. From second floor flat on lonely Cottontail Road they needed taxi for any heavy shopping with monthly Social Service Indemnity checks at Supermarket a mile away in Center Moriches, Long Island. July 26, 1987.
Allen GinsbergPeter Orlovsky & Jack Kerouac squinting in late-afternoon sun, Wm. S. Burroughs with eyeglasses watching prone in olive-green army-surplus jacket, Moroccan boys interested, Port & Custom-house in background, where Peter & I docked on Yugoslave freighter from N.Y. carrying mss. _Naked Lunch_ letters, four years accumulated. Jack speed-typed Burroughs' _Interzone_ word-hoard, his own _On the Road_ just published, Peter readying to write his "Frist Poem." Jack left Tangier for Paris about a week later, April 5, 1957.
Allen GinsbergGary Snyder, Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg on wall overlooking Himalayan range vista, Kausani 1962. Joanne Kyger snapped the photo in my camera, the four of us making Buddhist tour of India stopped to visit Lama Anagarika Govinda.
Allen Ginsberg"Head bowed on his shoulder, now and then, he listened." My father Louis Ginsberg in his velvet chair 1976 the year he died. See poems in "Don't Grow Old" series for further explanation.
Allen GinsbergPeter’s friend Henry Schlacter from S.F. Community College, Kerouac’s buddy Al Sublette & Peter Orlovsky in Foster’s Cafeteria under Hotel Weatley on Polk & Sutter, “Polk Gulch”, we all rendez-vous’d hours & hours, living in neighborhood. Robert LaVigne made many sketches & group portrait oil tableaux small and large with mirror-reflected tables & visages of ourselves, Cassady, Natalie, etc. that season, San Francisco early 1955.
Allen GinsbergFather Pierre Riches at kitchen table December 4, 1992
Allen GinsbergHenry Schlactner, Kerouac’s friend Al Sublette by Peter Orlovsky. Foster’s Cafeteria S.F. 1955. Me on right.
Allen GinsbergSelf-Portrait on my seventieth birthday in Borsalino hat and black cashmere-silk scarf from Milan & Dublin Thornproof-tweed suit, Oleg Cassini tie from Goodwill shirt same source, kitchen window mid-day, I stayed home & worked on _Selected Poems 1947 – ’95_ proofs after returning from Walker Art Centre reading — Beat exhibition weekend. Monday, June 3, 1996, N.Y.
Allen GinsbergPhilip Whalen, sensei in his peaceful chair, my apartment living room, East 12th street New York March 1984. He was visiting East Coast to give readings N.Y. and Buffalo, Calm Poet. "What are you reading?" -- "I'm not reading I'm just turning the pages."
Allen GinsbergDedication of museum to Poet Titsian Tabidze shot in Stalin purges 1937—evening at theater on main street, Tbilisi, Georgia (Tiflis), state dignitaries & writer’s union officials reading proclamations of rehabilitation, harps & medieval ladies on stage, portrait of the flower-lapelled Poet in place of honor—I visited Tbilisi at Bella Achmadulina’s suggestion, Picking visa renewal to stay in Moscow, late November 1985.
Allen GinsbergKorean War Vet Ken Babbs, Captain of Ken Kesey's "Trips Festival" bus, co piloting Neal Cassady on Amphetamine at wheel rolling up highway to Millbrook estate near Poughkeepsie N.Y. where Dr. Tim O'Leary's Castalia Foundation was then experimenting with D.M.T. on half hour psychedelic trip useful for psychiatric sessions. Burglar Gordon Liddy, then assistant D.A. in Poughkeepsie raided the Foundation a number of times illegally lacking search warrants during that season, so Castalia folk were jittery on arrival of honking Day-Glo graffit'd "Merry Prankster" Further bus which'd been driven cross-country S.F to N.Y. via Texas before Fall 1964 Presidentiad, "A Vote for Goldwater is a Vote for Fun" logo painted above bus side windows, L.S.D. Kool-Aid in pitcher in icebox. Kesey & Pranksters had met with Jack Kerouac a day before . . .
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith talking to Scotch folk-singer English Professor at University of Mississippi who drove me to visit Ike's Barber Shop in Clarksdale-- Ike had played in Black rhythm & Blues bands around the 40's Country & his shop was legendary social center after he'd returned to his home town-- Harry came to record the rhythm of his barber scissors & razor strapping as we spent the afternoon hanging out & listening to the jukebox by the bar, back of the Barbershop. Later we drove across the Mississippi River & returned to "ole' Miss" at Oxford by midnight, April 19, 1987.
Allen GinsbergI’d asked Robert Frank to take portrait for Selected Poems dust jacket, he showed up late Sunday afternoon, truck parked across from my apartment, yelled up, he had no camera. I came down with Leica & Fuji 6×9, he took some photos midstreet by his car, I snapped him thus, then with my Fuji he said, “This’ll be it,” as long lambent orange sunlight rayed down East 12th Street from Hudson River horizon, it worked fine for book, he was relaxed, accidentally unerring. N.Y. June 9, 1996.
Allen GinsbergCharles Olson, the President, Vancouver Poetry Conference 1963, we stayed in Warren Tallman's house -- here the kitchen.
Allen GinsbergJoanne Kyger, then Gary Snyder's wife, on train - visit to Japan Sea, 1963 Summer.
Allen GinsbergGary Snyder with Parka, Kausani...Himalayan backdrop, 1963 India
Allen GinsbergI sat for decades at morning breakfast tea looking out my kitchen window, one day recognized my own world the familiar backyard, a giant wet brick-walled undersea Atlantis garden, waving ailanthus (“stinkweed”) “Trees of Heaven,” with chimney pots along Avenue A topped by Stuyvesant Town apartments’ upper floors two blocks distant on 14th Street, I focus’d on the raindrops along the clothesline. “Things are symbols of themselves,” said Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. New York City August 18, 1984
Allen GinsbergPoet Michael & Joanna McClure, Cafe Roma a block up Columbus from City Lights Bookstore, October 11, 1984 San Francisco
Allen GinsbergTokdhan Rimpoche from Eastern Tibet had given oral Transmission of whole Kanjur "Three Baskets" collection, original Buddhist texts, twice or thrice in India.. For Gelek Rimpoche's annual summer retreat for a hundred or so of us students, he visited to transmit Prajnaparamita Sutra, Chanting one-volume short version for several days in succession: "Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!" Highest Perfect Wisdom Sutra: "All Gone All Gone All overgone all Gone stay-high Now Old Mind so ah~" we'd rowed across nearby lake to swim, he sat and watched, Yankee Springs State Park, Michigan, August 27, 1993
Allen GinsbergW.S. Burroughs in his London Burberry raincoat purchased by B.B.C., here March 30, 1985 at opening of Francesco Clemente’s painting show Castelli Gallery — the artist’s figure hand outstretched behind Bill’s left shoulder.
Allen GinsbergBill Burroughs "impersonating a detective with magnifying glass in hand ... Sherlock Holmes, or shabby Chinese detective in Saigon ... look at that stain on the suit." He took photos of sky, boys, streets, then photos of these photos, by stages drawing forth essences, re-photographing images of boy-stuff or blue sky, here collaged under glass plates on his bureau. Some cut-up photos from magazines, left. Calligraphy on Wardrobe closet Burroughs' adaptation of Brion Gysin's brushwork. Tangier Summer 1961. Bill's words above, 1988.
Allen GinsbergJoe Richey poet Crosslegged on Floor, St. Marks Poet Bob Holman eyeglassed leaning back, Tom Savage standing cross-armed, Jose CORONEL Urtecho in Beret elder Nica poet modernist, Sandinista Bluefields poet Carlos Rigby at Table, host smiling in head chair, Nicaraguan Poetry brigade folk listening to sound poem on cassette by Dr. Fernando Silva, "Cici" Fernandez' house, Granada, Nicaragua, January 26, 1986.
Allen GinsbergPaul Bowles preparing mint tea on our arrival at the market area souk center of the medina, we took train from Tangier, stayed a week in his travel friend Christopher Wanklyn's household, Marrakech, Morocco, July 20, 1961
Allen GinsbergPoet Larry Eigner, National Poetry Week, Cowell Theater, Fort Mason San Francisco mid-October 1989.
Allen GinsbergW. S. Burroughs at rest in the sideyard of his house looking at the sky, empty timeless Lawrence Kansas May 28, 1991. But “the car dates it” he noticed when he saw this snapshot.
Allen GinsbergJim Carroll backstage, Public theater N.Y. September 1984
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs slightly zonked, his dooryard-garden wall Villa Muneria, looking at me suspiciously, "Who are you an Agent for?" He "traced back along word-lines," cut-up technique of anti-brainwash language analysis, inquiring sources of my mental conditioning, perhaps Liberal Professor Trilling, perhaps "a trust of giant insects from another Galaxy" conspiring to make Nova Conditions on our Planet, exterminate HomoSap the Human animal so another life-form, virus invasion, move in on the Turf, such like poetries on his mind. Timothy Leary visited from Harvard, we took small amount of psilocybin, Bill shut himself inside his garden gate with a wave of his hand, allergic, paranoia season. Peter Orlovsky departed alone, ship to Athens, Bill employed for Scandinavia L.S.O. Conference leaving Gregory Corso and myself waving him goodbye
Allen GinsbergWilliam Burroughs hanging Alan Ansen, take-off on "Naked Lunch" "Blue Movie" orgasm scenario. Ansen'd typed up where Kerouac left off...
Allen GinsbergPoet Gregory Corso addressing cross atop the Grey Nuns’ Orphanage grotto Kerouac immortalized in book 4 Chapter 1, _Doctor Sax_, a “gigantic pyramid of steps upon which the Cross itself poked phallically up with its poor burden the Son of Man all skewered across it in his Agony and fright – undoubtedly this statue moved in the night.” Lowell, Massachusetts, March 17, 1986.
Allen GinsbergRaymond Foye, who age 8 was Kerouac's newspaper delivery boy in Lowell, Mass. later working for City Lights edited Bob Kaufman's books (also for New Directions) & John Wieners' _Selected Poems_ for Black Sparrow; then senior Editor Hanuman books, arranged my collaborations with Francesco Clemente & catalogued my photo negatives '47-'85, curated first photo show. Xmas 1986 in Japanese restaurant 1st Ave + 10 Street Manhattan.
Allen GinsbergListeners at Poetry reading, coffee-loading truck shed in hills, Nicaragua, January 23, '86
Allen GinsbergWandering Motel rooms San Francisco Portland Seattle & Kenyon College one month, poetry readings, book signings, interviews, I snapped self-portraits in clothes closet & bathroom mirrors midnights before bed whenever I saw full length views & doubled reflections. Sometime September 1991.
Allen GinsbergDr. Timothy Leary meeting Neal Cassady first time in Merry Prankster day-glo painted bus. Neal'd driven cross country and up-state to Dr. Leary's retreat at Millbrook N.Y. early in the Goldwater-Johnson Presidentiad. They'd come honking up the estate driveway to park by the big house Kesey & friends like a many-headed psychedelic loudspeaker'd rhinoceros in quiet woodlands recently raided by Assistant D.A. G. Gordon Liddy & local constabulary without search warrants looking for grass busts, L.S.D. still legal those years. Neal's scratching amphetamine itch in his driver's palm. Dr. Tim'd come outside to visit bus.
Allen GinsbergRussian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko 3 A.M. at kitchen table after long night drinking and taped conversation re great unpublished Soviet writers & mss., February 18, 1986.
Allen GinsbergLouis Auchincloss at Dostoevsky writing desk, Dostoevsky House Museum, Leningrad November 30, 1985