Allen GinsbergTwo new wave youths met at Burroughs reading in Berkeley visited my N.Y. apartment January 11, 1985, I'd exchanged addresses with Blake, on left. His friend a Rimbaud reader holds Starkie biography of the original great punk poet I gave as present.Allen GinsbergTwo new wave youths met at Burroughs reading in Berkeley visited my N.Y. apartment January 11, 1985, I'd exchanged addresses with Blake, on left. His friend a Rimbaud reader holds Starkie biography of the original great punk poet I gave as present.
Allen GinsbergPhilip Whalen visiting Lloyd Reynolds, his house Reed College- Lloyd had taught Snyder Welch & Whalen their Italic Calligraphy & Challenged McCarthyism & brought W.C. Williams to read, early 1950's. Here late July 1963, Portland Oregon.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs 222 Bowery New York Spring 1985. Illustrating a Wild Boy's horns? Cat's ears?
Allen GinsbergFine-bearded Ilya Kutik & his wife, center, at home with his circle of friends, philologists, translators, poets & philosophy teachers, Moscow December 16, 1985. Dostoevsky-eyed youth in striped sweater had gone absent without leave for the evening from the Army to meet me and ask after Neal Cassady, Kerouac's hero _On the Road_.
Allen GinsbergMock machete battle with state agricultural advisor, American girl passing through watching, elder Antonio the family retainer & nephew, Finca Tacalapan de San Leandro a day’s travel by river & horseback from Salto de Agua Railroad stops into edge of Petén Rainforest to old family land of Karena Shields (first Jane in 30s Tarzan movies) who hosted me February thru May, we’d met at Palenque old Mayan ruins nearby, & lived in open thatchroof shelter, slept in Mosquito-netted hammocks, I wrote “Siesta in Xbalba”, Chiapas Mexico 1954.
Allen GinsbergMy aunt Clara Lehman talking in mirror of her room, Daughters of Israel old-age Home, she's 83, her 91 year old friend from down the hall visits, they gossip about television, my photo of Clara, her sister my aunt Honey & late uncle Abe sitting together a year earlier in Plexiglas frame by his elbow, photo of her daughters & grandchildren stuck on mirror, I visit her every couple of weeks in West Orange, New Jersey, this was January 26, 1987-- she's my father's younger sister. She'd retired to Miami, Florida, her second husband died, she had to come back to Jersey where most of the family lives.
Allen GinsbergFrancesco Clemente and Julius Orlovsky (Peter's brother) visiting East 6th Street Ramana Maharshi storefront ashram, Lower East Side New York Fall 1984. For Francesco from Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg“Peter lying dressed up in pants on mattress picking his red moustache, with long hollywood Christlike hair & Christ’s small beard stubble — ” (_Indian Journals_, p. 132) Orlovsky & I spent half year in this room overlooking Dasasumedh Ghat’s bathers pilgrims & beggars a few steps from the Ganges, french window slats overlooking food market one side, pilgrim alley the other. We cooked on small gas camper stove, kept records, wrote letters, visited temples, burning ghats, read Ramayana, mixed with poets
& sanskrit Achkans in small restaurant chai houses, visited shenai master Bichmulla Khan, Peter took singing lessons from one Rabmdranath Pal, & we sought out swamis & holy men to talk with. Benares, December 19, 1962.
Allen GinsbergRobert Creeley Maine Summer 1983 after Williams Congress Orono.
Allen GinsbergTangier 1961 Lance Hendrickson showed up, a beautiful strange face
Allen GinsbergW.S. Burroughs in his room Villa Mouneria Tangier
Allen GinsbergElvin Jones, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, late May 1984, Robert Frank's Polaroid #195 camera he let me use. We were all teaching together at Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Allen GinsbergAfter Cooperstown, Harry Smith moved from friend to friend homeless in New York, finally to Franciscan Mission on Bowery, malnourished & weak. He stayed with me awhile, we took trip to visit Southern Folklore Society in Oxford, Mississippi with my 81 year old step mother Edith—we’d just settled in to our motel & Edith was calling home; Harry hoped for invitation to stay & work at Folklore Center & immediately recorded local Scottish bawdy songs. April 18, 1987.
Allen GinsbergAncient Hemlock, oldest tree across new beaver pond, near our committee on Poetry Commune farm, Cherry Valley, N.Y., August 3, 1987. Upstate New York was covered with Hemlock forests in the time of James Fenimore Cooper -- cut down to supply charcoal for the big city.
Allen GinsbergShambhu Bharti Baba, traditionally naked Naga Sadhu in sandy basement porch-shelter under Pilgrims' Guest-house above ancient Manikarnika Ghat burning-grounds at Ganges waterside in Benares, oldest cintinuously inhabited city on Earth. During six-months stay a few alleys down-river, I visited occasionally to smoke chilams, clay pipes as at edge of fire-pit, packed with ganja-tobacco mix & share Baba's silence vow along with small circle of his friends, devotees, local schoolteachers & clerks. One morning I brought camera, he invited me to take pictures rising to disrobe loin-cloth & G-string, stood nude beside Naga spear, brass waterpot & Shiva Trident. See _Indian Journals_, 1970, p.130. December 18, 1962, 10:30 AM.
Allen GinsbergMichael Portman, ill-starred English aristocrat, then staying next door room to William Burroughs at Villa Muniria studying Alpha rhythms, stroboscope “Dream-Machine” illusions and letters with Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Dorian Gray youth, he died in mid-age, alcohol and other dissipations, Tangier 1961.
Allen GinsbergPortrait of composer Steven Taylor and half myself & C—III Leica in skyscraper lobby mirror, 58th St. & 6th avenue after radio Broadcast, late night November 13, 1986.
Allen GinsbergJack Kerouac the last time he visited my apartment 704 East 5th Street, Lower East Side. Gregory Corso was with him, he looked just like his late Father (described in _The Town and the City_ his first novel) - corpulent red faced W. C. Fields shuddering with mortal horror, grimacing on D.M.T. psychedelic I'd brought back from Timothy Leary's Millbrook Commune, Fall 1964.
Allen GinsbergRick McBride's glasses nose beard, Shig Murao & Jack Micheline, Trieste Cafe March 16, 1985, San Francisco, morning leisures.
Allen GinsbergHerbert E. Huncke, author _The Evening Sun Turned Crimson_, who introduced "hip" vocabulary & attitudes to writers later labeled "Beat", his room Hotel Elite, N.E. corner 8th Avenue and 51'st street diagonally opposite Madison Square Garden. Rare glimpse of Huncke, then hustling bread on Times Square, strung-out - he fixed at the sink. Saw him infrequently that season, though we'd known each other well since 1945, found his room to say good bye, leaving New York to hitch south, Mexico and Bay area, here just before Christmas, Manhattan 1953.![From roof of Brahmin's house wherein we'd rented Third floor room six months December to May 1963, could see past temple mandir tops across Ganges river to other shore. Our balconies hung over vegetable-meat market one side, other side overlooked sacred street down to Dasasumedh [or Dasaswamedh?] Ghat bathing steps peopled by Pilgrims beggars & cows; monkeys visited and snatched our bananas, Peter Orlovsky held my Retina, Benares India Spring 1963., Allen Ginsberg, 1963, printed 1989](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/ac48b102-5b6e-4798-86df-ba4e02f98d9c/full/!400,400/0/default.jpg)
Allen GinsbergFrom roof of Brahmin's house wherein we'd rented Third floor room six months December to May 1963, could see past temple mandir tops across Ganges river to other shore. Our balconies hung over vegetable-meat market one side, other side overlooked sacred street down to Dasasumedh [or Dasaswamedh?] Ghat bathing steps peopled by Pilgrims beggars & cows; monkeys visited and snatched our bananas, Peter Orlovsky held my Retina, Benares India Spring 1963.
Allen GinsbergJeff B. Buhl, I met at Kerouac Conference Naropa, here in San Francisco March 1985. Rock & Roll Pact, lives in Berkeley.
Allen GinsbergSelf Portrait in my bathroom mirror holding self portrait in Moscow hotel room mirror taken a couple years earlier. I was dressed up ready for a film interview in my bedroom (thru door behind my left shoulder. January 10, 1987. Who's in the background?
Allen GinsbergDead creature, Xauen, Morocco 1957.
Allen GinsbergDavid Greenberg, Phi Beta Kappa Rutgers U. '93, poet, art curator & essayist, guitar song composer Indie-Rock group "Pen Pal", co-editor Soft Skull press, Corso friend & scholar, fresh from 24th birthday head-shave. After graduation he lived six months in little guest-room open-doored behind him, worked odd jobs in Manhattan. March 13, 1995.
Allen GinsbergRay Bremser, Jazz-bar sound-poetry genius, syncopating wow-sound word- / walloper, original N.Y. late-1950's Coffeshop bard with Kerouac & LeRoi Jones, his long-ago jail songs were noted by Bob Dylan in _The Times They are a Changin'_; at kitchen table March 15, 1987, he stayed over to read Poetry and teach my "Literary History of Beat Generation" Class Brooklyn College, come down from A.A. halfway house in Utica N.Y., rare trip to the Apple for survivor w/ big fine beard.
Allen GinsbergW.S. Burroughs leaving my photo show Holly Solomon Gallery 57th Street & 5th Avenue, New York January 1985.
Allen GinsbergStrong Gregory Corso Tangier 1961, The loner.
Allen GinsbergGregory Corso looking out his attic-room skylight 9 Rue Git-le-Coeur half block from Seine off Place St. Michel. He had finished first City Lights Gasoline, completed Marriage & Bomb, begun Power Poem, & was "eliminating" Death & Clown motifs (i.e. Probing Concepts), see Happy Birthday of Death volume 1960. Peter O & I lived downstairs 3rd floor, Paris 1957.
Allen GinsbergDouble-mirrored bathroom wall, Mapleton Street house Boulder Colorado, self-portrait with R.F., Buddhist-studies major at Naropa Institute, Olympus XA steadied on towel-rack, August 1986.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs interviewed for _Heavy Petting_ film memoir of youthful erotic initiations, his secretary James Grauerholz leaning forward observing discussion of sex world 1930 – 40s, final movie version cut out Bill’s queer loves. Obie Benz’s Soho loft, New York, December 21, 1986.
Allen GinsbergKitchen window later afternoon January 23, 1987, snow melted on the sill, I never met Bill Rizzo.
Allen GinsbergLucien Carr, his apartment above Sheridan Square, working then for U.P.I.
Allen GinsbergEugene Brooks at Seder Table, Patterson, New Jersey E. 34th St. our house
Allen GinsbergMeat delivery, Bluefields Nicaragua, January 1986.
Allen GinsbergBob Dylan, Tompkins Square Park, ten minutes later we were chased out onto Avenue A by homeless men sleeping in the bandshell who threw bottles at us mistakenly thinking we were taking their pictures. May 21, 1990.
Allen GinsbergJack Micheline in front of Trieste Cafe March 16, 1985 San Francisco
Allen GinsbergPeter Orlovsky at James Joyce’s grave, Zurich Switzerland December 1980, we climbed up to the cemetery and found Joyce’s statue snow covered, brushed it off his head.
Allen GinsbergWelsh Poet Dafydd Rowlands & myself above Laugharne Bay & Dylan Thomas' Boat-house, he'd driven us back from Aberystwyth Eisteddfod englynion competition where we'd met ex-Bardic Chair-holder former Dic Jones, thence we returned to Swansea Poetry Festival where I'd stayed six days, April 5, 1995.
Allen GinsbergG. Corso & P. Orlovsky hanging around Bill Burroughs' room Tangier 1961
Allen GinsbergMuseum of the Great Patriotic War, Minsk, Belarusia, Soviet Union, a visit by U.S. Literary delegation, planned sightseeing, our yuppie-Russian interpreter left, novelist Wm. Gass second from Right, the rest of our writers & delegates had wandered away down marble halls.
Allen GinsbergAnne Waldman orator poet co-director of Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute, Boulder Colorado, discussing a love affair over table at T'ai Chi teacher Jane Faigao's house, Robert Frank's _The Americans_ under her wrist, August 15, 1985.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs sitting up in back bedroom waiting for my company...
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith, hermetic film-maker, philosopher, archivist, painter & bibliophile stayed in that little music room in my apartment for nine months recovering from a compression fracture of his right knee. He spent months tape-recording ambient sounds of the Lower East Side coming into my Manhattan windows from miles around.
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith (1923-1991), Anthropologist, entho-musicologist, bibliophile, innovative animator & film-maker, painter, designer, metaphysician & hermetic alchemist. Made over 1500 recordings for "restricted scientific use", 120 cuts commercially released. Mr. Smith's work collecting and preserving American oral song literature and artifacts was a primary source for post-mid-century folk music revival; Bob Dylan and others drew inspiration from his historic 3-box 6-record _Anthology of American Folk Music_ Collection made available 1952 on Folkways (FA 2951, 2&3) Records. First recordings of Charlie Parker, of the Fugs, of the Kiowa Peyote Ceremony (FE 4601, 1965 Folkways). Lived in poverty on New York's Bowery, awarded a Grammy 1991 for his "advancement of American Folk Music". Equally celebrated as avant-garde film-maker.
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith returned to visit my house, his old room behind him, about a year after he’d migrated upstate to Cooperstown with two dozen boxes of his paintings, books and several hundred hours of tapes he’d made on my Sony Pro Walkman of the ambient sounds of lower Manhattan (climaxing July 4, 1985) – microphone wrapped in towel on windowsill sucking in dog barks & auto horns from the battery to lower East Side for months. Now it is August 30th, 1986.
Allen GinsbergJulius Orlovsky in woods, hill behind Karme Chöling Meditation Center, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, September 3 Labor Day mushroom hunting, 1984.
Allen GinsbergRD Laing, I visited with Poet Tom Pickard, camera in Tom’s hands, Laing’s residence in Hampstead, we were saying goodbye after a four hour talk & tour of house Dr. Laing was soon to depart, his marriage breaking up. London April 25, 1985