Category Archives: Allen Ginsberg

Diane di Prima

Posted on November 9, 2020 by

“Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934 – October 25, 2020) was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Di Prima authored nearly four dozen books. … She edited … Continue reading →

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Wanna-Beats: In 1959, Café Bizarre Gave Straights an Entree Into Beatnik Culture

Posted on November 6, 2020 by

A poet gives a reading on stage at The Bizarre coffehouse on West 3rd St., Greenwich Village, New York City, 1961. “America hit peak hippie in 1967, thanks to the avalanche of media hype that accompanied the Summer of Love. … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Counterculture, Hippie, Jack Kerouac, Music, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tracking the Beat Generation Across Three Continents

Posted on October 8, 2020 by

Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” (1951) “PARIS — Though almost entirely lacking a female presence — artist Jay DeFeo and poet Diane Di Prima being the exceptions that prove the rule —  the Centre Pompidou’s airily laid out retrospective of … Continue reading →

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Grove Press

Posted on September 14, 2020 by

“Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Books, Burroughs, Draft board, Jack Kerouac, Malcolm X, Poetry, Timothy Leary, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Paul Bowles in Exile – Jay McInerney

Posted on September 13, 2020 by

“As the faithful poured into the mosque for prayer, I searched for the door to a restaurant reputedly just across the street and tried to seem inconspicuous. It was my second night in Tangier. Men in dark robes huddled on … Continue reading →

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Allen Ginsberg at the End of America

Posted on September 4, 2020 by

“In 1965, Bob Dylan gifted Allen Ginsberg with a Uher reel-to-reel tape recorder, which Ginsberg was to use to record his thoughts and observations as he traveled throughout the United States. Ginsberg, already heavily influenced by Jack Kerouac’s methods of … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Books, Jack Kerouac, Jerry Rubin, Ken Kesey, LSD, Lyn. Johnson, Marijuana, Nixon, Poetry, R. McNamara, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Hippies Who Hated the Summer of Love

Posted on August 19, 2020 by

Young hippies straddle the sidewalk as an elderly woman, a long-time resident of the Haight-Ashbury district, walks by in San Francisco, Calif., on April 25, 1967. “The posters began to appear around the city just after New Year’s, 1967. ‘A … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Grateful Dead, Haight-Ashbury, Hippie, LSD, Marijuana, Poetry, Street theater, Timothy Leary, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fifty Years Ago, a Rag-Tag Group of Acid-Dropping Activists Tried to “Levitate” the Pentagon

Posted on June 23, 2020 by

The October 21, 1967 March on the Pentagon is remembered as one of the most significant political demonstrations of the era. “Late in the evening of January 14, 1967, a few of the people responsible for turning the seventh decade … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Black Power, Ed Sanders, Haight-Ashbury, Hippie, Jerry Rubin, LSD, Lyn. Johnson, Marijuana, Poetry, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Last Times – William Burroughs, Claude Pelieu, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski (1967)

Posted on June 13, 2020 by

The Last Times I – “Day the Records Went Up” by William S. Burroughs, photograph of Herbert Huncke “The Last Times was a tabloid underground newspaper published in San Francisco in 1967 by beatnik poet and printer Charles Plymell. It … Continue reading →

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Documentary Portraits of Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, William Carlos Williams, Anne Sexton & Other American Poets (1965)

Posted on June 5, 2020 by

Allen Ginsberg “The annals of American history offer little in the way of documentarian-poets. But luckily for us today — and especially for those of us who enjoy American poetry of the mid-2oth century — one of the country’s few … Continue reading →

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