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James Franco Reveals How He Was Introduced to the Beats
I was just thinking the other day that it had been a long time since I’d heard about James Franco. I’m serious! It seemed like a year or two ago James Franco was omnipresent. There’s James Franco...
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Beat Poetry Competition at the Nuyorican
Checked out the Beat poetry slam at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe over on the Lower East Side during Beat Week. “We’re excited to be here in a proper poet’s cafe, celebrating a proper poet,” said host...
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The Light Holds Harvey Shapiro
I have just learned that Harvey Shapiro passed away yesterday. Shapiro, whose first language was the endangered language of Yiddish, is the person who suggested Martin Luther King, Jr., compose a...
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Lou Reed, Anne Waldman, Hettie Jones, and Others Celebrate Allen Ginsberg’s...
Image via Housing Works If you’ve never heard Allen Ginsberg read “Howl,” you can’t grasp its full intensity. Ginsberg has one of those voices you can’t shake out of your head, a voice you could hear...
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Modern Love
When I was still just a teenager, I fell for John Keats. He was a Romantic, prone to fits of passion and depression, the highs and lows most teenagers can relate to. He had studied and gotten his...
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Review: Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder
I caught the documentary Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder (2009) at Anthology Film Archives this past weekend. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of my favorite poets, for his use of language and whimsy....
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Happy 83rd Birthday, Gregory Corso!
One of my very favorite poets was born on this day in 1930. That’s right: Gregory Corso. He was quite a few years younger than his friends—William S. Burroughs was born in 1914, Jack Kerouac in 1922,...
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Gregory Corso’s Friends and Fans Give Him a Birthday Tribute
Michael Limnios is doing impressive work interviewing poets, scholars, and friends of the Beat writers over on Blues GR. For Gregory Corso’s birthday today, he’s compiled stories about the poet from...
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Clip: Paintings in Praise of Poets
Back when I was in undergrad at Scripps, my thesis involved the relationship between poets and painters. Later, at grad school at The New School, I continued to study the way visual and literary...
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Clip: Trading Text for Visuals: Poets As Visual Artists
I had a really fun time putting together an article for Burnside about poets who are also visual artists. From the time I was a little child, I have been drawn to both the literary and visual arts...
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Friday Links: Words in Motion
Leaving you this weekend with a few fun links::: I was just thinking the other day that there should be a library on every corner instead of a Starbucks … or maybe a library in every Starbucks? The...
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Friday Links: Homer and Kerouac
Happy Friday! Any exciting plans for the weekend? I’ll be at the New York City Poetry Festival. Poet RA Araya invited me to read as part of the line up for Miguel Algarin’s Brooklyn Poetry happening on...
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Photos from the 2013 New York City Poetry Festival
I feel incredibly honored to have been invited to read at the 2013 New York City Poetry Festival. I had such a blast hearing so many great poets read at last year’s festival, and it never occurred to...
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Writing Wednesday: There Will Be Twerking at Brooklyn Book Festival
It may not be the VMAs, but the Brooklyn Book Festival isn’t your mother’s book club. The festival announced its schedule of events last week, and, yes, there will be twerking … or rather, the author...
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From the Ottoman Empire to Greenwich Village: Coffee Houses’ Literary History
It’s Coffee Week! Sunday, September 29, is International Coffee Day, so I’m devoting the entire week to all things coffee. First, a bit about Coffee Day, via Squidoo: After a comprehensive research, it...
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Friday Links: …Punctuation!
In honor of it being National Punctuation Day earlier this week (the 24th, to be exact), here are some punctuation-related links::: Mary Norris’ delightful piece on National Punctuation Day in The New...
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Happy Birthday, Amiri Baraka!
Happy birthday to the great poet, playwright, critic, and activist Amiri Baraka! Baraka was born on this day in 1934 in Newark, the same New Jersey city where eight years earlier Allen Ginsberg had...
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Jamming Jack
Friday night at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac we all headed over to the White Eagle Pub, a dive bar on Market Street. The evening started off with a viewing of Brent Mason’s documentary Grave Matters. The...
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Happy Birthday, David Amram!
Happy birthday to David Amram! Michael Limnios of Blues.Gr put together a great tribute to David Amram featuring: Ken Radnofsky (Saxophonist) Nick Tremulis (Musician) Elmira Darvarova (Concert...
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A Tribute to Constantine P. Cavafy
What an impressive mustache! Cavafy via Wikipedia When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge. ~ from the poem “Ithaca” by Constantine...
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