Allen Ginsberg

Forgotten Poet of the day: Karl Shapiro

by Joe Weil October 9, 2013 Poetry and Poetics

There are many reasons why Karl Shapiro is no longer taught or on the lips of MFA students. First, he was part of the post-war formalist/structuralism/urban boom in poetry, but he had enjoyed great success (Pulitzers and whatnot), and he was a Jew. A Jew with a Pulitzer in the 1940s/1950s who was neither humble [...]

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The Poetic Hipsters of New Brunswick: A short memoir

by Joe Weil May 22, 2013 Arts & Society

There never were any hipsters in Elizabeth. Elizabeth is like the hell of hipsters. All the Brownstones were torn down and replaced by McDonalds. The DeCalvacante family had its headquarters there. The bars are old school, and too truly old school to be retro. Worst of all, the people are sincere and earnest and work [...]

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Big Time Sensuality: Jack Gilbert

by Karl Wolff September 17, 2012 Poetry and Poetics

Naked Except for the Jewelry “And,” she said, “you must talk no more about ecstasy. It is a loneliness.” The woman wandered about picking up her shoes and silks. “You said you loved me,” the man said. “We tell lies,” she said, brushing her wonderful hair, naked except for the jewelry. “We try to believe.” [...]

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Bob Kaufman’s Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness

by Brooks Lampe February 1, 2011 Aesthetics

My research currently has me looking into the surrealist-Beats, and I recently read Solitude Crowded With Loneliness. This was Kaufman’s first book, published in 1965, which brought together work from the late fifties that had made him famous, including and Does the Secret Mind Whisper? I am in awe of how completely Kaufman was able [...]

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Franco File

by Brian Chappell November 15, 2010 Film

If James Franco’s first name had been Ben, it would take very little to convince me that he is, in fact, the 24-hour multimedia reincarnation of the original King of Enterprise and Toil, Benjamin Franklin, whose parades through Philadelphia at the dawn bell with a wheelbarrow full of already-completed paperwork resemble Franco’s continuous and uncanny [...]

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How to Ransack a Poem for Parts, Part II

by Joe Weil October 19, 2010 Poetry and Poetics

The other day, I posted a poem of Pablo Medina’s which I published in my second issue of Black Swan back in 1989. I put the magazine out with money from income tax returns. It was an act of love, an act of madness, and four issues went forth into the world before money prohibited [...]

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Immortality (Blogging through Grossman, Part 4)

by Micah Towery March 23, 2010 Art

I’ve decided to change my strategy for blogging through Grossman. Not only is it almost impossible to try and successfully capture the first part of the book in any systematic way (the conversation shifts too rapidly and it’s almost maddening to trace any idea), but the second part is so lovely and systematically broken down, [...]

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Blogging through Grossman, Part 3: Poetic Promiscuity.

by Micah Towery March 2, 2010 Film

In their second conversation, Mark Halliday and Allen Grossman attempt to answer the question “Where are we now in the history of poetry?” I figured I’d highlight a few of the most interesting takes on poets of the last hundred years. I want to then use it as the basis of a discussion on the [...]

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