Pathpoesia Prayer Flag Project |
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Pathpoesia Prayer Flag Project: Background
While visiting the Tashi Gomang Stupa outside Crestone, Colorado during the summer of 2006, I had a vision of fusing Beat and Postbeat Generation American poetry with traditional Tibetan prayer flag forms. In the creation of an American prayer flag poetics, rooted in Diamond Earth spiritual bardic lineage dating back to earliest Mindfulness conjurings, I envisioned the poem itself would continue to play a direct role as Dark Age protector, instigator, national narrative or personal ego identity shredder. These pathpoesia prayer flags were designed to according to lung ta style. A small number of these prepared objects, sanctified by traditional Tibetan prayer flag makers working in exile in Nepal, were sent to friends as gifts that winter, hoping these poets would hang the flags from porches, rooftops, across back country rivers, high peaks, in offices, subways, carrying them into demonstrations, war zones, letting the flags cast their spells wherever human eyes arising from suffering may pass. Two different sets were printed. The first was a 50th anniversary reprint of the final version of "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. Peter Hale of the Allen Ginsberg Trust remarked, "I really do see how physically the poem does work in that format." The second, "When Skeletons Make Love" is a poem written while staying in Crestone that summer. Anne Waldman remarked upon reading it: "This is an amazing tantri poem...incredibly sustained, powerful, viseral." A second, redesigned "Howl" prayer flag, was produced by the Museum of American Poetics Publications in 2009. With the approval of the Allen Ginsberg Trust, these new sets also feature a Buddha doodle by Allen Ginsberg. These flags are approximately 8.5" (w) x 10" (l), and are printed on a blend of traditional Nepalese flag cotton and silk, making for a shinier finish than the first, out of print, run. Visit the MAP Store Howl Prayer Flag page to view and purchase.
Pathpoesia Prayer Flag Exhibit
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