Postbeat Poets Activist Scholarship Project



In a 1966 interview with Robert Shelton, Bob Dylan said, "What I mean by 'holy' is crossing the boundaries of time and usefulness... Allen Ginsberg, he's just holy." Statements such as this mark the beginnings of the Postbeat period––a time when the reverberations of the Beat Generation were being reshaped and expanded upon by poets influenced by the works of the Beats in general and Ginsberg in particular. The documents included here ascribe to the notion of the Scholar-Activist put forward by Postbeat poet Edward Sanders––a concept that occurred to him while reading Matthew Arnold's "The Scholar-Gypsy." The Scholar-Activist, wrote Sanders in a 2007 talk entitled "Writing, Social Change, and Revolution," has an undifferentiated calling for "private research and public action." The significance of the Postbeat Poets Activist Scholarship, in any period, is to illuminate poetic calling as it is now.
Allen reading "On Neal's Ashes" on stage in Ft Collins Colorado, during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Tour, May 1976. [Allen Ginsberg Trust.]  

 

Invitation to Submit Essays

Antler
Interviewed by Porcupine

Levi Asher
"Naropa"

Pilar Rodríguez Aranda
"100TPC Experience"

Norman Ball
"Camelot Sells A Lot"

Derrick Bell
"Space Traders"

Jim Carroll
Interview with Nate Schweber

Jeff Chang
"Is Protest Music Dead"

Jeff Chang
"New World Order"

Neeli Cherkovski
"The Ithaca Of Poetry" Interview by Michael Limnios

Teresa Chuc
["During summer 2011, I first heard about 100 Thousand Poets for Change through a Facebook post"]

Andy Clausen
"President At Home Of The Blues" Interview by Michael Limnios

Andy Clausen
"Scansion This"

Andrei Codrescu
Interview with Robert Birnbaum

Ira Cohen
The Great Rice Paper Adventure Kathmandu, 1972-1977

Jim Cohn
from "Like a Teardrop in Some Forgotten Video"

Jim Cohn
"Postbeats Poets"

Jim Cohn
"A Postbeat Poets Chronology: 1962-2010"

Wanda Coleman
"What is American About American Poetry"

Wanda Coleman & Troung Tran
"Letters to Poets"

Peter Conners
"Sink Like a Stone, Float Like a Feather: The Poetics of Bobby Petersen"

David Cope
On Poetry, Music and Growing Up in Grand Rapids: Interview with Kyle Austin

David Cope
"Play & Turn the Wheel: Midlife Poetics"

David Cope
Shakespeare Central Times Interview by Steve Rowland

David Cope
"Scream with Rhyme and Clarity" Interview by Michael Limnios

Michael Davidson
"Missing Larry: The Poetics of Disability in Larry Eigner"

Martín Espada
Interviewed by Luis Urrea

Steven Foehr
"Death and the Rebirth of Patti Smith"

Vernon Frazer
"Remembering Thomas Chapin
"

Vernon Frazer
"Extending the Age of Spontaneity to a New Era: Post-Beat Poets in America"

Sasha Frere-Jones
With Feathers of Solid Chrome, in Beaks of Solid Bone: Captain Beefheart, 1941-2010

Christopher T. Funkhouser
from "Layered Effects in Multiplex Poetry Since Black Mountain"

Jerry Garcia
The Last Interview

Giacomo Gates
The Five Spot: Zen and Now

Kirpal Gordon
"The Bee-Loud Glade" Interview by Randy Roark

Kirpal Gordon
"9 Champions of the Spoken Word"

Kirpal Gordon
"9 Writers Taking The Postbeat Lineage Further"

Kirpal Gordon & Vernon Frazer
"Who Are We Now: A Retrospective Of Michael Rothenberg
"

Kirpal Gordon & Stephen-Paul Martin
"Vernon Frazer's Improvisations: A Duet"

Kirpal Gordon
Speak-Spake-Spoke: Interview by Normal Ball

Hedweg Gorski
"Rhymes and Rhythms of Eden" Interview by Michael Limnios

Margaret A. Harrell
"Meeting Hunter S. Thompson"

Steven Hirsch
Conversation with Harold Channer

Bob Holman
"What's American About American Poetry?"

Lisa Jarnot
"On Identity"

Eliot Katz
"Eight Techniques For Creating Memorable Political Poems"

Eliot Katz
"Howlin Soul" Interview by Michael Limnios

Eliot Katz
"Reaching Out to Adrienne Rich: An Activist Poet's Tribute"

Eliot Katz
Talkin' Occupy: Interview by Levi Asher

Eliot Katz
Andy Clausen's Without Doubt

Eliot Katz
"Unlocking the Language Room of War"

Eliot Katz
Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull: A review by Tony Trigilio

Robert LaVigne
The Artist's Life As A Work In Progress

Sharon Mesmer
"Twenty Years On"

Peter Marti and Marc Olmsted
Interview by Julie Adler

Joni Mitchell
On Trungpa Rinpoche

New York City General Assemby
"Declaration of Occupation of New York City"

Lesléa Newman
"Allen Ginsberg: A Poetic Life"

Lesléa Newman
Northampton's poet laureate on writing

Occupy Wall Street
Poetry Anthology (pdf)

Marc Olmsted
BEAT MEMOIR #9: THE PUNK & THE LAMA

Marc Olmsted
"Statement of Poetics"

Marc Olmsted
"GENIUS ALL THE TIME: The Beats, Spontaneous Presence, and Primordial Ground" (pdf)

Stan Persky
Review of Christopher Bram's Eminent Outlaws: The Love That Dared To Write Its Name

Pedro Pietri
"There Was Never No Tomorrow: Nuyorican Pedro Pietri In His Own Words"

Kristin Prevallet
"Navigating the New Chaos: Anne Waldman’s Collaborations with Visual Artists"

Bob Rixon
“Happy Birthday David”

Randy Roark
"Psychedelic Poster Art Catalog"

Randy Roark
Interviewed by Kirpal Gordon

Randy Roark
Interviewed by Jeffrey Side

Randy Roark
"Apprenticing with Allen Ginsberg: The Object Is to See Clearly"

Randy Roark
"A Poet's Progress: Poetic Apprenticeship––Life Lessons From Ginsberg, Snyder and Whalen" Interview by Michael Limnios

Ron Rodriguez
Washington Writers' Publishing House interview

Bob Rosenthal
"Allen Ginsberg, Revisited By His Right-Hand Man"

Michael Rothenberg & Terri Carrion
100 Thousand Poets for Change Movement: "About Text"

Michael Rothenberg
100 Thousand Poets for Change Movement: "Final Press Release"

Mary Sands & Michael Rothenberg
"Renaissance: The Beat and Beyond"

Menka Shivdasani
["For many poets in a mega city like Mumbai, writing poetry is not a peaceful activity"]

Danny Shot
"Long Shot"

Steve Silberman
"The Only Song of God"

Steve Silberman
"Who Was Cowboy Neal?"

Steve Silberman
"Married to the Guru"

Steve Silberman
"Appreciation: Poet Was Ever a Subversive Spirit: Gregory Corso Despised Pretention"

Mark Spitzer
"Bob Dylan's Tarantula: An Arctic Reserve of Untapped Glimmerance Dismissed in a Ratland of Clichés"

Bruce Springsteen
SXSW 2012 Keynote Address

Steven Taylor
"Only Love" Interview by Michael Limnios

Thom The World Poet
Poetry Activism in the Wavy Gravy Lineage: Interview by Kirpal Gordon

John Tytell
"When The Angels Sing" Interview by Michael Limnios

Anne Waldman
from "Feminafesto"

Anne Waldman
Interview by Randy Roark

Anne Waldman
"Illuminati in the Void" Interview with Jim Cohn

Anne Waldman
"Push, Push Against the Darkness" Interview with Jim Cohn

Edwin Forrest Ward
"A Mile High And Underground"

Eliot Weinberger
"What Was Formalism?"

Cornel West and Public Enemy
September 17, 2011 speech in Wisconsin/"He got game"

Miles White
"Race Rebels: Whiteness And The New Masculine Desire"

Saul Williams
Interview by Jason Mallory

David Willis
"Father & Son: Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan"

Rob Wilson
Beat Attitudes: On the Roads to Beatitude for Post-Beat Writers, Dharma Bums and Cultural-Political Activists
(pdf)

A. D. Winans
"The Golden Gate Poet" Interview by Michael Limnios

Nina Zivancevic
"Balkan Dakini" Interview by Michael Limnios