It’s a wonder that the most intriguing publisher of American poets of the Beat Generation happens to be a German publisher, Stadtlichter Presse. Its “Heartbeat” series features not only the most notable Beats — Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, and Ferlinghetti — in bilingual editions, but dozens of less famous Beats and Beat-era or Beat-related eminences as well.
Statement of Fact
In my
generation’s war,
our peaceful protests
kept the peace
the best we could —
yet could not.
without my interference
the world
slips by gently
even when
it’s shouting
Mayday
New From Moloko
Tripping with A. Robert Lee’s Travel Painting
Verse and vignette. New and selected writings. The title phrase belongs to the great haiku master Matsuo Bashō
Awaiting an Uncrackable Code
If poetry make nothing happen, as W.H. Auden once wrote, it sometimes uncannily anticipates what will.
The Bard Died 410 Years Ago Today. His Poems Live On
Sometimes he rewrote them. See an example and decide which you prefer: the early or the later version.
THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL is coming soon . . .
It Probes the Secret Prison History of American Music
Colin Asher, author of the critically acclaimed biography of Nelson Algren “Never a Lovely So Real,” now focuses on five emblematic figures — Huddle Ledbetter, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White, and Tupac Shakur — as he explores the influence of incarceration on blues artists, jazz musicians, country singers, rock’n’rollers, and hip-hop creators.
We Bloviate Therefore We Are
You have to go behind the billboards to understand what’s happening in America. So said the novelist Nelson Algren, who was as sharp a social critic as H.L. Mencken ever was. Seems to me that the British author A. Robert Lee would agree with Algren. But Lee has taken it upon himself to cite the billboards themselves as diagnostic proof.
Visual Culture Taking a Break
Buster Keaton has an idea about that..
Days of Judgment
Poems and Drawings That Speak for Themselves
New from Moloko Print — ‘Days of Judgment’ by Mark Terrill with drawings by Gerard Bellaart.
It Looks Like Spring Has Come, But Don’t Be Fooled
Two days of suddenly warm weather here in New York City brought a poem to mind, though it’s really too early to think about it.
Looking Back at NYC with Nostalgia and Dismay
In a newly recorded video, three noted writers look back at their experience of New York City with nostalgic affection — and, it must be said, with considerable dismay — from their vantage points in Switzerland and Germany.
Swiss Composer-Musician-Videographer Takes a Bow
They’re celebrating Steff Signer’s 75th birthday at the Palace tonight in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Paul Zelevansky’s Absurdist Tale of ‘Monkey & Man’
It began as a performance piece. That was a long time ago . . . 1985, to be precise, in Brooklyn. The author presented Individual stories as performances and installations. The texts also began appearing in little magazines.
Robert Nichols’s Indelible Railroad Poems Back in Print
Just received a masterly bilingual edition in English and German of “Slow Newsreel of Man Riding Train” by Robert Nichols. It is the latest in Stadtlichter Presse’s bilingual Heartbeats series devoted to American poets of the Beat generation.
THE BLACK SCHOONER
Amistad Slave Rebellion Retold in New Graphic Novel
Before Black History Month runs out, let’s note that David Lester has a new graphic novel in the works: THE BLACK SCHOONER. “It tells the true story of the 1839 uprising aboard the Amistad,” Lester says, and is one of a “growing number of titles depicting history from below.”
Peter Mathiessen Had Many Eagle-Eyed Identities
Among them were novelist, naturalist, fisherman, CIA spy.