[Poetry reading at the University at Buffalo, October 3, 1990] / Jim Carroll and Allen Ginsberg.

Recorded in Buffalo, New York on October 3, 1990 on a 90 minute Maxell sound cassette.

This poetry reading by Jim Carroll and Allen Ginsberg was sponsored by Just Buffalo Literary Center. Carroll was introduced by Ted Pelton and Ginsberg was introduced by Charles Bernstein. Carroll first read passages from Forced entries: the downtown diaries 1971-1973 (1978), then said "I'll read a couple of new pieces. Some of these I haven't actually typed up yet, so I'm just going to read them from my notebook." Two of the poems Carroll read (the first beginning "As a result of spring, mosquitoes are magnificent" and the second beginning "Train to Baltimore inches out of Penn Station") are as yet, uncollected. Ginsberg read poems that spanned from 1947 to the time of the reading. He started off with "In society," the 1947 poem that opens his book: Collected poems. Toward the end of the reading, Ginsberg read early versions of, as he put it: "short poems, sort of alternate style, not particularly controversial, perceptions, single-sentence one liners" that would be printed under the title "American sentences" in the book Cosmopolitan greetings: poems 1986-1992 (1994), as well as one-line poems that are uncollected.

Jim Carroll and Allen Ginsberg.

The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries. Digital conversion was made possible through a 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

1990

Sound recording

PCR125

Disc 1:Jim Carroll reading from Forced entries:A day at the races --Times Square's cage --Tiny tortures --first line of poem:[As a result of spring, mosquitoes are magnificent] --Terrorist trousers--To the National Endowment for the Arts (early version) --first line of poem:[Train to Baltimore inches out of Penn Station]. --Disc 2.Allen Ginsberg reading:In society --Sunflower Sutra --Punk rock your my big crybaby --"Don't grow old (1)" --Father death blues --Birdbrain! --first line of poem:[Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun, walking the path to lunch] --first line of poem:[A dandelion weed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitoes] --first line of poem:[At four a.m. two middle-aged men sleeping together hold hands] --first line of poem:[In the half light of dawn] --first line of poem:[Caught shoplifting, ran out of the department store at sunrise and woke up] --from American sentences:Tompkins Square Lower East Side N.Y. (early version) --On hearing the Muezzin cry Allah Akbar while visiting the Pythian Oracle at Didyma toward the end of the second millenium (early version) --White shroud --Full moon.

Hear@Buffalo: The Poetry Collection’s Audio Archive

UB Only

lib-pc002-PCR125.mp3