June 3 @ 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Howl Happening Gallery
For Allen Ginsberg’s 91st birthday, Howl! Happening is holding a celebration that includes the re-release of Allen Ginsberg & William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience; music by Ed Sanders, Steven Taylor, Ernie Brooks, Bear 54; poetry readings by Bob Holman, Hettie Jones, Bob Rosenthal, David Henderson, Basil King, a group reading of “Howl” and more.
From Basil King’s Allen Ginsberg Suite, ballpoint pen on music paper.
Among the other surprises, the gallery will project seventeen drawings by Basil King (“The Allen Ginsberg Suite”). They were done in 1972 to accompany a special project by Allen honoring Jack Kerouac. Some were published in Mulch magazine #4, 1973, and in the Mulch Press book Visions of the Great Rememberer, 1974, and shown at the University of Kansas Museum, Lawrence, Kansas in 1974. Others have never been shown!
Monday, September 26th, 6:30 pm at the Martin Segal Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center:
In.On.Or About the Premises: A Celebration of the Work of Paul Blackburn
Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative is partnering with The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church to celebrate their 50th Anniversary with a panel and discussion on the life and works of Paul Blackburn: poet, translator, and foundational figure of the Lower East Side poetry scene.
Basil King will lead off the evening with a reading and reminiscence of Paul Blackburn. A roundtable moderated by Poetry Project Director Stacy Szymaszekwill follow short talks by Marcella Durand, George Economou, David Henderson, Carolee Schneemann, Simon Smith, and Robert Vas Dias on topics including his politics, his translations of Provençal troubadour verse and Julio Cortázar, and the role of the poet in shaping the city.
On Wednesday, September 28th, The Poetry Project will also host a night of readings of Paul Blackburn’s work by many poets who admire his contributions. Basil King and Martha King will be among them. For information see www.poetryproject.org
Mulch Press published this in 1972, with Basil King’s ink wash drawings.
Basil King: Between Painting and Writing — September 2 to December 24 in Asheville, NC
Curated by Vincent Katz and Brian Butler, at the Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, Asheville, NC.
This show will include paintings using images from playing cards, texts of King’s poetry, his covers for poetry books and journals, along with a large selection of his works on paper. He’ll give a poetry reading and there will be a screening of the Nicole Peyrafitte & Miles Joris-Peyrafitte film, “Basil King: MIRAGE” on September 1. King will do a ‘walk-through’ talk on his work at the opening on September 2.
On Sunday, September 4, Martha and Basil will share their experiences reading and editing each other’s work. Workshop will include brief readings, critiques, and audience discussion of process.
A wonderful reading was held last week at the Dominque Levy Gallery during the exhibition of Chung Sang-Hwa, but the art just below, “Dream of the New Year” is not his.
Hanging Scroll, ink on paper, by Hakuin, Edo Period, found on page 31 of a catalog of the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection, Morikami Museum, DeRay Beach, Florida
Afterwards BASIL wrote this to YUKO
You and Eddie gave a wonderful reading. It was like listening to two different languages. Eddie spoke in his native tongue and he takes in the exterior that confronts him with acute insight.
At the beginning of this week I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned. The woman who cleaned my teeth was English and she was very efficient. Half way through the cleaning she said, “You have a very strong tongue.”
Poets have to have strong tongues so that we can fortify the vernacular.
And at the end of the cleaning I thanked her and said that wasn’t too bad. Her response was “It’s a lot better than a slap in the face with a wet fish. Bet you haven’t heard that in a long time.”
My mother used to say that. How did she know? Was it my body language? What did I say that gave her the clues that I had been born in England?
YUKO — Martha asked me why I didn’t clap when you finished reading. It wasn’t that I wasn’t moved by what you read. It was exactly the opposite. Even though you read in English I heard maybe for the first time you speak in your “native tongue.” It’s by chance that last week Martha found on the street JAPANESE ART/Personal Selections from The Mary and Jackson Burke Collection. One of the illustrations in the book is “Dream of the New Year” by Hakum (1685-1768) and I kept seeing Hakum’s meditation as you were reading and I asked myself not clap but sit and do nothing.
Yuko was invited to write a poem for Chung Sang-Hwa’s art, which she read and which is published in the catalog. He lives and works in South Korea, has been widely shown in Asia, especially in Korea and Japan, and is now 84. This is his first solo exhibition in the U.S.
Fifty pages of my memoir Outside Inside — expertly excerpted and condensed by Brigid Hughes — is featured in issue 22 of A Public Space. With many photographs. Issue 22 –print or digital— or an annual subscription — can be ordered here: http://apublicspace.org/magazine
While I posted announcements on Facebook in October and had a marvelous send-off at the November 2015 Prose Pros reading series at Side Walk – aided by friends Vincent Katz, Mitch Highfill, Kimberly Lyons and Burt Kimmelman, who read excerpts from my work and their own autobiographical prose – I never posted the story on this blog.
So, once again, I have the pleasure of putting up the photograph taken by Lynn St. John back when I was 22. Here it is as the spread in the magazine:
Spread in A Public Space, with my article and Lynn St. John’s photo.
While the whole manuscript (all 300-plus pages of it) awaits a publisher, check out this issue. Not only for my stories, some sad and some glorious, with Basil King, Paul Blackburn, Dan Rice, Frank O’Hara, Lucia Berlin, G.R. Swenson, Robert Duncan, Jim Rosenquist and others, but also for the entire issue which has many special pleasures and rewards. I’m very happy to be in it.
Just got (unrequested) a look back at 2015 from Facebook, hitting not much of much interest. Thus am prodded to do my own.
February – Baz reads at the Dia Foundation with the wonderfully multi-talented multi-named Pam Dick (Mina, Gregoire, et al) in celebration of the 2014 publication of his The Spoken Word/The Painted Hand. Marsh Hawk Press. Available at SPD and elsewhere. (Probably even ABE’s for the pennysavers.)
“Basil King’s … mashups of art, culture, and lived experience, both minute and momentous challenge the reader out of conventional notions of art history, by a continuous attention to detail. . . .” — Kevin Killian
April – At the AWP meeting in Minneapolis. Martha speaks in a panel discussion, organized by Martha, about the influence of Black Mountain today, with C.S. Giscombe, Burt Kimmelman, Lee Ann Brown, and Vincent Katz. Later a terrific reading by Baz and C.S. Giscome and a larger group reading also including Sam Truit, Kim Lyons, Burt Kimmelman, and more, at James and Mary Laurie Booksellers
April – In conjunction with AWP, “Basil King: MIRAGE” a film by Nicole Peyrafitte and Miles Joris-Peyrafitte is screened at the Walker Art Center.
May – Baz is 80 years old.
June – New York premier of selections from George Quasha’s monumental Poetry Is project at Anthology Film Archives includes Quasha’s interview with Baz.
June– Martha returns to poetry with work in Bone Bouquet, 6.1. Still available: http://www.bonebouquet.org/issue-6-1/ So too is Bone Bouquet 6.2 just out this fall. One way to reassure oneself that the era of adventurous magazine publishing is far from over is to check out this magazine.
November – Martha’s memoir Outside Inside – that is 50 pages of it, expertly excerpted and condensed by Brigid Hughes, is featured in issue 22 of A Public Space magazine.With photos of the long ago that seem fresh. Issue 22 –print or digital—can be ordered here: http://apublicspace.org/magazine
December –short podcasts of Baz reading the following poems – and one personal recollection of TV in the early 1950s. Go here! https://soundcloud.com/joseph-terranella/sets/basil-king-2015
Basil’s Lifeboat (1 minute 23 seconds)
Inside Delacroix’s Garden (2 minutes 14 seconds)
The Butterfly and the Rat (2 minutes 32 seconds)
Looking for the Green Man (3 minutes 53 seconds)
Highway Obstacle (4 minutes 11 seconds)
Channeling 3 – (4 minutes 18 seconds)
The Americans – The Immigrants (6 minutes, 48 seconds)
Grey – complete (14 minutes 27 seconds)
Working in TV – from an interview (2 minutes 46 seconds)
AND MUCH TO COME IN 2016, including BASIL KING ART at the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, Asheville, N.C., opening SEPTEMBER 2.
Bone Bouquet, Spring 2015Martha King reading in Minneapolis . Photo by Sarah Kaplan.Baz reading at the Dia Foundation. Photo by Garth Davidson.At the Walker Museum, April 2015
To celebrate publication of Bone Bouquet –Spring 2015, Krystal Languell and the other editors invite all to a reading from the newest issue Berl’s on Front Street in Brooklyn, down under the Manhattan Bridge. [F train stop at York Street.] Please note correct date: Friday, July 17.
Bone Bouquet, Spring 2015
I’ll be there reading a section from my “South Jersey Pastorale.”
Also on hand, Chia-Lun Chang, Aimee Herman, and others.
Basil King’s reading of “The White Tablecloth,” recorded at SideWalk Café this past November, is now available. on PennSound. Click here!
(Thank you, Zach Carduner at PennSound for working the magic needed to create an MP3 file from an unpromising original.)
Even better — print is also available. “The White Tablecloth” appears in The Spoken Word/The Painted Hand, from Marsh Hawk Press. 104 pages, $15. Order from SPD, Amazon if you must, or any wonderful independent bookseller you patronize.
PennSound has more: 8 minutes of Basil’s reading of “A Pigeon in Delacroix’s Garden” at the James and Mary Laurie Booksellers of Minneapolis, April 10, 2015. Publication of this text is under discussion. Stay tuned.
News, opinion, excerpts, and images from Martha King – of my work and Basil King’s. There are, as it happens, two of each of us: The "other Basil King" was a Canadian Christian minister and novelist (1859-1928) – see page above. And the "other Martha King" was Martha J. King, who died in 2011. She was an editor and translator of contemporary Italian writing, especially women’s. See my post of February 1, 2013. Neither of these are us!
A Predella for the Green Man