❤❤

Imy uncle James ❤

What is that hair ☠️☠️☠️

Nancy is a literary force. Language can be fun. She's completely right. 100%

"Waiting for the lightning to strike." Exactly. That part. Wonderful conversation.

Fantastic interview. Mike is the best!

Like this get in touch with humanity

Puma Perl. What a girl! I love her work

I loved this and learned alot. Suzanne's reading was spectacular! And her speaking too

Great series Richard. Beautifully insightful and put together.

I love the Beats, punk and poetry. This was perfect!

Inspired in equal parts by Kurt Vonnegut and punk rock, in the late '80s I went to college to study literature. Oh man, the poetry curriculum was 200 years out of date, so, having heard rumors of the Beats, one day I read Howl on my own and had my mind blown. I immediately stood up and read it again, this time aloud. I didn't know a thing about Ginsberg's theories of line lengths and breath, but it just felt right to give it voice. One year later, I was at Brooklyn College studying poetry with Ginsberg himself. I was expecting a wildman, but he was a meticulous scholar with a seemingly bottomless well of knowledge. One of his key tenets (which I haven't since seen mentioned elsewhere since) was his idea of a poem being like sheet music for breath--that by reading aloud and replicating the breathing of the poet one accesses through physical means the emotional state of when the poem was written. Does that make sense? Anyway, excellent video series and thanks for the refresher course!

Terrific episode. Thanks so much for putting this series together. It's informative and fascinating. Love the poets in this episode in particular.

Well, you know your stuff. And concentrating specifically on Beat poetics brought everything into focus. As for myself, I am a certified City Lights Pocket Poet, 75 years old, who was named by Lew Welch in I REMAIN, his collected correspondence, as "my only heir." I've just finished writing an autobiography called GIVING MYSELF AWAY, and one of its chapters is dedicated to Lew as a poetic mentor and teacher, both his teaching style and his curriculum, plus the greater San Francisco poetry scene of that time, punctuated by interactions with Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder and Helen Luster whom I knew, and shorter encounters with Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Gregory Corso, Charles Bukowski, Jack Hirschman, Michael McClure, Ed Dorn, Richard Brautigan, Philip Whalen etc. etc. etc. I'd like to send it to you. How can I do that? (Email: [email protected])

Wonderful Willis...

I’m glad there’s more focus on the Beat women now.

Part two let’s gooooo! I love the Beats.

Beautiful sis on Hanging with Mr Cooper, i hope she's doin well.

Thanks for this! Lots to think about.

Bravo, Matt! ("They say, ... Ruby, you're like a pearl, . . .")

Beautiful.

Watching this many years later, and it is unsettling how much laughter is going on. They're talking about harmful stereotypes and the laughter kind of just amplifies how these real experiences are seen as comical.

Her journalist career is lowkey shameful, but her ability to bounce back from fabrication is impressive. Its a good thing she stuck to fiction, bc reporting truth clearly wasn't her best skill. I'd like to hear her apologize for her choices at the Globe especially, where apparently 50 of her columns included fictional characters.

one of the best friends I ever had. I miss you Larry.

More! These are all so thoroughly smart & consistently engaging, Richard--thank you!

Okay, this, too, rocks BIGTIME!

Richard this is fantastic! Really, you are a GREAT teacher!

u visited my school and judged a writing contest. thank u

Richard, thanks so much for this and all the episodes -- a terrific series.

What a treat - thank you!

So many good lines and further references. Thanks for that.

That was wonderful - many thanks.

Fantastic series! May it go and on!!

Thnk you Richard.

I have her CD, it is my prized possession

I love this! Thank you 🙏

This is excellent. Thank you ❤

Wonderful series!

Outstanding series!! Richard is the best, the master. Thanks for creating this series. Great production! However, they are too brief, too brief...

This is sooooo good. This is where The Doors and X started out, Venice Beach beatnik poetry, and who knows how many other bands. I'm a John Harris fan already!

Dear Brenda your genius has always shined through - ever since “Parousia” I have believed in you. I pray you are still the amazing artist you deserved to be, long distance love to you and hope for your today and tomorrow.

She jumped to her death 35 days after this reading. What a tragic loss. Love her work.

Aleida was my first writing teacher❤

Outstanding! Look forward to all future excursions!! Especially loved seeing Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein brought into the mix. On the road with the Carma Bums, we had many, many extended conversations over years and endless miles debating form versus content. A pushmepullyou chicken and egg sort of thing among us all which informed not just our writing, but more importantly for the Bums, our performances. Scott and I were always on the side of content moving form to form: process. Process is everything, everything is process.

The Creeley quote "Form is never more than an extension of content" is so on the money. Nothing predetermined.

❤❤2012 to 2020 I worked in Jeffersonville indiana, Mishawaka indiana, elkhart Indiana Shepardvill Kentucky and waxahachie texas. I remember arriving in Louisville Kentucky airport and the taxi driver told me , out here you are a black man. Wow, the company we bought , I was the illegal but had to break stereo types.. I felt like gong back to Downey California 1980. I found used book stores and my library was Waffle House 4am to 8am everyday. I leaned so much and found the reason for American attitude towards Mexicano .. Great book. 2023. Teaching white Supremacy by Donald yacovan They stopped teaching white supremacy in public schools 1776-19655 due to Martin Luther king and Malcom x. I am home now Downey California I surf on weekends at HB pier then visit friends and talk books and evening go to East Los Angeles Cruising with my 1969 Impala. Surf in morning and low ridding.. Downey California 😅. Surfer Frank. Downey library used book section. 6pm to 8pm.. say, hello some time..

That poem at the end was so powerful! "I remember your flamethrower cocktail of kindness"

Wonderful interview -- Mike is an L.A. treasure. Thank you both!

This is great -- as well as a longtime supporter of regional poets, Mike Sonksen has a reservoir of knowledge (or should I say he IS a reservoir of knowledge) about Los Angeles history. I'll share this over to my two FB groups. Over there, people need to know more about this.

Just came across this poet, an eccentric mind and life, what an interesting story and consonance of thought. Really beautiful.