Ernest: just chiming in here from North America's west coast (almost) on
the Ginsberg trail. A couple of days ago I was idly (& ironically, of
course) musing that you might be Donald Hall in disguise and, as it
happens, DH does give something of a perspective on the UK's take on
Ginsberg - the 1962 Penguin "Contemporary American Poetry" edited by
Hall, was sans AG, but for the '72 revised edition AG was added with
this comment from DH in the intro: "I have added AG, whom it was
ridiculous to omit in the first place." Whether that comment is aimed
at himself or Penguin I don't know, although Penguin had brought out a
Corso, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg in about 1965. Seems he became OK in the
mid-60's over there.
He was embraced by younger writers (Iain Sinclair's "The Kodak Mantra
Diaries" documents an AG visit to London), but also well liked by others
(used to have a reel-to-reel tape recording from BBC'c Third Programme
of a Royal Albert Hall Poetry International, George MacBeth praising
Ginsberg for his warm disposition, the way he cared well for the 80 year
old Ungaretti - as memory tells me, lost the tape, probably stolen by
Krapp).
For this young Brit the trio book and the Allen & Creeley edited "The
New Writing in the USA", also Penguin, were openings to a, literal, new
world which I moved to in the early 70's. The books didn't tell the
half of it ("she moved out of the dark church of habit into the dazzling
presence of an unknown god" Robert Kelly).
The Bunting/Ginsberg meeting I'll leave to others & you're probably
looking for first-hand encounters anyway, so I'll clear the deck now.
all the best, Pete.
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