In Memoriam, Philip Whalen, By Randy Roark Between 1980 and 1985, I studied with Philip Whalen during his more-or-less yearly appearances at Naropa Institute. During the last three years it was more of a general assistant than a student. Later, Philip had triple-bypass heart surgery and, complicating his life even more, he was also not… Continue Reading »
Tonight I drove to Denver to see British Sea Power in a club the size of my living room with about 75 people crushed together. There was no sign outside the club in the industrial suburbs of Denver identifying it as Larimer Lounge, just a piece of paper taped to a door. The only way… Continue Reading »
My most artistic moment in the S.F. Museum of Modern Art today was in the de Kooning exhibit during a film of him explaining the procee he went through while painting “Woman II,” and I was watching it and thinking, “Okay I get it–he was painting a woman with gleaming razor white teeth and… Continue Reading »
I’ve been watching Anne Waldman perform for over 22 years. More than any other poet I can name, even audio recordings cannot fully capture what is unique about her performances—the sensation that neither you nor the poet herself knows exactly where she’s headed—and that at any moment any poem can (and very often does) reverse… Continue Reading »
One summer evening in 1912, Jean Cocteau, Ballet Russe impresario Sergei Diaghilev, and the brilliant but about to go insane dancer Nijinsky were walking home after dinner. By this point, Cocteau had already accomplished quite a lot for a 21-year-old. He had published three collections of poetry, and had designed the posters for the Ballet… Continue Reading »
The Mysterious in the Photographs of Diane Arbus This is my answer to a friend’s question about what I thought the “mysterious” was in Diane Arbus’s photographs, referred to in that day’s “New York Times” review. First of all, I haven’t seen the exhibit, and probably only 40-50 Arbus photographs in my life, and most… Continue Reading »
Unhurried Vision Michael Rothenberg La Alameda Press 188880940X 160 pages Paperback $16.00 One of the aphorisms sprinkled throughout Michael Rothenberg’s “Unhurried Vision,” is one from Goethe’s “Conversation with Eckermann,” chosen to introduce a long catalog of Philip Whalen’s collected notebooks—each precisely dated. “And be sure you put to each poem the date at which you… Continue Reading »
In 1989, Eleni Sikelianos, then a poetics student at Naropa Institute, created the Student Union for Ethnic Inclusion (SUEI), an organization whose purpose was to raise funds to provide scholarships in order to broaden the ethnic diversity at Naropa. She was also a vocal and popular activist for greater recognition and respect for the school’s… Continue Reading »
The following is an introduction I wrote to “After Giselle,” collaborations between Katie Bowler and Randy Roark If you are sitting alone in your room, the space in which your thoughts occur can be called your mind. Now this “mind” is, of course—whether we realize it or not—a mixture of dozens of other minds as well,… Continue Reading »
The Importance of Wishing for the Right Thing On my first morning at the hospital, word began to spread that I’d been admitted and something was wrong with my neck. And the phone calls and e-mails and best wishes from friends began to arrive. People were praying for me, saying mantras for me, sending me… Continue Reading »