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The Law of Unexpected Consequences, Example A from “A Poet’s Progress,” Newtopia Magazine #4
The current king of Morocco—Mohammed VI—has a problem. He has one million nomads (mostly Berbers, down from nine million only a decade ago) who are completely dependent on having enough water and feed to keep their flocks alive year-round. With a drought—like the one Morocco experienced for six years in the early part of this… Continue Reading »
Arriving in Casablanca, A Poet’s Progress, Newtopia Magazine #3
Three months after I got back from Morocco, the riots in Tunisia began and within days, it seemed, the government fell. Friends who knew I had recently been in northwestern Africa wondered if Morocco would be next. “No,” I said. “The Moroccans love their king.” And then I would give them a list of reasons… Continue Reading »
The Law of Unexpected Consequences, Exhibit B, for “A Poet’s Progress,” Newtopia Magazine #2
The Law of Unexpected Consequences, Exhibit B King Mohammed VI had a problem. Most rural and nomad women were illiterate, they were restricted to the home, and they were often pledged to arranged marriages even before they “became a woman.” They would be auctioned off, sometimes not meeting their husbands–often decades older—until the wedding. These… Continue Reading »
Flying to Casablanca, from “A Poet’s Progress,” Newtopia Magazine #1
Preface On March 15, 2007, I made a vow to spend the next ten years studying anything that caught my interest, doing everything I wanted to do, reading everything I wanted to read, seeing everything I wanted to see, traveling everywhere I wanted to travel, and writing my way through the process. I’d talked a… Continue Reading »
May 10, 2010: First Notes for a Walking Tour of Provence with Jonathan Gill on the 100th Anniversary of Ezra’s Walking Tour of Provence, Summer 2012
Notes for a Walking Tour of Provence with Jonathan Gill on the 100th Anniversary of Ezra’s Walking Tour of Provence, Summer 1912 “Pound admits to hesitating between two opposite models of travel writing—on the one hand, the ‘voyage of sentiment’ (in which the depaysement of foreign parts serves as a stimulus to ‘strange and exquisite emotions’),… Continue Reading »
Interview with Jim Cohn of the Museum of American Poetics, 2010
Randy Roark: Interview by Jim Cohn Randy Roark came to Boulder in November 1979 to apprentice with the poet Allen Ginsberg as he assembled his Collected Poems, and continued to work in various capacities with the poet until Ginsberg’s death in 1997. He has published over 40 volumes of original prose and poetry and art… Continue Reading »
“Sometimes You’re Lucky, Sometimes You’re Not: La Nouvelle Chanson Francaise 1997-2009”
Sometimes You’re Lucky, Sometimes You’re Not Nouvelle Chanson An Anthology of European Pop 1997-2009 The Liner Notes to a 6CD Set Collected by Randy Roark La Nouvelle Chanson Nouvelle Chanson (or Nouvelle Scene Francaise) describes a pop music movement beginning in France in the late Nineties, characterized by a return to the stylings and language… Continue Reading »
Randy on “Colorado Matters”
Click here to listen to Randy on “Colorado Matters” (Colorado Public Radio) speaking about the Naropa Audio Archive – 12,000 hours of recordings of teachers – established by Allen Ginsberg. Now in danger of audio degradation and eventual disintegration, hear how the archive is being rescued. Continue Reading »
Interview with Jeffrey Side of “The Argotist,” United Kingdom, 2006
An Interview for “Argotist” Literary Magazine, United Kingdom, December, 2006 Jeffrey Side has had poetry published in various magazines such as Poetry Salzburg Review, and on poetry web sites such as Poethia, nthposition, eratio, Ancient Heart, Blazevox, P.F.S. Post, hutt, ken*again, and CybpherAnthology. He has reviewed poetry for New Hope International, Stride, Acumen, and Shearsman…. Continue Reading »
August 17, 2006, “A History of the Band,” Liner Notes to a 10CD Set
CD1: A History of the Band, Volume I Further on Up the Road/Nineteen Years Old: These are the first recordings of the basic line-up of what become later become the Band (Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, and Rick Danko), recorded during some leftover time in the studio while still members of Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks…. Continue Reading »