Tuesday, November 11, 2008

allen ginsberg/gary snyder


We have received copies of the new "Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder", and here is a quote from a letter written by Allen Ginsberg.It is 1975 and Allen is teaching at Naropa: Merwin, Anne (Waldman), Gregory (Corso) and I each read Shelley's Ode to the West Wind our own interpretations in one class - three or four older poets listening in each class. I started with "Seafarer" and read thru Shelley and Marvell and Smart when I discovered half my class never read but Snyder and Kerouac and Howl in high school and college, half the class had never read West Wind so i went back in time and taught weird selected survey course "Scepter and Crown must tumble down" etc.Winding uo tonight with William Carlos Williams and Kerouac end session - my father taught Keats my last class."
Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyder July 11, 1975