Amiri Baraka, a seminal Beat poet, angry playwright, revolutionary activist and scrappy indie publisher from Newark, New Jersey has died. The Allen Ginsberg Project blog has the scoop. Here’s a Litkicks article about Amiri Baraka by Jamelah Earle from 2003.
Please feel free to share your memories or personal encounters … Read the rest
I hope my pick for the most significant book of 2013 will surprise you. It surprises me. For one thing, it’s not a book. It wasn’t published in 2013. And I’ve never mentioned it on Litkicks before.
Before I explain, here’s a quick wrap-up of my year of reading and … Read the rest
it seems strange, like yellow smoke
pushin’ up against the window panes
and ain’t a damn thing changed
i know, cause i been trying to find an antidote
while women come and go
talking of michelangelo
What! These lyrics wafted past me this weekend during a family gathering, and stopped … Read the rest
I’ve just learned that Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park/Book of Mormon fame have been animating some passages from seminal Western Buddhist author Alan Watts. The videos are excellent! Here’s Music and Life, with a message well worth hearing:
I was also intrigued to … Read the rest
Here’s some stuff I’ve checked out and liked lately:
It’s annoying that Keith Richards is more widely known today for his long-past hard-partying rock star excesses than for being (still) a world-class musician and songwriter. I almost didn’t want to read his extensive, acclaimed new autobiography Life
1, Prompted by Tom McCarthy’s trendy new novel C, AbeBooks presents a tableau of one-letter (or two-letter) books. It’s a lot of fun to look at. Of course, I’m an old school techie, so to me C will always be the title of a classic book by Kernighan … Read the rest
… Read the restThe minutes get shorter, the walls start to close in
Feels like the brain is hanging on but with clothes pins
I’ve hidden in the darkness for too long
I make it look all right but in the inside its so wrong
I want life to change but I don’t
1. Beat poet Michael McClure’s new book of poetry is called Mysteriosos. In his long and exciting career McClure has collaborated with Janis Joplin and Ray Manzarek, written influential plays like The Beard, and appeared as a character (a voice of sanity, strangely enough) in Jack Kerouac’s novel … Read the rest
If you are a publisher or publicist who sends me books to review, please note that I have changed my mailing address:
Literary Kicks
328 8th Avenue #337
New York NY 10001
Also, if you’re a publisher or publicist who sends me books to review, please know that I’m probably … Read the rest