Talk:International Poetry Incarnation

Comments

I think the Wholly Communion page should be merged with this one Retinalsummer 19:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

While they film is a documentation of the event, I feel is is better to keep the pages distinct. Pages which combine say a book and the film(s)-of-the-book become ugly and confusing in their combined categories etc. AllyD 19:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the pages should be kept separate. As this is a rather old and inactive discussion I'll provisionally remove the merge tag. Please put it back if you think I've been too hasty! Stumps (talk) 02:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Complete list of performers?

I'd like to see the complete list of performers. Among other things, it would be interesting to see if any of them were women. Also, one person's idea of which performers are worth mentioning may not be another's. Pablo Neruda was there, for example, but he's not mentioned. --Rosekelleher (talk) 14:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

According this this book, [1] all the performers were male. Here is their list:

• Gregory Corso
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• Andrei Voznesensky
• Allen Ginsberg
• Harry Fainlight
• Alexander Trocchi
• Paolo Lionni
• Dan Richter - (need to confirm link is correct)
• Ernst Jandl
• Simon Vinkenoog
• Anselm Hollo
• John Esam
• Pete Brown
• Christopher Logue
• Spike Hawkins
• George Macbeth
• Adrian Mitchell

(The above source, while noting the "significant" absence of women performers, ironically gives Barbara Rubin no credit for organizing the event. Other sources say she impulsively booked the hall and did all the publicity. Presumably Trocchi et al. took charge of the guest list.)

That leaves:

• William S. Burroughs
• Michael Horovitz
• Tom McGrath

Those last three are included in this list: [2]

And here's the original program [3], which adds:

• Pablo Fernández

--Rosekelleher (talk) 20:29, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

p.s. With the possible exception of Fernández, they were all white, too. --Rosekelleher (talk) 12:43, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Who organized it

This may seem like a minor point, but if a 19-year-old girl instigated, organized, and publicized a major event like this in only ten days, and 7,000 people showed up, that's pretty impressive and I think she deserves credit for that - provided that's really what happened.

The sources tell slightly different stories. Several credit Barbara Rubin with organizing the event. The Heddon book credits "A Poets Co-operative" headed by Alexander Trocchi and Michael Horovitz.

David Sterritt credits Rubin with booking the Albert Hall but claims others took over the program - which makes sense, because (1) Rubin had plenty to do just publicizing the event, and (2) if it had been up to her, she likely would have invited some women to perform (as she did in '67).

"Ginsberg was traveling with Barbara Rubin....and she promptly booked the capacious Royal Albert Hall for an evening with Ginsberg and friends. But the program was 'soon hijacked by a posse of native poets,' in the words of a London film historian." --David Sterritt, "Wholly Communion: Scenario, Film, Novelization" Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, Vol. 52, No. 1, THINGS FALL APART: PETER WHITEHEAD ISSUE, PART I (SPRING 2011), pp. 145-163

That story is supported by this account by Barry Miles, who says that Rubin booked the hall and did the publicity, while others took over planning of the program. He notes that the prospect of reading at the Albert Hall was an ego trip for the poets, so if Rubin hadn't impulsively, boldly, booked it, the event wouldn't have attracted the performers it did from all over the world; and if she hadn't gotten it on the news, it wouldn't have attracted such a big crowd. So I'm inclined to credit her with organizing it even if others were involved. --Rosekelleher (talk) 17:07, 22 February 2015 (UTC)