Howl! East Village Festival of the Arts celebrates Allen Ginsberg

Details
Parent Category: Other Festivals
Category: Theater
Published on Saturday, 11 September 2010 10:30
Written by Brad Balfour

The annual Howl! Festival, the East Village Festival of the Arts, celebrates its seventh anniversary with a vibrant schedule of events in Tompkins Allen Ginsberg in 1985Square Park, September 10th, 11th and 12th, 2010. Beginning Friday night, September 10th, from 5 to 7 pm, the festival’s holds its traditional reading of the iconic Allen Ginsberg poem, Howl, on the South stage (Avenue A and 7th Street). The reading will feature an amalgam of the East Village’s finest poets, including John Giorno and Anne Waldman and will be led by poet Bob Holman, proprietor of The Bowery Poetry Club, founding member of the Festival and East Village luminary.

As for who was Allen Ginsberg -- FFTrav has lifted the following excerpt from his Wikipedia entry:

Irwin Allen Ginsberg (pronounced /ˈɡɪnzbərɡ/; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet who vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression. In the '50s, Ginsberg was a leading figure of the Beat Generation, an anarchic group of young men and women who combined poetry, song, sex, wine and illicit drugs with passionate political ideas that championed personal freedoms.

Major literary works of the Beat Generation include the novels On The Road by Jack Kerouac and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, as well as Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, in which he celebrates his fellow "angelheaded hipsters" and excoriates what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.

The poem, dedicated to writer Carl Solomon, has a memorable opening:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix...

In October 1955, Ginsberg and five other unknown poets gave a free reading at an experimental art gallery in San Francisco. Ginsberg's Howl electrified the audience. According to fellow poet Michael McClure, it was clear "that a barrier had been broken, that a human voice and body had been hurled against the harsh wall of America and its supporting armies and navies and academies and institutions and ownership systems and power support bases."

In 1957, Howl attracted widespread publicity when it became the subject of an obscenity trial in which a San Francisco prosecutor argued it contained "filthy, vulgar, obscene, and disgusting language." The poem seemed especially outrageous in 1950s America because it depicted both heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made homosexual acts a crime in every U.S. state. Howl reflected Ginsberg's own bisexuality and his homosexual relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner.

Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that Howl was not obscene, adding, "Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"

In Howl and in his other poetry, Ginsberg drew inspiration from the epic, free verse style of the 19th century American poet Walt Whitman. Both wrote passionately about the promise (and betrayal) of American democracy; the central importance of erotic experience; and the spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence.

J. D. McClatchy, editor of the Yale Review called Ginsberg "the best-known American poet of his generation, as much a social force as a literary phenomenon." McClatchy added that Ginsberg, like Whitman, "was a bard in the old manner – outsized, darkly prophetic, part exuberance, part prayer, part rant. His work is finally a history of our era's psyche, with all its contradictory urges."

On Saturday, Sept. 11th, the fest opens with a program sensitive to the memory of 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Tompkins Square Park will resound with Buddhist gongs, chanting monks, chamber music, yoga practice, poets and musicians, coupled with additional quiet and tranquil activities.

On both Saturday, September 11th, and Sunday, September 12th, The Lower East Side Girls Club will present The East Village Earth Circus, including live performances, art and science projects, pony rides (!), and numerous other interactive activities for children.

For adults, both Saturday and Sunday will be filled with surprises, as well as Howl’s long-established events such as the fun-filled, innovative and entertaining Hip Hop Howl, House of Howl and Lowlife.

The full park schedule is below:

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 10th

SOUTH STAGE
Avenue A at 7th Street
5:00 – 7:00p   
Annual reading of the Allen Ginsberg poem, “Howl,” to commemorate the opening of the Howl! Festival with Host and MC Bob Holman features: 

Suffer Art Gallery
616 East 9th Street (between Avenues A and B)
8:00 – 9:00 p        
Theresa Byrnes’  “The Measure of Man” – A Howl! Festival Special Event: Perfomance Art Through A Storefront Window in One Hour. Byrnes challenges the assertion of the centrality of the human soul in the order of creation, as dictated by Leonardo DaVinci ‘s’ The Vitruvian Man’.

SATURDAY 9/11
Between Avenues A and B  in front of the Park Office
Finding Sukah Yoga

11:00a - throughout the day: Finding Sukah Yoga, the East Village’s newest Yoga center, will welcome both adults and children.  Bring your yoga mat or borrow one. 

SOUTH STAGE   Avenue A at 7th Street           

Russell brought together the worlds of dance, pop, and folk with that of downtown’s “new music,” and fused Western and Eastern musical traditions, driven by his engagement with Buddhist thought and practice. He collaborated often with Allen Ginsberg and Phillip Glass was also an early mentor. Arthur’s Landing (songs by Arthur Russell) features Mustafa Ahmed (percussion) , Joyce Bowden (voice) Ernie Brooks (voice, bass), Steven Hall (voice, guitar), ), Bill Ruyle (drums, hammered dulcimer), John Scherman (lead guitar), Peter Zummo and special guest Nomi Ruiz.

SUNDAY, Sept . 12
Between Avenues A and B in front of the Park Office

11:00a and throughout the day:
Finding Sukah Yoga, the East Village’s newest Yoga center, will welcome both adults and children. Bring a yoga mat or borrow one. 

SOUTH STAGE: Avenue A at 7th Street           

(Children’s) NORTH STAGE
Avenue A at 10th Street

HOWL! Festival presents The Lower Eastside Girls Club’s East Village Earth Circus

SATURDAY, 9/11

Saturday Only:

Main Events:

 Saturday and Sunday

On the Midway

Art Programs and Activities for Kids

!Splash! mural painting on canvas and mask making by AAI
Recycled Paper Flower Workshops (LES Girls Club)/ Cindy Ruskin Arts
Double Dutch Demonstrations/Nicolina’s Hearts of the World Mural Project

Environmental / Community Organizations with info booths:

NORTH STAGE (Children’s)
Avenue A at 10th Street

SUNDAY Sept 12

Center Ring:
House of Yes- Direct from Brooklyn and the Mermaid Parade: performing Aerial Acts

On the Midway:
Roaming performers…

 For further information visit www.howlfestival.com

 and here's a bibliography of Allen Ginsberg:

 courtesy: Wikipedia