Tag Archives: Allen Ginsberg

Rhymes, Rock & Revolution: The Story Of Performance Poetry. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea. To some, perhaps misguided, possibly even consciously ignorant of the form and its turbulent history, the seismic revolt against strained form and stiff suited underwhelming development that shook the world post World War Two, is nothing more than pretension, a dip into the ocean without a bathing suit or a pair of trunks to hide the soul and yet arguably poetry has never been as popular now in the 21st Century at any time since the days when Allen Ginsberg tore apart convention at the Royal Albert Hall and delivered the 20th Century standard bearer, Howl.

Rhymes, Rock & Revolution: The Story Of Performance Poetry. Television Review. full post

(506 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

In Response To A Howl In St. Julian’s Bay.

I saw your words etched down in spray paint,

BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS, on a rising pavement

in St. Julian’s Bay  as the sun would start to glisten

on the Valetta streets

and the isle of Comino would soon begin to heave

to the sound of vendors selling deckchairs and the sea would spoil

for a fight.

 

I saw your words and was puzzled by them, not by the words

for even the damaged can understand pain,

but by their placement, their specific duty in  time by unknown hand

In Response To A Howl In St. Julian’s Bay. full post

(322 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

Mike Zito & The Wheel. Gone To Texas. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The concept of confessional poetry isn’t a new one, especially in The United States where it flourished under auspicious talent, weighty hearts and minds that saw the acknowledgment of their craft being greeted as an affirmation of genuine skill and endeavour. As Mike Zito readily admits; his new album with The Wheel, the brutally honest and gorgeous Gone To Texas, is an album in which he pays homage to the Lone Star State, the state that he says saved his life. It might not be in the same vein as poetic luminaries such as Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath or Allen Ginsberg but the sentiment is there, this is a musician shaking his soul loose and willingly, ungrudgingly revealing all.

Mike Zito & The Wheel. Gone To Texas. Album Review. full post

(365 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)