“And still,” Randy wrote me, tonight, about this performance, “it’s all not yet true. It’ll take a thousand years.” High Def Feb 2010. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS2belEBXyM

The archives of the proto-Pop artist Larry Rivers, who died in 2002, will arrive at New York University in a few weeks, filled with correspondence and other documents that depict his relationships with artists like Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol and writers like Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery.

But one part of the archive, which was purchased from the Larry Rivers Foundation for an undisclosed price, includes films and videos of his two adolescent daughters, naked or topless, being interviewed by their father about their developing breasts.

One daughter, who said she was pressured to participate, beginning when she was 11, is demanding that the material be removed from the archive and returned to her and her sister.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/arts/design/08rivers.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 for details.

I’m pleased to announce the inclusion of a one question interview with Iranian-American poet Ali Zarrin.

The interview has been added to the 2010 edition of Napalm Health Spa. See I’m pleased to announce the addition to Napalm Health Spa 2010 of an interview with Iranian-American poet Ali Zarrin. See https://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs10/index.html.

Ali’s story is as much a lesson on Persian poetry as it is an amazing tale of how he came to be friends with Allen Ginsberg and have work published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

The digital social network revolution was supposed to be an era where everyone is humilated together.

So, it came as quite a surprise to me that I was approached by a poet whose poems were in early issues of Napalm Health Spa. The poet needed distance from the poems in order to get a job.

In the era of book printing, any request to change a text was impossible post-publication. The digital page changed that.

I don’t know how this is managed by other online publications, but the requests came to me regarding poems in issues over a decade in the archives.

I needed to let anyone interested know that this change was made under threat of legal action by the poet.

I can appreciate the need for expediency by this person. Surely, it’s a tough job market out there.

Are online publishers obligated to comply with such requests? It seems as though any poet could request that revisions be made to work in any issue at any time. What does that make of the historical record?

I work with authors to make all kinds of changes around the time a new issue comes out, but once something is archived, isn’t it somewhat still “done” like a book-object and subject to being as it is?

I think this was a very unique situation, but it has raised interesting questions that I don’t have the answers to.

This spring the Museum of American Poetics published the 21st issue of Napalm Health Spa. The issue is dedicated to the memory of Peter Orlovsky. As with recent issues of NHS, editor Jim Cohn finds himself selecting Postbeat poetry content from video as well as traditional print formats. The new issue of NHS can be found here. The magazine has a new look this year in an effort to get our readers to the poems faster. We hope you like it. Let us know.

Napalm Health Spa: Report 2010, cover art.

Latest info about this soon to be released film on the life of

The Museum of American Poetics decided to add a store to its site and construction lasted the entire final quarter of 2009. The MAP Store offers poetry lovers a hybrid online ecommerce experience: part in-house items and part items offered through our affiliate programs. The MAP Store officially opens on January 1, 2010. See what is available by heading over to http://poetspath.com/storefront/. And, tell us what you think.

Patti Smith and Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker who wrote “The Basketball Diaries,” died Friday at age 60 from a heart attack. In the 1970s, Carroll was a beloved fixture of the burgeoning New York art scene, where he mixed with artists such as Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith. It was Smith who first encouraged Carroll to blend his poetry with rock ‘n’ roll, bringing him on stage to perform his work with her band. He went on to form the Jim Carroll Band. Jeffrey Brown talked to Patti Smith about her friend Jim Carroll by phone. Listen to the conversation.

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Remembering 911 & How Torture Is Fundamental To America

“…all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
––Lady Macbeth

When the second plane crashed into the Tower and the glass went flying,
Somebody’s little brother was on the phone from Joshua Tree,
Someone was just leaving a gynecologist appointment,
Somebody was showing that all systems contradict one another,
Somebody was making sandwiches,
Someone was setting up volunteer tables––
All were on some mission––
Wanting to benefit others filled with rejection,
Confronting others, the ancient hate people hold for themselves.

On that sunny Tuesday morn, another mission took center stage.
Everyone had to take a really good look at things contracted
Without the usual jumping out as if they were not there.
There’s nothing worse than to be singled out for criticism and disgrace,
except adding more aggression to the planet.

When I remember the 3,000 dead on September 11, 2001,
I also remember the 4,000 Cherokee who died on the Trail of Tears,
subject to the Indian Relocation Act of 1830.
I remember the Constitution’s fathers making a devil’s deal
on slavery-–a superstrong vicegrip handshake.
I remember my beautiful dreamer nation running down its steps
to nightmare, running to its basements of torture.
Clearly, no administration is in control of fate.
I knew how Ralph Waldo Emerson could write in his journal
that beings from other galaxies called Earth “Shakespeare.”

11 September 2009

On this eighth anniversary of 911, I’m reminded of this talk given by Sherman Alexie on October 10, 2001.

Watch the video.