Monday, August 9, 2010

Ginsberg Shoots His Buddies

Beat Memories collects his photographs of his closest friends.

I’m going to Washington next week to see The National Gallery of Art’s show of 80 photographs that Allen Ginsberg took, mostly from 1953-1963, of Kerouac and Cassady and Corso and Burroughs and others who made up the Beats. I’ve looked at most of these photos more than a hundred times in an earlier book, snapshot poetics. I can’t recommend the book enough. It’s in paperback. You should own it.

This new one, Beat Memories is all that and more. It’s put out to accompany the exhibition. There are all the photos I’ve stared at before, and then some. Additionally, there’s an enlightening essay by Sarah Greenough. There’s also an interview with Ginsberg from 1991. You should own this book, too. The exhibit lasts through September 6. You could go. Take the Bolt Bus.

caption: ‘THE POIGNANCY OF A PHOTOGRAPH comes from looking back at a fleeting moment in a floating world’—Allen Ginsberg

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