Word made flesh 1965 / Flesh made word 2015

Tag: Albert Hall

ReIncarnation Biographies #21: Michael Horovitz

Michael Horovitz

Michael Horovitz

The twenty first person in our series of introductions to performers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is the poet, activist, visual artist and Poetry Olympics torchbearer Michael Horovitz.

Michael Horovitz founded New Departures publications & Live New Departures bandwagons in 1959 when still an Oxford undergrad. ND#1 published the first excerpts from Burroughs’s then still uncompleted Naked Lunch to appear in Europe. From hanging out with Beckett, Stevie Smith, the Beats et al in the ’50s to his last three years’ collaborations on song-poems & music with Vanessa Vie, he has been practising & preaching poetry worldwide all these years.

Dedicated shit-stirrer & Poetry Olympics torchbearer, Horovitz has published over forty books, the most recent of which, A New Waste Land, was welcomed in The Independent by D.J. Taylor as “A deeply felt clarion-call from the radical underground”, & “A true scrapbook and songbook of the grave new world” by Tom Stoppard. He recently recorded with Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and Paul Weller for Gearbox Records, & is about to bring out recordings of his William Blake Klezmatrix band & a double disc DVD of the joyous POEM 2012 marathon in the QEH which featured many of tonight’s performers at the top of their games.

Allen Ginsberg pronounced him a “Popular, experienced, experimental, New Jerusalem, Jazz Generation, Sensitive Bard”, whilst Vogue dubbed him “The worst-dressed poet in Britain”.

Michael will be speaking about the impact of the first International Poetry Incarnation after the afternoon screening of Wholly Communion. To book tickets, click here.

Get your tickets for the evening’s star-laden performance here: The International Poetry ReIncarnation

ReIncarnation Biographies #20: Barry Miles

Barry Miles

Barry Miles

The twentieth person in our series of introductions to speakers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is the journalist, archivist and biographer Barry Miles.

Barry Miles was managing the paperback section in Better Books on Charing Cross Road when Allen Ginsberg walked in and offered to read anywhere for free. Following a packed reading in the shop, Miles became a key conspirator in the ‘Poets’ Collective’, organising what would become The First International Poetry Incarnation. It was his counter telephone that Barbara Rubin picked up to book the Albert Hall – because it was “the biggest joint in town”.

Barry Miles & Friends, pic by Graham Keen

Barry Miles & Friends, pic by Graham Keen

A co-founder of International Times, Oz contributor, Lovebooks publisher, co-founder of the legendary Indica gallery, and label manager for The Beatles, Miles has also produced a dizzying bibliography of titles giving the inside line on the counterculture, beats and musicians. A long-time music journalist (he was the first to interview the Clash for the NME), he has also become the trusted chronicler of such greats as Burroughs, Bukowski, McCartney, The Beatles, Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa. His ‘first proper book’ was a mighty 585-page – and definitive – Ginsberg biography, first published in 1989.

Miles will be speaking about the impact of the first International Poetry Incarnation after the afternoon screening of Wholly Communion. To book tickets, click here.

 

ReIncarnation Biographies #13: Pete Brown

Pete Brown

Pete Brown

The thirteenth person in our series of introductions to performers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is poet, singer and Cream lyricist Pete Brown.

Beginning professional life as writer and performer of his own poetry aged 19 after meeting Michael Horovitz, Pete was always in love with music. He joined Michael’s New Departures group in 1961, by 1963 they had their own residency at London’s famed Marquee Club, working with musicians such as Dick Heckstall-Smith, Graham Bond, Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins.

In 1965 Pete took part in the Albert Hall Poetry Incarnation, alongside Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Adrian Mitchell and Horovitz. He also toured briefly with Ginsberg and later with Robert Creeley. In 1966 Pete was asked to write lyrics for the newly-formed Cream, and went on to write such hits as “I Feel Free”, “White Room”, “Politician” and “Sunshine of Your Love”. In ’67 he cut his first demo as a singer, along with some of the members of his own Jazz/poetry group including John McLaughlin. The same year his first book of poetry, “Few” was published.

A year later he was signed with his band the Battered Ornaments to the new EMI Harvest label. He was then on the road with his own bands, including the well known Piblokto, for nearly ten years. Phil Ryan, his current musical partner, joined the latter band in l970. When Cream broke up Pete continued working with singer/bassist Jack Bruce, contributing lyrics to most of his recorded output.

Driven out of music temporarily by the onset of Punk, Pete, encouraged by Martin Scorsese, took up screenwriting, at the same time undertaking nearly six years of singing lessons. Seduced back into music in the new role of record producer, Pete also worked in the studios as both percussionist and backing singer. He began working with Indy bands and jazz groups, and progressed to working with such as Peter Green and Jeff Beck.

In 1993 Pete and Phil formed the Interoceters, his longest lasting band. Phil eventually had to leave to look after his ailing wife, but Pete carried on until 2010 when he and Phil reunited and formed their current 9-piece blues and soul band, Psoulchedelia.

During this period Pete also toured widely in Germany as guest singer with the Hamburg Blues band, alongside Maggie Bell and Chris Farlowe. In  2010 Pete published his autobiography, “White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns”. In 2015 Jack Bruce’s final solo record “Silver Rails” was released, with most of the lyrics by Pete.

A feature documentary by young director Mark A,J, Waters has just been completed, and should be released this year. Pete and Phil’s current record, “Perils of Wisdom” was released in 2014 on the Repertoire label. Pete continues to write songs , screenplays and produce records, and to perform both as poet and singer. Young blues/rock artist Krissy Matthews’ album “Scenes from a moving window” , produced and co-written by Pete, is currently in the Amazon charts. Pete’s goal is to continue touring for as long as possible. He plans a new book of poetry and a best-of lyric book.

Get your tickets for the evening’s star-laden performance here: The International Poetry ReIncarnation

Liberty, Equality, Poetry

mhandginsbergAdam Horovitz reflects on the impact of the International Poetry Incarnation in 1965 and looks forward to the celebratory party for it.

I have spent most of my life aware of the International Poetry Incarnation, which took place in the Royal Albert Hall in 1965, very nearly 50 years ago. My father, Michael Horovitz, helped organise it, so of course I was going to be exposed of it. Growing up, I knew some of the poets. They were often about, in our house or at events, being genial and strange and merely a part of my metaphysical furniture.

For a long time, the 1965 Incarnation was a big poetry gig in the sky that people talked about and that I accepted as just another impressive thing that fathers do. As I have grown older, however, and become more interested in poetry in my own right, it has been hitting ever more forcefully home to me what a turning point this Incarnation, this 1965 happening, was.

Annie Whitehead

Annie Whitehead

Poetry in Britain was somewhat in the doldrums in the 1950s, as far as it being a public art went. It tended to sit in small rooms in universities and libraries and speak to and of itself. With my father’s generation – people like Adrian Mitchell, Christopher Logue, Pete Brown – poetry picked itself up and went running around the country talking to people who didn’t expect poetry to come leaping out of hedgerows at them. It went charging up to the Edinburgh Festival and touring through towns and cities with musicians and actors and playwrights in tow. Poetry began to listen, and to sing out in different rhythms. It offered up a party where only drier forms of symposia had appeared available before. Continue reading

ReIncarnation Biographies #4: Adam Horovitz

adam horovitz publicity picThe fourth poet in our series of introductions to performers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is Adam Horovitz.

Born in 1971, Horovitz has been active as a poet since the 1990s, treading a fine line between page and performance poetry. He released his first pamphlet, Next Year in Jerusalem, in 2004 and a second, The Great Unlearning, in 2009. He was the poet in residence for Glastonbury Festival’s official website in 2009 and was voted onto the Hospital Club 100 in 2010 as an ’emerging talent’. His debut collection, Turning, was released by Headland in 2011. He was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2012. In 2014, he released A Thousand Laurie Lees, a verse-fuelled memoir from The History Press, and Only the Flame Remains (Yew Tree Press) and was one of five British poets selected by Ledbury Poetry Festival in 2015 to be part of the pan-European Versopolis project.

Get your tickets for the evening’s star-laden performance here: The International Poetry ReIncarnation

Here’s a poem by Adam Horovitz from his Soundcloud account.

ReIncarnation Biographies #3: Malika Booker

Malika Booker (photo by Naomi Woddis)

Malika Booker (photo by Naomi Woddis)

The third poet in our series of introductions to performers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is Malika Booker.

Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage and the founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. Her collection Pepper Seed was published by Peepal Tree Press (2013) and longlisted for the OCM Bocas 2014 prize. Pepper Seed was also shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She received her MA from Goldsmiths University and was recently awarded the Cultural Fellowship in Creative Writing/ Literary Art post at Leeds University. Malika was the first British poet to be a fellow at Cave Canem and the inaugural Poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Get your tickets for the evening’s star-laden performance here: The International Poetry ReIncarnation

ReIncarnation Biographies #1: Francesca Beard

PoeticaOpenBookFirst up in our series of introductions to performers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is the marvellous Francesca Beard.

Described as ‘witty and narcotic’, (Independent), ‘one of our finest cartographers of the human heart’, (London Metro) and ‘a quality guarantee’, Francesca Beard is a poet whose shows have toured nationally with Apples and Snakes and internationally with the British Council. She’s written for the Royal Court, Young Vic, BBC Radio 3 and 4 and has been writer in residence at the BBC, Barbican, Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Natural History Museum, Metropolitan Police and Clissold Leisure Centre. She runs workshops abroad and at home for all ages. She is currently writing a new one woman show  ‘A Lie’, and developing  ‘Storyverse’, a participatory experience for live audiences and on-line communities with B3 Media, supported by ACE and residencies at Banff Centre Canada and Mixed Reality Lab, Nottingham University.

Get your tickets for the evening’s star-laden performance here: The International Poetry ReIncarnation