Naropa Poetic Audio Archives

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The Allen Ginsberg Library at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Naropa Poetic Audio Archives

Naropa University

Boulder, CO

Website:  Naropa Poetic Audio Archives

History of the Archives

The Treasure:  The Naropa Poetics Audio Archives at Naropa University preserves over 5,000 hours of audio material starring some of the greatest writers of the Beat generation and other important literary movements from the 1970s to the present.

Accessibility:  Much of the audio material has been digitized and can be downloaded and enjoyed at Naropa Poetics Audio Archives. As for the actual archives at the university, it is open to the public by appointment only.

Allen Ginsberg in 1978.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Background:   Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was still a young man when he exploded on the poetry scene in 1955 with his long poem “Howl,” which famously opens: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…” The intensity of the poem, its obscenity-laced language, and its widely-publicized legal battles brought the Beat literary movement to national attention.

Important Beat writers included Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Ginsberg’s life partner, Peter Orlovsky. They were often viewed as youth-celebrating iconoclasts, generally open to drug and lifestyle experimentation, politically outspoken, and intensely personal in their writings.

Ginsberg embraced Buddhism, the religion of his good friend Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist who founded an alternative college called Naropa Institute (now University) in Boulder, Coloradoin 1974. At the prodding of Trungpa, Ginsberg and fellow poet Anne Waldman organized a writing program—the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics—at the young college. Today, the Kerouac School encompasses the University’s Department of Writing & Poetics (offering both Bachelor’s and MFA degrees), the Summer Writing Program, and the MFA Creative Writing program.

From the outset, the KerouacSchool sought to attract the leading voices of the American literary avant-garde to Boulder, Coloradoto present at readings, lectures, performances, seminars, panels, and workshops. Recordings of their presentations form the core of the Naropa Poetics Audio Archives. On these recordings, you can hear the art and insights of artists such as Amiri Baraka, Gregory Corso, Philip Whalen, Robert Creeley, William Burroughs, Joanne Kyger, Harry Smith, Gary Snyder, Jerome Rothenberg, Peter Lambourn Wilson, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Anselm Hollo and the two founders, Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman.

If you know your poetry history, you’ll notice that it’s not just the Beat movement that’s captured in these audio archives, but key examples of other major 20th century American literary movements, including the l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e school of poetry, New York schools of poetry, the Black Mountain school of poetry, the Berkeley and San Francisco Renaissance, the Black Arts movement, and other offshoots of postmodernism, surrealism, dada, and the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance.

Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at the
Gotham Book Mart in New York City in 1977.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Notes from the Editor:  You don’t even have to leave your computer to enter this American treasure! Start at the Internet Archive’s finding aid to the Naropa Poetics Audio Archives. To find a poet, scroll down to Browse Collection by Creator. The poets and other literary artists are listed in alphabetical order, with additional information on group presentations

Now settle back and sample the fireworks. Try Allen Ginsberg performing “Howl” in its entirety (a 72-minute reading with the “Howl” performance beginning at the 40-minute point), or Ginsberg chanting William Blake poetryaccompanied by period instruments, or William S. Burroughs comparing his approach to writing to Jack Kerouac’s, or a performance by the poet/punk rocker Jim Carroll which includes his underground hit “People Who Died.”  And that’s just the start of 5,000 hours of recordings…

A personal note:  I like alternative universities. There aren’t many—probably less than a couple of dozen in the country—but they offer a refreshingly personal approach to education that contrasts well with the 99% of standard-model colleges and universities. Alternative universities are usually structured to encourage interdisciplinary approaches, seeking to dissolve the arbitrary lines that separate the sciences from the humanities and the arts. If this sounds like a cake-course approach, it’s not. Small college size and low student-teacher ratios create intimate learning environments. There are no giant lecture halls where students can hide in the back row. Everyone is expected to participate and lazy thinking is immediately challenged. This is where Socrates would feel at home in 21st century America.

Archival storage at
Naropa University.

I’m especially supportive of the alternative university approach because my son attends one of these academic gems—College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. While the emphasis at College of the Atlantic tends to tilt in the direction of ecology, Naropa Universityis famous for its creative writing, religious studies, and psychology offerings. The University’s fabulous Naropa Poetics Audio Archive is proof of the extraordinary creativity that can flourish in this type of academic environment.

Other Recommended Sites:  When visiting Boulder, you’re very close to the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. Don’t miss it! The rugged mountain landscapes and alpine valleys are unforgettably magnificent. And if you’re a little nervous (like me) when it comes to white-knuckle mountain driving, consider taking advantage of their convenient shuttle services and tour buses.

Poet Anne Waldman, co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied
Poetics, at the Miami Book Fair in 1988.  Currently, Anne Waldman is the
Distinguished Professor of  Poetics at Naropa University and serves as
 Summer Writing Program Chair and Artistic Director.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

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© 2012 Lee Price