Poets, Skies & Politics in West Virginia
Speaking of Allen Ginsberg, Chains of Creation, Eternity & Beyond. | nov2021
If this November 2021 issue were a bunch of Tootsie Pops, we’d have all the different flavors, including that rare blue-raspberry-flavored purple one. If you did not receive an e-mail notice of the issue, free subscribe at: WestVirginiaVille.substack.com. | Be well & read on, Douglas John Imbrogno, editor
It’s a Ginsberg Thing
What do you get when you mix famed poet Allen Ginsberg, a bonfire blazing deep in the West Virginia hills, an interview, and a recording studio? Well, 30 years later you get the music video “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg.” Therein lies a tale. Our “Characters” series profile characters living and dead, present or past, with some connection to the Mountain State. The only requirement is that they are a character and have some, too. Ginsberg certainly fit that bill.
CLICK TO VIEW | An AMP Multimedia Production
PART 1: The world premiere of the music video “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg,” (above) traces out an encounter with the famed poet when he came to the 1983 WV Writers Inc., conference in Ripley WV. I did not chance to be immortalized in an erotic poem, of which he wrote many. But it was an encounter worth a song.
READ ON: CHARACTERS, PART 1: How I never slept with Allen Ginsberg
PART 2: As part of our comprehensive BEAT poets-in-West Virginia history, here’s a an interview with Ginsberg from that conference, published in a long-ago edition of the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.
READ ON: CHARACTERS, PART 2: Allen Ginsberg speaks up in West Virginia
Chain of Creation
The new Richard Anderson documentary, "Where Sky Meets Eternity” profiles a novel artistic happening, as a crew of West Virginia creatives bounce off each other's work in unexpected ways. The chain of creation began last year with a poem by WV Poet Laureate Marc Harshman. It ended one year and 11 art-forms later, as a glass artist responded to his poem and then a photographer to the glass artist and a painter/printmaker to the photographer. A digital artist reacted to the painter/printmaker and a poet to the digital artist. And then a fiber artist to the digital artist and a painter to the fiber artist. In the final laps, an animator reacted to the fiber artist and writer to the animator and finally, a musician to the writer. The result was worthy of a show. And got one.
READ ON: “Where Sky Meets Eternity” documents extraordinary artistic hand-off
READ ON: POEM IN THE SERIES: “Almost” by Marc Harshman
READ ON: POEM IN THE SERIES: “A Year of Few Apples” by Kirk Judd
The Art of Nature
When it comes to Autumn in the West Virginia outback, nothing could be finer than photographer Al Peery framing the scene from his ambles and rambles back up in the West Virginia wilderness. He wanders high to low, from Dolly Sods to the Cranberry Glades.
READ ON: PICTURE/SHOW: The Hills & Dales of Al Peery’s West Virginia
How low can Joe go?
Here at WestVirginiaVille Central Command we are not too proud to resort to doggerel when it comes to the problem of (please set the rest of this sentence to this soundtrack) — how do you solve a problem like Joe Manchin? In rhyming couplets, we compare the legacies of West Virginia senators Robert C. Byrd and Sen. Joe. Spoiler Alert: The legacy match-up is not looking good for Joe, at the moment.
READ ON: DOGGEREL: The Ballad of Bobby and Joe
Heaven can wait
Here's what happened when Joe Manchin showed up at the Pearly Gates of Heaven, a vision of his future served up courtesy of the worthy (and worth-supporting) publication Black by God.
READ ON: CARTOON: A funny thing happened to Joe Manchin on his way to Heaven …
Temperature’s Rising
In three short videos, take the measure of climate change in West Virginia and beyond. The climate crisis deepens daily, yet more people planet-wide wake to the reality of what must be done to turn down the fever threatening the planet’s lifeforms, of which we are just one. These videos were shot from within the perspective of the Mountain State's cascading hills. But they speak to the global need for collective, massive, immediate, and ongoing action.
READ ON: CLIMATE/CRISIS: Taking the measure of climate change
What happened next …
One night in West Texas, taking refuge from a motorcycle ride through buckets of rain, fleeing a broken heart, an empty diner appears ahead. Inside, after a long wait, a beaten-down waitress finally appears. Anything could change in that moment.
READ ON: MEMOIR: ‘Memory of a Waitress’
The Cold Visitor
The autumn leaves brighten the rolling hills with a kaleidoscope of colors. Yet in the wings of all such beauty awaits The Cold Visitor. Watching. Waiting. Always present. | A Spoken Word multimedia performance of an original work by Bobby Lee Messer. | Words, footage and video editing by Bobby Lee Messer for WestVirginiaVille.com
READ ON: SPOKEN WORD: “The Cold Visitor” comes
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