Jesse Goodman and his friends had been working hard for several months to put on the London end of the celebration of Allen Ginsberg’s 100th anniversary. There were other events in San Francisco, New York and in Continental Europe. In London there was a concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall, with a large number of musicians all reading or singing Allen’s poems to a musical backing. This was followed by two days of panel discussions at Swedenborg House. For me, the celebrations began when Camila flew into town to take part because she had arranged for the organisers and other friends to visit William Blake’s cottage in Felpham. The day after that I had organised a dinner for ten of the participants at my place. Then came the concert and after that the two days of panel discussions, both of which I participated in. By the end of it I had almost lost my voice and was totally exhausted but it was a wonderful experience, and I think Jesse, Peter Hale and their pals did a terrific job. 

Camila arrived on July 9th and we had time to quickly catch the Frida Kahlo and Tracy Emin shows at Tate. I like Emin’s work as a conceptual artist, but her drawing is appalling; truly awful: there’s no form, no weight, no spatial awareness. Naturally she was made professor of drawing at the Royal Academy. That’s Britain for you. 

Next day came the Magical Mystery Tour. Camila is on the board of both the Blake Society and the William Blake Cottage Trust and arranged for us all to visit the cottage which is on the Sussex coast. Ginsberg had been there and managed to gain access when it was still lived in, and of course, Blake was one of the greatest influences on Allen’s life. Nineteen of us, including Jesse’s parents visiting from Chicago, Thurston Moore and Eva, Gina Birch from the Raincoats, Peter Hale who runs the Allen Ginsberg Trust in New York, Stephen Coates, Steven Taylor Allen’s accompanist, and the rest of us piled into the coach at Swedenborg House and made the long trip to Felpham. It was long because the coach driver insisted on a half hour break after only two hours on the road. 

The building is still standing, but the doors and windows are not original, much of the pointing is new, and it obviously has a new roof – thatch doesn’t last long – the staircase is new and many internal walls are missing. Though it is still where Blake lived for three years 1800-1803, there is no trace of him, no vibe, no sense of his presence. It seems to me pointless to try and recreate the building as it looked during that particular point in time. There is not enough there to restore, and no artifacts of his have survived so any future furniture and furnishings will be conjectural. I say this as a lifetime member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, (SPAB) where our philosophy is always to preserve the complete history of a building, not attempt some fanciful reconstruction of an imagined past. 

They have already taken off a floor to create a one-story extension as drawn from memory at a later date by Blake in the margin of a page from Milton, which shows how much the building has changed. (The sketch also includes an angel, which they are not hoping to recreate.) It would have been better to leave it and use the space for storage or administration as the new look is purely conjectural. Here we see the new pointing above the new window, a disgruntled SPAB member, me with Peter Hale and with Camila. 

That said, it is still an admirable venture and should be supported. The intention is to house a Blake Museum there and one of the artifacts will be the pump organ that Allen used to compose his musical settings of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

After a tour of the cottage, which is really a building site and therefore quite dangerous, we moved on to the Fox, a local pub outside which Blake had a confrontation in a story far too long to tell here. The pub has repositioned itself as part of the Blake heritage industry but was in fact burned down in 1947 and was rebuilt so is not the building that Blake once drank in. It is still an attractive place for a drink though their food is absurdly overpriced and not particularly good. The sea is only two minutes’ walk down the road from the cottage and Gina managed to have a quick swim.

Here we have the coach party at table and the obligatory group shot: Thurston, Eva, Me, Camila, Jesse and Maxi. It was a fun day and I very much enjoyed it. 

Saturday, the next day, I had arranged a dinner party for ten people. Steven Taylor, who was Allen’s accompanist from 1976 until his death in 1997 and Judy came, along with Jesse who organised the London celebrations and Maxi his partner; photographer Antonio Pagano; Peter Hale who runs the Allen Ginsberg Estate in New York; Stephen Coates, composer and media connection, and film-maker Ben Northover who you would find unnervingly shooting behind your shoulder just as a tasty bit of gossip was about to be revealed. Camila and I completed the numbers. Here we have part preparation of the starter, watched over by Rimbaud, followed by the addition of wine to the main chicken and cream course. Then comes Stephen, Jesse, Steven and Maxi, followed by Peter Hale and I in deep discussion and Ben filming Steven’s conversation. Most of the wine was French.

The main event occurred at Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Sunday; an extraordinary display of talent, when a dozen or more artists performed Allen’s poems to a wide variety of musical settings. The Faction and Tomorrow’s Warriers did Howl evoking forties Bebop with a classic jazz lineup of piano, saxophone, bass and drums. The Faction himself had, astonishingly, committed the whole of Howl to memory, though his delivery of it was, perhaps not surprisingly, a bit thespy.

Other performers included Thurston Moore solo and with Mary Dullca; Stew, Art Terry & JT Taylor; Gina Birch & Karen Townshend; a remarkable rendition of ‘Iron Horse’ by Youth featuring Alex Perry; Joelle Taylor; and a rousing version of William Blake’s ‘Nurses’ Song’ by Steven Taylor in which the full cast, joined in. Jesse got Camila, Hannah and me to join he and Peter Hale in the lineup next to Youth, Gina and the others. I can now tell people I’ve performed onstage at Queen Elizabeth Hall! Here are Antonio Pagano’s beautiful pictures of the event, beginning with Gina Birch; then Youth; The Faction showing the combo; the all-important audience; Thurston Moore and finally Steven Taylor performing William Blake’s ‘Nurses Song’ with us all in the background chorus line. As you can see, we were very pleased with the way the whole event had come off. The last picture shows me congratulating Jesse who organised it all with Peter Hale, who is also shown here with us.   

There were drinks afterwards but in keeping with the usual early-night-for-everyone policies of Britain, the bar in the Hall closed earlier than a pub normally would and we were ushered to a different building, where it turned out that the bar had also just shut. Here are Camila and Hannah between bars. 

The next day, July 13th, saw the first of the panel discussions. It opened with a screening of Iain Sinclair’s 1967 film Ah! Sunflower. I am interviewed in it and someone called out ‘Theo’, the name of my son, when I appeared on screen. It’s true, he does look a lot like me then. In the first half Stephen Coates moderated a discussion between Camila, Iain and me about Allen in Britain, his relationship with Blake, and the making of Iain’s film. Then, after the interval, he directed Camila, me and Steven Taylor in a discussion about Allen’s music, before Steven played some of the numbers that he and Allen did together. Here we are, first with Iain, then with Steven.

Afterwards Camila, Hannah, Roberta and I repaired to the Museum Tavern, where they, of course, closed early as we were the only customers.

The following day Steven was supposed to interview Anne Waldman and Alystyre Julian on stage about Alystyre’s documentary film Outrider about Anne. I was to help out. Alystyre and Ann had premiered the film in a number of European cities but on this occasion, Anne was ill and unable to attend so Alystyre had to present it by herself for the first time. Normally Anne would have taken the brunt of questioning, as it’s about her, so it must have been stressful for Alystyre. Also, the reason Anne was on the bill, was to talk about her relationship with Allen. It was, after all, a celebration of his centenary. Anne had worked with him for years as co-director of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa in Boulder, Colorado. Without Anne present, the discussion had to be about the film which had little to do with Allen. However, Steven is a very good, experienced interviewer, and we all did our best and I thought it worked out pretty well. Alystyre had many interesting things to say. The evening ended with a poem by Allen about Anne, read by Jesse, which marked the end of the days of celebration. I was so exhausted I left without even saying goodbye to half the people I should have and staggered home. I think we did Allen proud.