Reading + Performace:
Beats & Baby Beats Celebrate at BMCM+AC
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
December 10th, 2004, 8pm
Students and BMCM+AC members: $3
General admission: $5
On Friday, December 10 a select group of local poets and writers with ties to the Beat generation will read and perform their work and that of their predecessors at the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center located at 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville. The event will continue a three-month celebration of the Beat movement and the 1950s San Francisco Renaissance inspired by the exhibition of paintings and prints by artist Leo Krikorian that opens on Dec. 3 at BMCM+AC. On December 10 poets and musicians will honor West Coast Beat writers such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Bob Kaufman, Gary Snyder, Diane DiPrima, Janine Pomy-Vega, Richard Brautigan, Jack Hirschman, David Meltzer, Lenore Kandell, Philip Whalen, Jack Micheline, and Ken Kesey.
Visual artist and Black Mountain College student, Leo Krikorian was known as the "Grandfather of the Beats" because of a now-legendary bar he opened in 1953 in San Francisco called The Place. The Place was a watering hole and cultural mecca for Beat era poets, artists, musicians and filmmakers. In addition to the San Francisco Renaissance writers named above, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Robert Creeley, Jonathan Williams, Robert Duncan, Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg also frequented Krikorian's bar–a place where artists met to talk, drink, socialize and perform their poetry with local jazz musicians.
Honoring the spirit of The Place and the San Francisco 1950s, local poets, writers and aficionados who will be featured performers for the Friday, Dec.10 event include former Beatitude magazine editor and founding Director of the San Francisco Poetry Festival, Thomas Rain Crowe; 1960s neighbor to and cohort of Ken Kesey, Michael Revere; grandbaby Beat poet and performance artist Ted Pope; Sebastian Matthews, editor of Rivendell journal and of Search Party, the collected poems of his late father, William Matthews,; poet, renaissance man and Black Mountain College and Beat scholar, Jeff Davis; poet and publisher/editor of Black Mountain Review, and owner/proprietor of Bookdogger Bookstore in Black Mountain, David Wilson; owner/proprietor of The Reader's Corner bookstore in Asheville, Gillian Coats; Brooklyn College student of Allen Ginsberg who now teaches at UNC-A, Lori Horvitz; Warren Wilson College student, Malaprop's Bookstore employee and editor of Thistle Journal, poet Jaye Bartell. Providing jazz accompaniment and music for the evening will be the JAR-E Jazz Quartet from Asheville. We also anticipate a live guest appearance via satellite by noted Beat writers. This special evening of Beat generation-inspired prose, poetry and music will be recorded live for a future show to be aired on WPVM, 103.5FM.
Doors open at 7:30pm, and performances will begin at 8:00pm; refreshments will be available throughout the evening. A $3 cover fee will be charged at the door for students and members of BMCM+AC, with a $5 charge for general admission. All proceeds will go to BMCM+AC to help support exhibitions and programming at the non-profit museum and arts center.
The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center preserves and continues the unique legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College for public study and enjoyment. We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibition, publication, and public programs
