Allen Ginsberg, Part 2 — USA: Poetry, NET Outtakes Series: December 14, 1965

The Poetry Center presents Allen Ginsberg, going about daily life at his apartment in the Mission district of San Francisco, at at painter friend Robert LaVigne's studio, and reading his poetry. Present with him are Peter Orlovsky and Julian Orlovsky, Neal Cassady, and LaVigne. With Peter Orlovsky on guitar and Ginsberg on finger cymbals, Ginsberg chants sutras before reading from his poems. The footage was filmed December 14, 1965, at the shared San Francisco apartment and in LaVigne's painting studio. Incidentally, Ginsberg's first reading of his poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra," composed on the west-to-east-coast trip alluded to in this video, took place "on February 21, 1966 in the ballroom of the Student Union of Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas."

This Allen Ginsberg outtakes program is preceded by Part 1, filmed in July 1965, with Neal Cassady and audience in the basement of City Lights Books.

The "Second Edition" NET Outtakes Series programs were made in 1978 by The Poetry Center's American Poetry Archives staff. Assembled from unused 16-millimeter black and white film footage shot during production of the original 15-minute USA: Poetry television programs (produced in 1965–66 for National Educational Television by Richard O. Moore of the film unit of KQED-TV, San Francisco), the outtakes footage is arranged here in the original shooting sequence. Note, some silent footage appears among the outtakes. Funding for The Poetry Center's NET Outtakes Series was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.