Ed Sanders — USA: Poetry, NET Outtakes Series: March 18, 1966

The Poetry Center presents Ed Sanders, reading from his poetry — excerpts from Poem from Jail (City Lights Books, 1963) and "Elm Fuck Poem" — on site at his Peace Eye Bookstore on New York City's Lower East Side; visiting with the editors at the offices of counterculture newspaper The East Village Other; speaking with filmmaker Richard O. Moore on protest, poetry, obscenity and censorship; and rehearsing with his band The Fugs.

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.

 

Publisher
American Poetry Archives
Location
Peace Eye Bookstore, New York City
East Village Other, New York City
Astor Place Playhouse, New York City
Date
1966-03-18
Event Run Time
00:27:05
Contributors
Ken Weaver
Walter Bowart
Richard O. Moore
Lee Crabtree
Bill Beckman
Rights

©© American Poetry Archives. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For all other uses please email poetry@sfsu.edu.

Views
844
Downloads
1393

Edward Sanders (00:24:43)

Ed Sanders speaks of his 1961 arrest for attempting to board a nuclear submarine then reads from Poem from Jail (City Lights Books, 1963), in his office at his Peace Eye Bookstore. He visits with Walter Bowart and Bill Beckman, editors of The East Village Other (Beckman comments on Timothy Leary's promotion of LSD and his recent arrest), then back at the bookshop, Sanders reads from his "Elm Fuck Poem" and speaks with Richard O. Moore on obscenity and censorship.

Sanders is filmed rehearsing (after the band riffs on "Ghost Riders in the Sky") an improvised blues, with Lee Crabtree (keyboard), Ken Weaver (drums) of The Fugs (Weaver freely declaiming at the end of the segment), which is followed by brief silent b-roll footage shot outdoors in lower Manhattan, including a posted flier for a Fugs performance at the Astor Place Playhouse and for a performance by the Albert Ayler Quintet (the two bands shared a record label at ESP-Disk').

Related Items

Lawrence Ferlinghetti — USA: Poetry, NET Outtakes Series: December 13, 1965 W Magazine “As You Like It” Article Ferlinghetti & City Lights Books 'Howl' at City Lights Books Timothy Leary on "LSD Boom" Timothy Leary & Richard Alpert Press Conference on LSD Timothy Leary on Parenting and LSD Poetry and Censorship: November 23, 1966 Michael McClure — USA: Poetry, NET Outtakes Series: January 26–27, 1966 Denise Levertov — USA: Poetry, NET Outtakes Series: March 20, 1966 Gary Snyder — USA: Poetry, NET Outtakes Series: July, 1965 The Rejected: NET Program Screening Report Lawrence Ferlinghetti: October 4, 1961 East Village Cocktail Lounge at 527/529 Valencia Street - 1988 East side mid-block looking between 527/529 Valencia Street - 2012 Casanova Lounge at 527 Valencia Street - 2012 Windsor Chair. Village in Berry. Village of Voisins Chair with Indian Fabric in 'Chambre a L'Indienne.'