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THE BEAT SCENE PRESS
January 9, 2008
From THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT (early
January, 2008 - anonymous reviewer)
We live in hope that this will be the Year of the Short Biography. To start
the trend, we announce publication of Scenes from East Hill Farm:
Seasons with Allen Ginsberg by Gordon Ball, a book so short that its
pages are unnumbered (there are thirty-six), but none the less full of
incident and atmosphere. In 1968, Ball lived at East Hill Farm, Cherry
Valley, New York, with Ginsberg and various friends. He acted as driver,
farm manager and general beacon of sanity in a place where Peter Orlovsky
greeted arrivals (including Ginsberg) "swinging a machete overhead".
Gregory Corso liberally distributed chaos, while others writhed in
"chemical entanglements".
Beards loomed large in Beat lives in 1968. When
Ginsberg and Ball return to the US from Canada, they are subject to
interrogation and inspection. "This happens a lot. Almost anybody with a
beard," the poet tells Ball. When members of the team are involved in a car
crash, people from the other vehicle flee the scene, screaming, "Those
beards! Those beards! Those beards!"
Ginsberg is also revealed as a defacer of
university walls:
One afternoon we went on our way up a flight of
stairs at McMaster when Allen noted a bit of graffiti on the yellow wall:
Power comes from the barrel of a gun.
-Mao
Pausing, he removed a pen from his breast pocket
and wrote beneath it:
Power comes from imagination.
-A Ginsberg
Ball reveals in the preface that his work is
excerpted from a "book-length manuscript". But Scenes from East Hill
Farm is already book-length, though the length is brief. It is
published by Beat Scene Press, 27 Court Leet, Binley Woods CV3 2JQ.
A page where I tell you all about the Beat
Scene Press, mostly a series of modest but attractive chapbooks that go under
the title 'The Beat Scene Press Pocket Books Series.'
Taking my lead from a number of small press publishing inspirations, these 5
x 8 inch chapbooks are always published in editions of no more than two
hundred copies. In the series so far have been I'M BUKOWSKI, AND THEN? by
Enrico Francheschini, MARBLE MAN by Dan Fante, DOWNSTREAM FROM TROUT FISHING
IN AMERICA: RICHARD BRAUTIGAN A MEMOIR by Keith Abbott, JACK KEROUAC IN SAN
FRANCISCO by Tom Clark, LETTERS HOME FROM CAMBRIDGE 1963-1965 by Tom Clark,
and HIGH PEAK HAIKUS: AN INTERVIEW WITH GARY SNYDER by James Campbell. Future books planned include a
work on William Burroughs by English writer Iain Sinclair, Neal Cassady by
Charles Plymell, with others in the pipeline.
Latest...............................ALLEN GINSBERG AT EAST HILL FARM
by Gordon Ball is No 13 in the pocket book series. Out in Now.
OUT NOW...REXROTH, BUKOWSKI AND THE POLITICS OF LITERATURE
by Ben Pleasants...a long lost and previously unpublished interview with the
late Kenneth Rexroth, he talks about Charles Bukowski. Cost is £5.95
Following on
from the Dan Fante title is David Ohle's MUTATE OR DIE: WITH
BURROUGHS IN KANSAS. Again, signed and numbered edition. If you would
like a copy click below.
July 27 - No 10 in the Beat Scene Press Pocket Book series. A collection of new and
previously unpublished poems from American writer Dan Fante. See cover above. The issue
is signed and numbered. If you would like to order a copy simply pay
by Paypal into kev (at ) beatscene.freeserve.co.uk - excuse me setting
it out like that, it stops these awful spammers picking my email up. OR by
sending a cheque for £5.95 payable to M.Ring on a UK bank. USA people can send
$14 cash if you really don't want to use paypal. I will send a paypal request
if you need it - you don't need a paypal account to do this.
The Beat Scene Press has just recently published a memoir of Jack Kerouac by Elizabeth Von Vogt, the
sister of John Clellon Holmes. In a signed and numbered limited edition. The
chapbook, JACK KEROUAC AT 681 LEXINGTON
AVENUE, is number
9 in the series. If you would like
to order click above.
---------------------------------------------------
Michael McClure's A FIERCE GOD
AND A FIERCE WAR an interview with Rod Phillips - with the full text of
McClure's long 1965 poem POISONED WHEAT was published Wednesday 28 March. No
8 in the Beat Scene Press Pocket Book series. Signed and numbered.
THIS CHAPBOOK IS SOLD OUT.
Often the chapbooks are
numbered and also signed by the writers. We use quality textured paper in all
editions.
A recent issue in the series
was
THE SAD AND LONELY DEATH OF RICHARD BRAUTIGAN by ....erm, me, Kevin Ring. One
hundred numbered copies in the typical Beat Scene Press Pocket Books series.
Priced at £5. If you would like me to sign it I will, but not compulsory.
number 6 in the Beat Scene Pocket
Books series...HIGH PEAK HAIKU: AN INTERVIEW WITH GARY SNYDER by James
Campbell...an edition of 100 numbered copies. Priced at £4.95 in the UK and
Europe. Click below.
A while ago we published JACK KEROUAC IN SAN FRANCISCO
an extended essay by Tom Clark. A limited edition chapbook of 125 copies. 25
of which were signed and
numbered by Tom Clark. Signed copies are now sold out. Cost including post
for ordinary unsigned copies is £5.50 inc post. Either by cheque - payable to M.Ring or
by clicking on the icon below here for the regular copy.
We have also recently
published Tom Clark's LETTERS HOME FROM CAMBRIDGE 1963-1965 - an edition of
100 signed and numbered copies. Cost is £5.95 in UK and Europe.
TRANSIT 16, issue includes, Diane di
Prima, Michael McClure, Jack Hirschman, Tom Clark, David Meltzer, Barry
Gifford, Dan Fante, Janine Pommy Vega & more.
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