“Expansive Poetics” by Allen Ginsberg: A Free Course from 1981

Image by Michiel Hendryckx, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

These lec­tures were record­ed at Naropa Uni­ver­si­ty in Boul­der, CO in the sum­mer of 1981.

Tape 1 — The first class in an Allen Gins­berg course on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Gins­berg opens the class with a brief his­to­ry of the top­ics of cours­es he has taught in the past. He then explains his expec­ta­tions for this course and the mate­r­i­al he plans to cov­er in the sourcebook/anthology he is com­pil­ing. He then reads Geza Roheim’s Chil­dren of the desert, Shel­ley’s Hymn to intel­lec­tu­al beau­ty, Ode to the West Wind and the end of Adon­ais. The class dis­cuss­es rhythm and the expan­sive breath and how it influ­ences one’s work.

Tape 2 in an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Gins­berg on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Sub­ject mat­ter includes back­ground on the Russ­ian Futur­ists as well as the read­ing of works by Paul Kleb­nikov.

Tape 3 in an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Gins­berg on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Sub­ject mat­ter includes some dis­cus­sion of the Russ­ian Futur­ists and two short read­ings by Russ­ian Futur­ist writ­ers.

Tape 4 of an 11 Tape series of a class taught by Allen Gins­berg on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Sub­ject mat­ter includes back­ground on the Futur­ists, Dadaists, and oth­er lit­er­ary movents as well as read­ings of work by such writ­ers as Vladamir Kleb­nikov and Kurt Schwit­ters.

Tape 5 of an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Gins­berg on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Sub­ject mat­ter includes back­ground on such move­ments as the Futur­ists, Acmeists, and Imag­in­ists as well as read­ings of work by var­i­ous artists includ­ing Osip Man­del­stam, Jorge Ivanov, Niko­lai Gumilev, William Car­los Williams, and Anna Akhma­to­va.

Tape 6 of an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Gins­berg on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Gins­berg dis­cuss­es the lives and writ­ing of Anna Akhma­to­va and Sergey Yes­enin.

Tape 7 Not avail­able. (But we’re look­ing into it.)

Tape 8 of an 11 tape series of Allen Gins­bergs class on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Sub­ject mat­ter includes back­ground on Sur­re­al­ism and con­cepts of lan­guage and the imag­i­na­tion as well as read­ings of works by such writ­ers as Tris­tan Tzara, Philip Laman­tia, Andre Bre­ton, Robert Desnos, Vitezslav Nez­val, Philippe Sou­peau, Fran­cis Picabia, and Ben­jamin Per­ret.

Tape 9 Not  avail­able.

Tape 10 Not avail­able.

Tape 11 of an 11 tape series of Allen Gins­berg’s class on Expan­sive Poet­ics. Sub­ject mat­ter includes back­ground on such Russ­ian writ­ers as Kaysin Kuliev and Sergei Yes­enin. Also includ­ed are read­ings of work by Gor­don McVay, Vladimir Kleb­nikov, and Sergei Yes­enin.

You can find the course list­ed in the Lit­er­a­ture sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.