25. Rare footage

We’re grateful to Andrew Epstein for pointing us to this rare footage of a poetry reading featuring Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka(then LeRoi Jones), and Ray Bremser at the Living Theater in 1957. The footage arrived via the Allen Ginsberg Project and runs for three minutes, with Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” dubbed over the short film. Epstein writes:

Via the Allen Ginsberg Project, I just learned of the existence of some rare, but apparently now-available, footage by the experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas that features Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones), and Ray Bremser giving a poetry reading and hanging out together at the Living Theater in 1957.* Until now, the only remnant of that evening I’m familiar with was this still photo by Fred McDarrah.

/ Poetry Foundation