From John Linnell, They Might Be Giants
...Do you have a weird New York story to share? Flansburgh and I were driving our new van around Manhattan and we came around a corner and almost ran over this guy who not only looked like he was homeless but apparently wouldn’t have minded if we’d run him over, he just had this incredibly nonchalant look to him. And then we realized it was the famous poet John Giorno we had almost killed in our van...
From Fest starts off with a classic Beat
...Spoken word is nothing new. Witness the work of Beat Generation poet John Giorno, 72, who opens the Festival Voix d'Amériques today.
"I wanted to invite him because we tend to talk about performance poetry like it's something new, but it's not," festival director D. Kimm said. "We are part of a long tradition. They were very brave to do it back then."
Giorno was a stockbroker in New York City at the end of the 1950s when he met pop-art icon Andy Warhol. Warhol was so entranced by Giorno he made him the star of the film Sleep - during which Giorno slept for eight hours.
After meeting Warhol, Giorno quit his day job to concentrate on his poetry and spent the 1960s hanging out with a revolutionary gang of artists, including Warhol, Lou Reed, William S. Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Robert Mapplethorpe and Jasper Johns.
Giorno's main preoccupation at the time was finding ways to harness technology to disseminate poetry to a broader audience. In 1968, he created Dial-A-Poem. It was an enormous success and is credited with inspiring a wave of consequent Dial-A initiatives, including Dial-A-Joke and Dial-A-Prayer...
From John Giorno: Everyone Gets Lighter
John Giorno, one of the leading lights of the New York beat generation, devised the legendary event at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970, during which different poems could be listened to every day on answering machines. The LP produced later entitled The DIAL-A-POEM Poets features the highlights from among 700 poems by 55 poets. The Giorno Poetry System label he founded in 1965 focused on the innovative use of new technologies. The label published over 40 LPs and CDs, videos and films by authors working with music and/or performance, such as Laurie Anderson's You're The Guy I Want To Share My Money With [1981]. In his performance Everyone Gets Lighter the founder of performance poetry will use true-to-life neologisms to transform his personal relations with Andy Warhol [Giorno was the 'sleeper' in Warhol’s first film Sleep in 1963], Keith Haring and William Burroughs into a first-rate audio-visual experience.
From Live and reciting
...Do you have a weird New York story to share? Flansburgh and I were driving our new van around Manhattan and we came around a corner and almost ran over this guy who not only looked like he was homeless but apparently wouldn’t have minded if we’d run him over, he just had this incredibly nonchalant look to him. And then we realized it was the famous poet John Giorno we had almost killed in our van...
From Fest starts off with a classic Beat
...Spoken word is nothing new. Witness the work of Beat Generation poet John Giorno, 72, who opens the Festival Voix d'Amériques today.
"I wanted to invite him because we tend to talk about performance poetry like it's something new, but it's not," festival director D. Kimm said. "We are part of a long tradition. They were very brave to do it back then."
Giorno was a stockbroker in New York City at the end of the 1950s when he met pop-art icon Andy Warhol. Warhol was so entranced by Giorno he made him the star of the film Sleep - during which Giorno slept for eight hours.
After meeting Warhol, Giorno quit his day job to concentrate on his poetry and spent the 1960s hanging out with a revolutionary gang of artists, including Warhol, Lou Reed, William S. Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Robert Mapplethorpe and Jasper Johns.
Giorno's main preoccupation at the time was finding ways to harness technology to disseminate poetry to a broader audience. In 1968, he created Dial-A-Poem. It was an enormous success and is credited with inspiring a wave of consequent Dial-A initiatives, including Dial-A-Joke and Dial-A-Prayer...
From John Giorno: Everyone Gets Lighter
John Giorno, one of the leading lights of the New York beat generation, devised the legendary event at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970, during which different poems could be listened to every day on answering machines. The LP produced later entitled The DIAL-A-POEM Poets features the highlights from among 700 poems by 55 poets. The Giorno Poetry System label he founded in 1965 focused on the innovative use of new technologies. The label published over 40 LPs and CDs, videos and films by authors working with music and/or performance, such as Laurie Anderson's You're The Guy I Want To Share My Money With [1981]. In his performance Everyone Gets Lighter the founder of performance poetry will use true-to-life neologisms to transform his personal relations with Andy Warhol [Giorno was the 'sleeper' in Warhol’s first film Sleep in 1963], Keith Haring and William Burroughs into a first-rate audio-visual experience.
From Live and reciting
One time stockbroker and Warhol muse, John Giorno has spent the last 40 years changing the face of contemporary poetry and spoken word. In 1965 he founded Giorno Poetry Systems, a record label and artist collective that released the work of some of the most important voices in American poetry, including Allen Ginsberg, Jim Carroll, Laurie Anderson, William S. Burroughs and Patti Smith. Giorno’s performances and recordings have been instrumental in popularizing the form and some of its greatest creators. Giorno spoke with the Mirror from his loft on Bowery Street in New York, where he’s lived since 1962.
Mirror: Can you tell me about your recent performances?
John Giorno: Well, I perform all the time. I went to Europe nine times this past year, and those are two- and three-week tours. It’s always a collection of countries, France, Italy, Spain.
John Giorno: Well, I perform all the time. I went to Europe nine times this past year, and those are two- and three-week tours. It’s always a collection of countries, France, Italy, Spain.
M: I was wondering if you had any involvement with the slam poetry circuits in the United States?
JG: Very much. That’s an amazing phenomenon for poets and for kids. Mark Smith, who invented the whole thing, and Bob Holman—they’re very good friends of mine. I’m on the Bowery just a block away from Bob and the Bowery Poetry Club. What’s particularly good is when these kids are 14, 15—they get up, they don’t know what they’re doing, and they get a blissful experience or connect to their nature in some way. They’re poets, they’re really young poets. And even though the work could be terrible, they’re connecting to something inside themselves, and what they say is, “Well, I’m gonna do that again, as just a thing that I like to do.”
They’re just like me, that’s happened to me—in a completely different way. When I was 14, at school, this English teacher gave a poetry class. This was 1949 (laughs) or ’47, this teacher says, “Go home and write a poem as homework.” And I did, and I got this really great feeling. When I handed it in two days later, she read mine. It was the third poem that she liked, you know, and I said, “I’m gonna do that again!”
JG: Very much. That’s an amazing phenomenon for poets and for kids. Mark Smith, who invented the whole thing, and Bob Holman—they’re very good friends of mine. I’m on the Bowery just a block away from Bob and the Bowery Poetry Club. What’s particularly good is when these kids are 14, 15—they get up, they don’t know what they’re doing, and they get a blissful experience or connect to their nature in some way. They’re poets, they’re really young poets. And even though the work could be terrible, they’re connecting to something inside themselves, and what they say is, “Well, I’m gonna do that again, as just a thing that I like to do.”
They’re just like me, that’s happened to me—in a completely different way. When I was 14, at school, this English teacher gave a poetry class. This was 1949 (laughs) or ’47, this teacher says, “Go home and write a poem as homework.” And I did, and I got this really great feeling. When I handed it in two days later, she read mine. It was the third poem that she liked, you know, and I said, “I’m gonna do that again!”
M: Do you remember the first time you performed in front of an audience, and what that was like?
JG: I do, actually. By 1962 I started using found images, and that was the influence of Andy Warhol, Bob Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns. I met all these artists in 1961, ’62—they became the focus of my life. In 1962 they were quite young themselves, and not famous at all. After the first year, I was published in Ted Berrigan’s magazine, called C Magazine. Ted Berrigan, a great New York poet, was organizing poetry readings, and he said, “John, you should read your poem.”
JG: I do, actually. By 1962 I started using found images, and that was the influence of Andy Warhol, Bob Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns. I met all these artists in 1961, ’62—they became the focus of my life. In 1962 they were quite young themselves, and not famous at all. After the first year, I was published in Ted Berrigan’s magazine, called C Magazine. Ted Berrigan, a great New York poet, was organizing poetry readings, and he said, “John, you should read your poem.”
The following text is an excerpt from "Wisdom is his voice" by John Giorno. This text appears in "The Best of William Burroughs" Box Set. This text is not intended to be a complete history of GPS, but perhaps is intended to relate to you GPS' conception, where it came from and why it shaped modern pop-culture and brought forth the age of telecommunications and information.
"In 1961 I was a young poet who hung out with young artists like Andy Warhol, Bob Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, as well as with members of the Judson Dance Theatre. The use of modern mass media and technologies by these artists made me realize that poetry was 75 years behind painting and sculpture, dance and music. And I thought, if they can do it, why can't I do it for poetry. Why not try to connect with an audience using all the entertainments of ordinary life: television, the telephone, record albums, etc? It was the poet's job to invent new venues and make fresh contact with the audience.
"This inspiration gave rise to Giorno Poetry Systems, a non-profit foundation under which many projects were born. The record label called Giorno Poetry Systems eventually built up a catalog of 40 titles, ushering poetry onto the radio alongside rock, jazz, etc. for the first time. The Dial-A-Poem service, begun, in 1968, was a huge success. Not only did we ourselves get millions of calls, we inspired the creation of dial-for-stock market info and dial for sports-info services, etc. We also foreshadowed by a generation the explosion of 1-900 telephone promotions, not to mention the delivery of the Internet over phone lines. we produced poetry videos, videopaks and films. We formed bands and toured like the rock'n' rollers. We displayed poetry on the surface of ordinary objects, producing silk-screen and lithograph Poem Prints. We established the AIDS Treatment Project in 1984.
"But in 1965, even before founding Giorno Poetry Systems, I began recording my friend William Burroughs, starting with tape experiments at his Centre Street loft and with Brion Gysin at the Hotel Chelsea. Before the year was out, with my earlier inspirations turning into tangible performances, electronic events and sound pieces at a show at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, I began Giorno Poetry Systems.
"We taped the riotous Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1968, and presented the results that September at New York's Central Park Bandshell. Three months later I featured William in the inaugural installation of Dial-A-Poem at the Architectural League of New York.
"In 1975 William moved into The Bunker at 222 Bowery, where I'd lived on the third floor since 1966.
"In 1976 Giorno Poetry Systems released a double-record set, one LP featuring William's live recordings, the other my sound poems.
"In 1978 in New York there was the Nova Convention, a three-day tribute to William that crowned him patriarch of heroin and wisdom, and featured performances by Patti Smith, Frank Zappa and many others, including Laurie Anderson, who was making her debut public performance.
"In 1961 I was a young poet who hung out with young artists like Andy Warhol, Bob Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, as well as with members of the Judson Dance Theatre. The use of modern mass media and technologies by these artists made me realize that poetry was 75 years behind painting and sculpture, dance and music. And I thought, if they can do it, why can't I do it for poetry. Why not try to connect with an audience using all the entertainments of ordinary life: television, the telephone, record albums, etc? It was the poet's job to invent new venues and make fresh contact with the audience.
"This inspiration gave rise to Giorno Poetry Systems, a non-profit foundation under which many projects were born. The record label called Giorno Poetry Systems eventually built up a catalog of 40 titles, ushering poetry onto the radio alongside rock, jazz, etc. for the first time. The Dial-A-Poem service, begun, in 1968, was a huge success. Not only did we ourselves get millions of calls, we inspired the creation of dial-for-stock market info and dial for sports-info services, etc. We also foreshadowed by a generation the explosion of 1-900 telephone promotions, not to mention the delivery of the Internet over phone lines. we produced poetry videos, videopaks and films. We formed bands and toured like the rock'n' rollers. We displayed poetry on the surface of ordinary objects, producing silk-screen and lithograph Poem Prints. We established the AIDS Treatment Project in 1984.
"But in 1965, even before founding Giorno Poetry Systems, I began recording my friend William Burroughs, starting with tape experiments at his Centre Street loft and with Brion Gysin at the Hotel Chelsea. Before the year was out, with my earlier inspirations turning into tangible performances, electronic events and sound pieces at a show at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, I began Giorno Poetry Systems.
"We taped the riotous Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1968, and presented the results that September at New York's Central Park Bandshell. Three months later I featured William in the inaugural installation of Dial-A-Poem at the Architectural League of New York.
"In 1975 William moved into The Bunker at 222 Bowery, where I'd lived on the third floor since 1966.
"In 1976 Giorno Poetry Systems released a double-record set, one LP featuring William's live recordings, the other my sound poems.
"In 1978 in New York there was the Nova Convention, a three-day tribute to William that crowned him patriarch of heroin and wisdom, and featured performances by Patti Smith, Frank Zappa and many others, including Laurie Anderson, who was making her debut public performance.
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