‘Starry Rhymes’ was an event held on Friday the 3rd of June to celebrate what would have been Beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s 85th birthday, at the Forest cafe in Edinburgh.
A collection of poems in response to Ginsberg’s own poems was put together by organisers Claire Askew and Stephen Welsh, also called ‘Starry Rhymes’. My poem, ‘The Shudder and Blush of Substance’ was a response to Ginsberg’s ‘To The Body’, and I managed to recite it without fucking it up (the first time I haven’t read my work from a book or sheet of paper).
Bespoke Starry Rhymes chapbook cover, all hand produced. It would have driven me insane making them (I’ve no patience at all – if a web page doesn’t load instantly I tend to punch my laptop).
There were many, many other great poems read too, and a screening of Ginsberg’s Ah, Sunflower, a strange and revealing documentary about the man made in the late 1960s. To round things of we had a set from Withered Hand who, I couldn’t help noticing, pinched lines from Leonard Cohen and The Smiths in his lyrics…
A great night sullied by the fact that YOU missed it. HA!
And just so you can drool over my lovliness and wonder at my fuzzy tash, here’s a quick (and fuzzy) vid of me reciting my poem:
