John Giorno Through Indyish Goggles

It’s not easy to get a date for a poetry reading, but fortunately I can count on my dad to be up for that kind of thing. Come to think of it, if it weren’t for my dad’s early influence (he was reading me Beckett & Blake when I was more interested in Narnia), I probably wouldn’t be determined to cross town for a reading by Beat Generation poet John Giorno.

But you don’t have to be weened on poetry to appreciate Giorno’s pieces. At 72 years old, he’s the raunchy, flaming, psychedellic, grandpa that you never knew you always wanted. On Sunday night, he captivated the audience with stories about magical trees and uncountable loverboys, all with a happy-go-lucky Dr Seuss kind of cadence.

One of the last living Beat poets, Giorno’s spoken word also evoked the names of old friends Andy (Warhol), Allen (Ginsberg) and William (Burroughs) with the familiarity that I’ve always envied among the voices of that generation. (Who hasn’t yearned for the tight-knit, heavy-drinkin artistic community portrayed in works like Kerouac’s On The Road?).

The Festival des Voix d’Amérique, who hosted Giorno’s three Montreal performances last week, provides a fascinating bio and the Hour ran a personal (if somewhat choppy) interview with him last week.

What struck me, though my Indyish-goggles, is the way that Giorno strove to re-invented poetry and reach new audiences using innovative technology. In the 1960s, innovative technology meant capitalizing on things like telephone, tape-recording, and the brand new synthesizer (Gionro worked with Bob Moog in the later part of the decade).

Pushing poetry beyond it’s traditional written medium, he started the Giorno Poetry Systems record lable and released over 40 albums, including works by William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Frank Zappa.

In 1968, he launched Dial-a-Poem, which allowed people to call in and listen to a snippet of a live poetry reading. Dial-a-Poem received millions of calls, paving the way for the telephone to be used as a means of mass communication – think 900 numbers, sex hotlines, sports and stock market info-lines. That probably makes the telephone the first and only medium that poetry capitalized on before sex.

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The Festival des Voix d’Amérique continues until Friday Feb 8th and their schedule is available here.

Each night ends with the “shift de nuit” open mic night at Casa del Popolo, an event that festival organizer D Kimm said has been overwhelmingly “frenchie.” That’s a not-so-subtle hint for anglo poets and singer-songrwiters to get out there and show off your talent.