Penny Arcade's Essay on John Giorno Highlights His Anti-War Work

In the new issue of the Poetry Project Newsletter, Penny Arcade's essay about the much-missed John Giorno locates us in "222 Bowery, the Queen Anne Romanesque Revival style building built in 1880 as the first YMCA in New York," where, on Oct. 11, 2019, Giorno "left his body." An excerpt:

Giorno said, “I was determined to make poetry a razor blade cutting through the ego of America karma,” He was the central organizer of a 1969 30-hour-long New Year’s Eve benefit at St. Mark’s Church for White Panther “political prisoner” poet John Sinclair, who had been busted for selling two joints to an undercover agent and sentenced to ten years in prison. In March 1970, Giorno participated in a press conference that kicked off “Free Radio” WPAX, and he eventually personally assembled ten 90-minute recordings of rock music, gay and feminist themed content, and anti-war news for Radio Hanoi, broadcast in both the north and south of Vietnam. After which, Vice President Spiro Agnew personally denounced Giorno and Abbie Hoffman as “would-be Hanoi Hannah’s,” and called for their arrest as traitors.

Inspired by a phone conversation with William Burroughs, Giorno created, Dial-A-Poem, 1969-1971. Dial-A-Poem was the freshest presentation of poetry in centuries giving pertinent meaning to the medium as the message and credited with creating the concept of the now ubiquitous 1-800 information lines.

His anti-war work continued at the “Information” show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in June 1970 where Giorno installed twelve Dial-a-Poem tapes, including political messages from Bobby Seale and Abby Hoffman. Diane di Prima’s, How to Make a Molotov Cocktail, created a scandal.

There's much more of this goodness at the PPNL.