Ginsberg’s Friend Visits Richmond

GayRVA Staff
August 9, 2012

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Read More: Allen Ginsberg, Firehouse Theatre Project, WRIR

Author Gordon Ball shares stories from his new book East Hill Farm: Seasons with Allen Ginsberg on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 7 p.m. at the Firehouse Theatre Project.  In the memoir, Ball shares intimate details about gay-icon and poet Ginsberg and life during the beat era.

The event is a fundraiser for WRIR, Richmond’s independent radio station and hosted by Wordy Birds, one of the station’s programs.

From Press Release:

During the late 1960s, when peace, drugs, and free love were direct challenges to conventional society, Poet Allen Ginsberg funded what he hoped was “a haven for comrades in distress” in rural upstate New York. East Hill Farm became home to those who sought pastoral enlightenment in the presence of Ginsberg’s brilliance and generosity. Author Gordon Ball provides a first-hand account of this vital time in literary and American history in East Hill Farm: Seasons with Allen Ginsberg. In 1968, Ball was a young filmmaker just deported from jail in Mexico when he was asked to become caretaker of Ginsberg’s new commune. From l968 to l971 he served as manager of the Committee on Poetry, Inc. farm located in East Hill, five miles from Cherry Valley, New York.

About the Author: After his work on East Hill Farm, Gordon Ball edited three books with Allen Ginsberg, including two volumes of journals and the Pulitzer-Prize-nominated Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics, Consciousness (McGraw-Hill, l974). Ball has made award-winning independent films, and his photographs of Ginsberg and Beat colleagues have appeared in DoubleTake, the New York Times Sunday magazine, and the Rolling Stone Book of the Beats. His memoir, ’66 Frames (Coffee House Press, l999) recounts his time in New York’s counterculture and avant-garde film scene. He is the author of a volume of prose poems, Dark Music and is currently a professor at VMI.

About the Event: An Evening with Gordon Ball is a fundraiser for WRIR 97.3 FM, a 501c3 registered nonprofit. This special event is sponsored by Chop Suey Books, a Richmond independent bookstore located in Carytown (2913 West Cary Street, www.chopsueybooks.com); the James River Film Society, a nonprofit media arts organization dedicated to the art of film and film as art (jamesriverfilm.org); The Rainbow Minute, a serial radio show that documents the contributions and relationships of Lesbian and Gay people throughout history and Wordy Birds, a locally-produced public radio author interview program hosted by Liz Humes (www.wordybirds.org). Admission for An Evening with Gordon Ball is a $5 donation at the door. Chop Suey Books will be selling copies of the memoir at the event and Mr. Ball will sign books after the presentation.

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