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90.
The World’s Great Poets Reading at the Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, Italy. American Poets: Ginsberg, Berryman, Corso.
NY: Applause Productions, Inc., 1968. LP record (SP 412M).
The recordings were made at the 1967 Festival of Two Worlds (“Festival dei Due Mondi”) at Spoleto (organised by Gian Carlo Menotti), and were produced by Vincent A. Tortora.
Small photographs of the three poets to sleeve back cover + text (uncredited), including a brief statement about his reading by Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg met Ezra Pound at the festival (they both read on July 9), and following his reading he was detained by the police after they had picked up copies of the Italian translation of “Who Be Kind To” (one of the poems he read). The legal process instituted against the poem went on for years and wasn’t settled (in Ginsberg’s favour) until 1972.
The LP was reissued by CMS Records in 1971 with John Berryman’s reading replaced by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s; Ginsberg’s reading was reissued in 1969 as “Ginsberg’s Thing” on Transatlantic in the UK and Douglas Records in the US (item #79).
Disc excellent in Very Good plus sleeve.