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17.
Original programme for the poetry reading held at the Royal Albert Hall on June 11, 1965.
Mustard colour folded card, printed in green. 28x10.2 (folded).
Prints the Blakean invocation for the event, a collaborative piece spontaneously conceived by a gathering of ten poets at Alexander Trocchi’s Notting Hill flat (and read out at the event’s press conference).
Its inclusion of the line “You are not alone” (at Ginsberg’s insistence, according to Michael Horovitz) was prescient, as at least 6000 people turned up (years later Hoppy recalled: “That was when we first saw each other. You walked in, saw 6000 people just like you and thought, ‘Shit, are there that many of us?’ ”).
The programme also lists the names of the most prominent poets who read at the event (as well as Pablo Neruda, unpersuaded to participate) and “somewhere in the evening Andrei Voznesensky” (who left after Ginsberg’s unsuccessfull attempt to persuade him to read), along with “The voice of William Burroughs” (a tape recording of Burroughs - then in New York - was played on stage by Ian Sommerville during the intermission).
The event, now regarded as the moment the sixties began in earnest in Britain, was recorded and excerpts were broadcast on the BBC Third Network on August 19, 1965.
Near Fine.
