Films: “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg” + “The Poetry Deal” (SF Main Library)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

In honor of National Poetry Month we screen documentaries about Diane Di Prima and Allen Ginsberg, renowned Beat poets who lived and worked in San Francisco. Note: This program takes place in the Library’s Latino Room (lower level).

The Poetry Deal: A Portrait of Poet Diane di Prima

The Poetry Deal opens a window looking back through more than 50 years of poetry, activism, and cultural change, providing a unique women’s perspective of the Beat movement. This impressionistic documentary presents the legendary poet Diane di Prima, the most famous female poet of the Beat Generation. Actively writing in San Francisco where she was Poet Laureate, di Prima was fierce, funny and philosophical. She was a pioneer who broke boundaries of class and gender to publish her writing; her friend Allen Ginsberg called her “heroic in life and poetics.”

Director: Melanie La Rosa

TV-14, 27 mins., 2011. Closed captions (CC) in English.

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg

Visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist and teacher – Allen Ginsberg’s remarkable life shaped the very soul of American counterculture. For 25 years, Academy Award-nominated director Jerry Aronson accumulated more than 60 hours of film on Allen Ginsberg, resulting in this comprehensive portrait of one of America’s greatest poets, author of Howl and other groundbreaking poems. Restored from the original 1994 release.

Director: Jerry Aronson

TV-14, 83 mins., 2005. Closed captions (CC) in English.

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