I Resign Myself to Being Here
John Giorno, Rest in Peace
So many memories of John Giorno. The first was at the Wholly Communion of Poets at the Cactus (Toronto, 1982), the taping for the Poetry in Motion documentary.
Then, when I was working with Elliot Lefko (then a poetry promoter), Giorno was part of his regular roster, at events promoting Ron Mann’s Poetry in Motion film (for which, I believe, Giorno was given a producer credit), but at other events about town, readings in small venues and, eventually, on the bill at events at the Danforth Music Hall featuring William Burroughs and Lou Reed.
Along the way, I purchased a copy of Sugar, Alcohol and Meat, a compilation of Dial-A-Poets readings (Burroughs Sr. and Jr., Patti Smith, John Cage, Peter Gordon, Ted Berrigan, et al), produced by Giorno, and just a glimpse into his Giorno Poetry Systems empire.
Speaking of empire, Giorno was the person sleeping in Warhol’s Sleep, a 5 hour and 20 minute film made in 1963, early in Warhol’s filmmaking career. Giorno was Warhol’s lover at the time.
Besides turning me on to performance poetry, Giorno’s projects suggested to me that there was a big world of avant-garde artistic production that was loosely networked, and consisted of poets, composers, filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists. It seems like it was what I was looking for, the direction I needed. I took the direction and never looked back.
