Bob Holman: “Ginsberg’s Karma” – Allen Ginsberg in India

When poet Bob Holman was invited to represent the US at the 2008 Kolkota Book Fair, he was at last able to take up the offer of his friend, Ram Devineni, to collaborate on a film. The result is the half-hour documentary, Ginsberg’s Karma, in which Holman and a gang of young Indian poets go in search of the famous Beat’s Indian connections. Gary Snyder, Joanne Kyger, William Burroughs, John Giorno, and Alfred Hitchcock all appear in the film, as well as the enigmatic Ashok Fakir, “an energetic sadhu teahead reminiscent of Ted Joans with an MA.” Holman, who is leading an “On the Road with Beat Poetry” tour of North India in January through the auspices of Teri Goldstein’s Travels with Teri will be on hand to discuss Allen and Peter’s Indian love story, opium haze, and moments of Buddhist satori—as well as the incredible poetry that was written there.

Ram Devineni is the scion of the Prasad Bollywood film family of Chenai, and creator of the multidimensional digital poetry zine Rattapallax.

Bob Holman has “…has done more to bring poetry to cafes and bars than anyone since Ferlinghetti,” wrote Henry Louis Gates Jr. in The New Yorker. Holman coordinated readings at the St. Marks Poetry Project from 1977-1984, introduced slam to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and co-edited its anthology, Aloud!, and founded the Bowery Poetry Club. He also created The United States of Poetry series for PBS, has appeared on MTV’s “Spoken Word Unplugged.”