The International Poetry Incarnation was an event at the Royal Albert Hall in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 11 June 1965.

Background

In May 1965,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

arrived at

Better Books ''Better Books'' was an independent bookstore. It was founded by Tony Godwin and was located at 94 Charing Cross Road, London. The shop was a significant location in the 1960s counterculture movement in London. History It was founded by British ...

, an independent bookstore in

's Charing Cross Road, and offered to read anywhere for free.Nuttall, Jeff, ''Bomb Culture'', London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968. Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, which was described by

Jeff Nuttall Jeffrey Addison Nuttall (8 July 1933 – 4 January 2004) was an English poet, publisher, actor, painter, sculptor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist and social commentator who was a key part of the British 1960s counter-culture. He was the brother of l ...

as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind". Tom McGrath wrote: "This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England - or at least in the history of English Poetry."Fountain, Nigel, ''Underground: The London Alternative Press, 1966-74'', p. 16. London: Comedia, 1988. Shortly after Ginsberg's reading at Better Books, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation.

The event

The event, organized by the filmmaker

Barbara Rubin Barbara Rubin (1945–1980) was an American filmmaker and performance artist. She is best known for her landmark 1963 underground film ''Christmas on Earth''. Life and career Barbara Rubin grew up in the Cambria Heights neighborhood of Queens, ...

, attracted an audience of 7,000 people (including Indira Gandhi) to readings and other live and tape performances by a variety of artists (mostly poets; all male) representing several different countries. Performers: * Pete Brown *

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrou ...

John Esam The International Poetry Incarnation was an event at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 11 June 1965. Background In May 1965, Allen Ginsberg arrived at Better Books, an independent bookstore in London's Charing Cross Road, and offered to read anyw ...

Harry Fainlight Harry Fainlight (1935–1982) was a British/American poet associated with the Beats movement. He was the younger brother of Ruth Fainlight (b 1931), also a poet, who edited a posthumous volume of his work, ''Selected Poems'', published in 1986. ...

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

* Pablo Fernández *

* Spike Hawkins * Anselm Hollo *

Michael Horovitz Michael Yechiel Ha-Levi Horovitz (4 April 1935 – 7 July 2021) was a German-born British poet, editor, visual artist and translator who was a leading part of the Beat Poetry scene in the UK. In 1959, while still a student, he founded the "tr ...

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry Inf ...

* Paolo Lionni *

Christopher Logue Christopher Logue, CBE (23 November 1926 – 2 December 2011)Mark EspineObituary: Christopher Logue ''The Guardian'', 2 December 2011 was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival, and a pacifist. Life Born in Portsmouth, ...

George MacBeth George Mann MacBeth (19 January 1932 – 16 February 1992) was a Scottish poet and novelist. Biography George MacBeth was born in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland. When he was three, his family moved to Sheffield in England. He was educated in Sh ...

* Tom McGrath *

Adrian Mitchell Adrian Mitchell FRSL (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's C ...

* Dan Richter *

Alexander Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of I ...

* Simon Vinkenoog *

Andrei Voznesensky Andrei Andreyevich Voznesensky (russian: link=no, Андре́й Андре́евич Вознесе́нский, 12 May 1933 – 1 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian poet and writer who had been referred to by Robert Lowell as "one of the ...

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was also booked for the event but had to cancel. The event was formative for what became the UK underground over the subsequent years. Jeff Nuttall, author of '' Bomb Culture'', said "the Underground was suddenly there on the surface".

Barry Miles Barry Miles (born 21 February 1943) is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subjects of the 1960s London underground and counterculture. He is the author of numerous books and his work has also regularly appeare ...

described "a sense of constituency that was never there before.... All these people recognised each other and they all realised they were part of the same scene."

Coverage in other media

Peter Whitehead documented the event on film and released it as '' Wholly Communion''. Horovitz's related anthology '' Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain'' was published by Penguin in 1969.See Barry, Peter: ''Poetry Wars'', Salt, 2006, p. 13.

References

{{Allen Ginsberg British Poetry Revival Beat Generation Underground culture Events at the Royal Albert Hall 1965 in London June 1965 events in the United Kingdom