Review
Praise for "East Hill Farm"
"Gordon Ball has written an important book. He is already known as a filmmaker and editor of earlier collections of writings by Allen Ginsberg--including Allen Verbatim (1974) and three volumes of Ginsberg's journals--as well as the author of the memoir '66 Frames (1999). Now Ball deserves to be called the "Beat Boswell" for providing his uniquely personal, detailed account of the years 1968 to 1971 when he participated in and observed the people and events at Allen Ginsberg's farm five miles from Cherry Valley, New York. Anyone interested in Ginsberg's life and work, or desirous to explore the gritty daily reality of the Beat/Hippie lifestyle, will find this book essential reading."--Ann Charter
"In writing a memoir about the time he spent managing Allen Ginsberg's farm in upstate New York, Gordon Ball has detailed an important yet often overlooked side of the poet's colorful life. Anecdotally fertile, with a memorable cast of characters, "East Hill Farm" is informative, entertaining, often very funny, and ultimately important. Allen Ginsberg and Friends live again in these pages." --Michael Schumacher, author of "Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg"
"I couldn't stop reading "East Hill Farm" and learning so much of what really went down on that farm in that so crucial period in the lives of the Beats. I visited the farm just twice but wish I had had Ball's innocent yet so perceptive eye." --Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"In the late 1960s, poet Allen Ginsberg bought an isolated, broken-down farm in upstate New York as a retreat for himself and his worn-out, burned-out friends. Ginsberg hoped to create an Elysium where they could escape from the urban pressures and drug addictions that had laid Kerouac, Corso, Orlovsky, and Huncke so low. Only a masterful story-teller like Gordon Ball could turn a depressing tale of poets at rock bottom into a triumph of the human spirit. Ball's "East Hill Farm" is ones
"Gordon Ball has written an important book. He is already known as a filmmaker and editor of earlier collections of writings by Allen Ginsberg--including Allen Verbatim (1974) and three volumes of Ginsberg's journals--as well as the author of the memoir '66 Frames (1999). Now Ball deserves to be called the "Beat Boswell" for providing his uniquely personal, detailed account of the years 1968 to 1971 when he participated in and observed the people and events at Allen Ginsberg's farm five miles from Cherry Valley, New York. Anyone interested in Ginsberg's life and work, or desirous to explore the gritty daily reality of the Beat/Hippie lifestyle, will find this book essential reading."--Ann Charter
"In writing a memoir about the time he spent managing Allen Ginsberg's farm in upstate New York, Gordon Ball has detailed an important yet often overlooked side of the poet's colorful life. Anecdotally fertile, with a memorable cast of characters, "East Hill Farm" is informative, entertaining, often very funny, and ultimately important. Allen Ginsberg and Friends live again in these pages." --Michael Schumacher, author of "Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg"
"I couldn't stop reading "East Hill Farm" and learning so much of what really went down on that farm in that so crucial period in the lives of the Beats. I visited the farm just twice but wish I had had Ball's innocent yet so perceptive eye." --Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"In the late 1960s, poet Allen Ginsberg bought an isolated, broken-down farm in upstate New York as a retreat for himself and his worn-out, burned-out friends. Ginsberg hoped to create an Elysium where they could escape from the urban pressures and drug addictions that had laid Kerouac, Corso, Orlovsky, and Huncke so low. Only a masterful story-teller like Gordon Ball could turn a depressing tale of poets at rock bottom into a triumph of the human spirit. Ball's "East Hill Farm" is ones
Product Description
“This was Allen Ginsberg,” Gordon Ball declares after recounting intimate moments with the cultural icon and beloved Beat Generation poet on East Hill Farm, outside Cherry Valley, New York.
During the late 1960s, when peace, drugs, and free love were direct challenges to conventional society, Allen Ginsberg, treasurer of Committee on Poetry, Inc., funded what he hoped was “a haven for comrades in distress” in rural upstate New York. First described as an uninspiring, dilapidated four-bedroom house with acres of untended land, including the graves of its first residents, East Hill Farm became home to those who sought pastoral enlightenment in the presence of Ginsberg’s brilliance and generosity.
A self-declared member of a “ragtag group of urban castoffs” including Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Herbert Huncke, and the mythic Barbara Rubin, farm manager Ball tends to a non-stop flurry of guests, chores, and emotional outbursts while also making time to sit quietly with Ginsberg and discuss poetry, Kerouac, sex, and America's war in Vietnam. In honest and vivid prose, Ball offers a rare intimate glimpse of the poetic pillar of the Beat Generation as a striving and accessible human being at home on the farm and in the world.
During the late 1960s, when peace, drugs, and free love were direct challenges to conventional society, Allen Ginsberg, treasurer of Committee on Poetry, Inc., funded what he hoped was “a haven for comrades in distress” in rural upstate New York. First described as an uninspiring, dilapidated four-bedroom house with acres of untended land, including the graves of its first residents, East Hill Farm became home to those who sought pastoral enlightenment in the presence of Ginsberg’s brilliance and generosity.
A self-declared member of a “ragtag group of urban castoffs” including Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Herbert Huncke, and the mythic Barbara Rubin, farm manager Ball tends to a non-stop flurry of guests, chores, and emotional outbursts while also making time to sit quietly with Ginsberg and discuss poetry, Kerouac, sex, and America's war in Vietnam. In honest and vivid prose, Ball offers a rare intimate glimpse of the poetic pillar of the Beat Generation as a striving and accessible human being at home on the farm and in the world.
