Very cool - it's too bad this collection of tapes is incomplete.

“Expansive Poetics” by Allen Ginsberg: A Free Course from 1981

These lectures were recorded at Naropa University in Boulder, CO in the summer of 1981.

Tape 1 – The first class in an Allen Ginsberg course on Expansive Poetics. Ginsberg opens the class with a brief history of the topics of courses he has taught in the past. He then explains his expectations for this course and the material he plans to cover in the sourcebook/anthology he is compiling. He then reads Geza Roheim’s "Children of the Desert," Shelley’s "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," "Ode to the West Wind," and the end of "Adonais." The class discusses rhythm and the expansive breath and how it influences one’s work.

Tape 2 in an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Ginsberg on Expansive Poetics. Subject matter includes background on the Russian Futurists as well as the reading of works by Paul Klebnikov.

Tape 3 in an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Ginsberg on Expansive Poetics. Subject matter includes some discussion of the Russian Futurists and two short readings by Russian Futurist writers.

Tape 4 of an 11 Tape series of a class taught by Allen Ginsberg on Expansive Poetics. Subject matter includes background on the Futurists, Dadaists, and other literary movents as well as readings of work by such writers as Vladamir Klebnikov and Kurt Schwitters.

Tape 5 of an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Ginsberg on Expansive Poetics. Subject matter includes background on such movements as the Futurists, Acmeists, and Imaginists as well as readings of work by various artists including Osip Mandelstam, Jorge Ivanov, Nikolai Gumilev, William Carlos Williams, and Anna Akhmatova.

Tape 6 of an 11 tape series of a class taught by Allen Ginsberg on Expansive Poetics. Ginsberg discusses the lives and writing of Anna Akhmatova and Sergey Yesenin.

Tape 7 Not available. (But we’re looking into it.)

Tape 8 of an 11 tape series of Allen Ginsbergs class on Expansive Poetics. Subject matter includes background on Surrealism and concepts of language and the imagination as well as readings of works by such writers as Tristan Tzara, Philip Lamantia, Andre Breton, Robert Desnos, Vitezslav Nezval, Philippe Soupeau, Francis Picabia, and Benjamin Perret.

Tape 9 Not  available.

Tape 10 Not available.

Tape 11 of an 11 tape series of Allen Ginsberg’s class on Expansive Poetics. Subject matter includes background on such Russian writers as Kaysin Kuliev and Sergei Yesenin. Also included are readings of work by Gordon McVay, Vladimir Klebnikov, and Sergei Yesenin.

You can find the course listed in the Literature section of our big collection of 500 Free Online Courses.