Beat Generation poet to speak

Beat Generation poet to speak at SUNY Oswego

http://www.oswego.edu/news/index.php/site/news_story/beat_writer

Sep 17, 2009

SUNY Oswego's Living Writers Series will host Beat Generation poet
Charles Plymell at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, in the Campus Center auditorium.

Plymell was an early member of the Beat Generation poets and writers
who became prominent in the '50s in New York City speaking out
against mainstream American values. Most of Plymell's work reflects
his life and the Beat Generation attitude.

Born in Kansas, Charles Plymell moved to San Francisco where he lived
with Beat Generation luminaries Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady.
During his time in that fertile creative scene, Plymell printed the
first copies of Zap Comix featuring Robert Crumb and published many
influential underground books.

He was recruited by leaders of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars to
earn his master's degree in writing. Some of his works from more than
four decades as an active writer include "The Last of the Moccasins,"
"Hand on the Door Knob" and "The Trashing of America."

Plymell publicly opposed the Endowment of the Arts, calling it a
politicized, unjust system feeding on mediocrity and
self-contradiction. His interviews appeared the New York Times and
Washington Talk. Plymell has not received federal or state funding to
pursue his creativity since.

He and his wife, Pam, founded Cherry Valley Publishing and have
published works by Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Dick McBride and
Robert Peters.

Plymell's appearance at SUNY Oswego will be free and open to the
public. For more information, call 312-2609.

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