Screening followed by live poetry salon
O Mother Gaia + Beat/Buddhist poetry salon
Documenting the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet/activist Gary Snyder, the model for the Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s bestselling novel, The Dharma Bums. Plus, just announced - Colin Still from Optic Nerve joins us live to introduce the screening!
Director: Colin Still
Cast includes: Gary Snyder
102 min / 2024 / UK
The first full-length feature film documenting the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet/activist Gary Snyder. A participant in the famed 1955 Six Gallery poetry reading in San Francisco that launched the Beat era (and the careers of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac), Snyder later lived and studied in Japan, becoming a Zen teacher. He is the model for the character of Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s bestselling novel, The Dharma Bums.
The film was skillfully assembled and remastered from the filmmaker’s original 1990s 16mm footage shot for British television, and offers a vivid self portrait of the famously elusive poet and essayist through his poems and commentary.
Filmed on location at his Kitkitdizzie/Ring of Bone Zendo home in the Sierra and other locations connected with him, it also features key archival footage from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as contemporaneous readings and commentary by Peter Coyote, Jane Hirshfield, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Shoemaker, and Michael McClure, and a precious interview with Snyder’s late wife Carole Koda.
We are delighted to announce that Colin Still from Optic Nerve will be live in person to introduce this screening of O Mother Gaia - UK Premiere of the film here at the Electric Palace this Sunday 27th July!
Beat/Buddhist poetry salon
The screening will be followed by a short break (refreshments available) then a Beat/Buddhist poetry salon - an opportunity to read aloud your favourite poems to an appreciative, attentive audience. All very relaxed, no pressure and you are very welcome to just listen.
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