Rev. Danny Fisher

This from our friend and Shambhala Sun Space editor Rod Meade Sperry over at The Worst Horse:

Howl, starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg, is off and running, set for a Sundance debut tomorrow. Here’s video of some clips from the film:

The late, great poet’s contributions to the development of Buddhism in America in the last 75 years was substantial.  Ginsberg, who also studied Krishnaism and traveled through India, become a devoted student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche after meeting him randomly on the street in New York City. Along with fellow Beat writer Anne Waldman, he founded the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University (my graduate alma mater) in 1974. He was also the basis for the character “Alvah Goldbook” in his friend Kerouac’s much-beloved “novel” The Dharma Bums. For more on Ginsberg and his extensive relationship with the Buddhadharma, take a look at Tony Trigilio’s Allen Ginsberg’s Buddhist Poetics and Michael Schumacher’s Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg.