[John Riley]

Dickey read at my college. He was drunk and slobbering over the female students.

I wasn’t closely involved with arrangements but the old white male poet I got the best vibe from was W.D. Snodgrass. But what do I know? He may have been a Dick too.

The reader who touched me most was Muriel Rukeyser. She was elderly by then and while she was reading the lamp attached to the podium gave way and swung around. It only slightly touched her face but this whoosh of upset swept the room.

Edited back in to say that although he wasn’t a poet the grossest most disgusting writer I was around, and granted there weren’t so many, was Ken Kesey. It was in Boulder and apparently he came by occasionally for the girls. I saw him twice a year apart and he read the same story each time. Ginsberg would play his squeeze box and then he’d read and off to the party. Buddhist money well spent.