Allen Ginsberg Photographs to the University of Toronto

A giant collection of some 7,500 Allen Ginsberg photographs have been donated by the Larry and Cookie Rossy Family Foundation to the University of Toronto, which announced the gift in January. They now reside there in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and some have been made available online.

According to the University's press announcement:

"The Ginsberg prints provide visual insight into New York urban landscape from the 1950s to the 1990s. They also document Ginsberg’s international travels to Canada, France, India, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, the USSR and many other nations."

Here's a photograph that is not in their collection, taken January 21st, 1986 upon arriving at the Sandino International Airport in Managua. Ginsberg, Pedro Pietri and a group of North American writers and artists (myself included) had been invited to participate in an "invasion of poets" for the 1986 Ruben Dario Festival.

Pedro Pietri, Ernesto Cardenal, Allen Ginsberg
Sandino International Airport, Managua
January 21, 1986

Pedro Pietri at Sandino Airport 1986

Pero Pietri was a warm, strange, beguiling, hilarious, generous poet, an amazing individual whom I knew briefly for ten days in January 1986 while traveling with he and Allen Ginsberg and a group of North America writers and publishers in Nicaragua. Pedro charmed everyone, dressed always in black, and carried a valise that said "Rent a coffin" in giant white letters on its side.

I saw him only a little on the trip, he was always missing press conferences, wandering who-knows-where 'til all hours of the tropical night, and generally partying and carrying on with mischievous enthusiasm. But when he was around he manifested a vibe of pure humor and empathy and I am grateful for having been in his orbit, however briefly.

Pedro Pietri, Sandino Airport, Managua, Feb 1, 1986