BISBEE POETRY FESTIVAL (1979-1985)

In 1979, Jon Friedman founded the annual Bisbee Poetry Festival in the historic mining town of Bisbee, AZ, a picturesque town on the Mexican border that had become a vibrant center of creative activity for musicians, writers, and artists. Every year for the next seven years Friedman invited six of the best contemporary poets to Bisbee during third week of August to read their poetry to audiences that usually exceeded 500 avid fans from around the country. The readings, which might more accurately be described as performances, varied from an hour to an hour and a half, and these readings, along with the interviews, workshops, press conferences and informal social events that surrounded the readings, were all professionally videotaped, thereby capturing some of the most riveting live poetry readings of the period.
In all forty-four poets participated in the personalized week-long residences that the Bisbee Poetry Festival offered them, including Kathy Acker, Helen Adam, Ai, David Antin, John Ashbery, Amiri Baraka, Ted Berrigan, Gregory Corso, Jayne Cortez, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Robert Duncan, William Everson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Susan Griffin, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Juan Felipe Herrera, Galway Kinnell, Carolyn Kizer, Joanne Kyger, Phillip Lamantia, Philip Levine, Jackson MacLow, Michael McClure, Alice Notley, Rochelle Owens, Robert Pack, Margaret Randall, Jerome Rothenberg, Ed Sanders, May Swenson, Diane Wakoski, Anne Waldman, Philip Whalen, among others.
The Bisbee Poetry Festival video archive comprises approximately 120 hours of broadcast quality footage consisting of the following tapes: 126 tapes recorded on Sony videocassette KCA60  (Broadcast quality - 3/4 inch - usually one hour each, some are 2 hours each); 20 tapes of Sony KCS20 (Broadcast quality - 3/4 inch - 20 minutes each); 8 reel-to-reel audio tapes, Crescendo Medallion Series, Magnetic recording tape, 2400 feet per reel, 7 inch reels, 1/4 inch silicone coated Mylar, 1/2 mil, 2 hours each; 9  compact audio cassettes, 1 hour each.