PENNY ARCADE
CHANNELS THE INFLUENCE OF
IRA COHEN
Free, RSVP required
CHANNELS THE INFLUENCE OF
IRA COHEN
Free, RSVP required
Thursday,
May 15, 2025
Doors: 6:30pm
Event: 7pm
with:
Lakshmi Cohen
Bonny Finberg
Allan Graubard
Louise Landes-Levi
Yuko Otomo
Danny Rosen
Robert Yarra
Wayne Lopes
Limited capacity
May 15, 2025
Doors: 6:30pm
Event: 7pm
with:
Lakshmi Cohen
Bonny Finberg
Allan Graubard
Louise Landes-Levi
Yuko Otomo
Danny Rosen
Robert Yarra
Wayne Lopes
Limited capacity
When I complained to
Ira Cohen that
critics kept
critiquing me
instead of critiquing my writing
he said “Penny Arcade”
quoting from his own poem
Ira Cohen that
critics kept
critiquing me
instead of critiquing my writing
he said “Penny Arcade”
quoting from his own poem
“Imagine whatever you will
but know
that it is not imagination
but experience
which makes poetry.”
– Penny Arcade
but know
that it is not imagination
but experience
which makes poetry.”
– Penny Arcade
Ira Cohen absolutely participated in everything that is considered alternative post-1950. He was a pivotal figure in the last great bohemia that existed. Each time I ended a phone conversation with him, I would remind him that if he died before me I would be grateful every day of my life for knowing him and for having spent time with his incredible mind.
Ira immersed himself in world cultures, spiritually, artistically, anthropologically and in every art form save painting. He created intergenerational and international coalitions, always totally inclusive, queer as fuck yet he remained the outsider.
His knowledge was encyclopedic. I used him like you use google. He had a library of ten thousand books and he had read them all and retained all their knowledge. Ira had shoplifted all of those books. He said shoplifting is an ability all poets should develop.
When I complained that academic gatekeepers were erasing his influence from history he would laugh and chide me: “Remember Penny, a non-psychedelic can never enlighten a psychedelic.” When he died, The New York Times gave him a huge obituary as did The Guardian. They love a dead queer. Fuck them.
– Penny Arcade
Ira immersed himself in world cultures, spiritually, artistically, anthropologically and in every art form save painting. He created intergenerational and international coalitions, always totally inclusive, queer as fuck yet he remained the outsider.
His knowledge was encyclopedic. I used him like you use google. He had a library of ten thousand books and he had read them all and retained all their knowledge. Ira had shoplifted all of those books. He said shoplifting is an ability all poets should develop.
When I complained that academic gatekeepers were erasing his influence from history he would laugh and chide me: “Remember Penny, a non-psychedelic can never enlighten a psychedelic.” When he died, The New York Times gave him a huge obituary as did The Guardian. They love a dead queer. Fuck them.
– Penny Arcade
Ira Cohen was an illustrious downtown polymath who travelled the world and touched the lives of many darlings of our poetic lineage. This night of readings and remembrances celebrates his lasting influence on those who most closely felt it. Lakshmi Cohen, Bonny Finberg, Allan Graubard, Louise Landes-Levi, Yuko Otomo, Danny Rosen, and Robert Yarra read poems and share memories. Wayne Lopes plays guitar. There is also a slideshow of photographs by (and of) Ira.
Copies of the new book A Certain Kind of Wizard: Treasures from the Vaults of Ira Cohen (Lithic Press, 2025) collecting Ira's poetry, photos, interviews, and prose writings are available for sale.
The celebration begins the night before, on Wednesday, May 14 at Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at 7pm.
Organized with Eli Coplan.
Copies of the new book A Certain Kind of Wizard: Treasures from the Vaults of Ira Cohen (Lithic Press, 2025) collecting Ira's poetry, photos, interviews, and prose writings are available for sale.
The celebration begins the night before, on Wednesday, May 14 at Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at 7pm.
Organized with Eli Coplan.
Ira Cohen. Photo: Robert Yarra
Poet, photographer, filmmaker, publisher, and dauntless world traveler, Ira Cohen catalyzed creative scenes in New York, Tangier, Kathmandu, Amsterdam, and wherever else he happened to alight in his wanderings. His friends and collaborators included Jack Smith, Angus MacLise, Julian Beck, Judith Malina, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Vali Myers, Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, and others.
Penny Arcade, aka Susana Ventura, is an internationally respected performer, poet, writer, and a cultural icon of artistic resistance. Penny is the author of over 16 full-length performance plays, as well as hundreds of solo performance art pieces. For over 30 years she has brought East Village performance to international mainstream audiences.
Lakshmi Cohen, born in New York City and now living in Denver, Colorado, is a lifelong student of the world’s beauty and nuance. With a deep appreciation for travel, nature, and the arts, she views life through the prismatic lens of her father Ira's vision.
Bonny Finberg has been published in Evergreen Review, Grand Journal, Sensitive Skin, The Brooklyn Rail and other international literary journals. Her publications include a novel, Kali's Day; two poetry collections, Sitting Book and Deja Vu; and a short story collection, How the Discovery of Sugar Produced the Romantic Era. She received an Acker Award for fiction and is working on her second novel.
Allan Graubard is a poet, writer, playwright, critic, and curator of art. Recent books include Sun Step Black Lake, with Welsh artist John Welson (Broken Sleep Books, 2023), Western Terrace (Exstasis Editions, 2020), and Language of Birds, with Dutch artist Rik Lina (Anon Editions, 2019). Allan is the editor of and contributing author to the magisterial Into the Mylar Chamber: Ira Cohen (Fulgur Books, 2019).
Penny Arcade, aka Susana Ventura, is an internationally respected performer, poet, writer, and a cultural icon of artistic resistance. Penny is the author of over 16 full-length performance plays, as well as hundreds of solo performance art pieces. For over 30 years she has brought East Village performance to international mainstream audiences.
Lakshmi Cohen, born in New York City and now living in Denver, Colorado, is a lifelong student of the world’s beauty and nuance. With a deep appreciation for travel, nature, and the arts, she views life through the prismatic lens of her father Ira's vision.
Bonny Finberg has been published in Evergreen Review, Grand Journal, Sensitive Skin, The Brooklyn Rail and other international literary journals. Her publications include a novel, Kali's Day; two poetry collections, Sitting Book and Deja Vu; and a short story collection, How the Discovery of Sugar Produced the Romantic Era. She received an Acker Award for fiction and is working on her second novel.
Allan Graubard is a poet, writer, playwright, critic, and curator of art. Recent books include Sun Step Black Lake, with Welsh artist John Welson (Broken Sleep Books, 2023), Western Terrace (Exstasis Editions, 2020), and Language of Birds, with Dutch artist Rik Lina (Anon Editions, 2019). Allan is the editor of and contributing author to the magisterial Into the Mylar Chamber: Ira Cohen (Fulgur Books, 2019).
Louise Landes Levi is a poet, translator, musician, and performer whose travels have charted an elaborate constellation of mystic and cosmic pathways.
Wayne Lopes is a founding member—along with Ira Cohen, Sylvie Degiez and Andy Clausen—of Cosmic Legends, dedicated to the improvising artist through movement, music, and the spoken word.
Yuko Otomo is a bilingual (Japanese and English) writer/poet of Japanese origin; the other half of the one & only late poet Steve Dalachinsky. She really wishes he was here with us to read the dedication poem he wrote on the passing of Ira himself. She has published two books with Lithic Press, Anonymous Landscapes (2019) and Pink (2024).
Originally from Philadelphia, Danny Rosen has lived in Wyoming and Colorado since 1980. After a career in geology, astronomy and science education, he started Lithic Press and Lithic Bookstore in Fruita, Colorado. He has published 5 books of poems, most recently, The Tuscan Journals (Cuneiform Press, 2022) and Suspended Erosion (Lithic Press, 2024).
Born and raised on the Lower East Side, Bobby Yarra is a writer, publisher, traveler, and Vali Myers Art Gallery Trust trustee. Bobby is the Director of the Golda Foundation whose mission is to help artists.
Wayne Lopes is a founding member—along with Ira Cohen, Sylvie Degiez and Andy Clausen—of Cosmic Legends, dedicated to the improvising artist through movement, music, and the spoken word.
Yuko Otomo is a bilingual (Japanese and English) writer/poet of Japanese origin; the other half of the one & only late poet Steve Dalachinsky. She really wishes he was here with us to read the dedication poem he wrote on the passing of Ira himself. She has published two books with Lithic Press, Anonymous Landscapes (2019) and Pink (2024).
Originally from Philadelphia, Danny Rosen has lived in Wyoming and Colorado since 1980. After a career in geology, astronomy and science education, he started Lithic Press and Lithic Bookstore in Fruita, Colorado. He has published 5 books of poems, most recently, The Tuscan Journals (Cuneiform Press, 2022) and Suspended Erosion (Lithic Press, 2024).
Born and raised on the Lower East Side, Bobby Yarra is a writer, publisher, traveler, and Vali Myers Art Gallery Trust trustee. Bobby is the Director of the Golda Foundation whose mission is to help artists.
