Philip Glass - Wichita Vortex Sutra (1988) is a piano piece based on anti-war poem by Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), written in 1966. It appears in his collection Planet News and has also been published in "Collected Poems 1947-1995", and "Collected Poems 1947-1980". On its 40th anniversary Rolf Potts, writing in The Nation, described it as "an elegy for the power of language in an age of competing information." "Wichita Vortex Sutra" originated as a voice recording that Ginsberg made with an Uher tape recorder as he travelled across the mid-west. He composed it off the top of his head as he spoke into the recording device. He stated that "these lines in 'Wichita' are arranged according to their organic time-spacing as per the mind's coming up with the phrases and the mouth pronouncing them. With pauses maybe of a minute or two minutes between each line as I'm formulating it in my mind and the recording ... I was in the back of a bus, talking to myself, except with a tape recorder. Every time I said something interesting to myself I put it on tape". Ginsberg juxtaposes images of the landscape of Kansas with snippets of media reports about the war in Vietnam and links the violence of war with the conservatism of the heartland. He believes that Wichita, where Carrie Nation championed the temperance movement, "began a vortex of hatred that defoliated the Mekong Delta." In Buddhism, the term "sutra" refers mostly to canonical scriptures, many of which are regarded as records of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha. "Wichita Vortex Sutra" speaks of the power of language and the poet's desire to end war by making a mantra. Lines from the poem include, "Rusk says Toughness / Essential for Peace ... Vietcong losses leveling up three five zero zero ... headline language poetry ... On the other side of the planet ... flesh soft as a Kansas girl's / ripped open by metal explosion ... shrapnelled / throbbing meat / While this American nation argues war / conflicting language, language / proliferating in airwaves." Description by Philip Glass: “In 1988…I happened to run into Allen Ginsberg at St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York and asked him if he would perform with me. We were in the poetry section, and he grabbed a book from the shelf and pointed out Wichita Vortex Sutra. The poem, written in 1966 and reflecting the anti-war mood of the times, seemed highly appropriate for the occasion. I composed a piano piece to accompany Allen’s reading, which took place at the Schubert Theater on Broadway. “Allen and I so thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration that we soon began talking about expanding our performance into an evening-length music-theater work. It was right after the 1988 presidential election, and neither Bush nor Dukakis seemed to talk about anything that was going on. I remember saying to Allen, if these guys aren’t going to talk about the issues then we should.” Description by Jeremy Grimshaw: It was by chance that pop-minimalist icon Philip Glass and counterculture guru Allen Ginsberg met at St. Mark's bookshop in New York in 1988. Glass had just been asked to perform at a benefit for the Vietnam Veteran Theater, and asked Ginsberg to join him. At the performance, Ginsberg read his poem Wichita Vortex Sutra to music composed by Glass. The score, while clearly the product of Glass' minimalist musical language, incorporates what is for the composer a less characteristic element of chromatic inflection; this ironically nostalgic effect serves as an effective counterpoint Ginsberg's evocative commentary on postwar America. The Glass/Ginsberg collaboration on Wichita Vortex Sutra proved fruitful; the work served as the germ for their later, much acclaimed multimedia effort, Hydrogen Jukebox. I made this recording using Steinway & Sons grand piano model O (build in 1926) and Soundman OKM II Mics