Who was both a long time AIDS activist and prominent of innovative ways to connect poetry and related art forms to a larger audience?
Giorno Poetry Systems Founded in 1965, Giorno Poetry Systems was an American artist collective, record label, and non-profit organisation founded by poet and performance artist John Giorno with the direct aim to connect poetry and related art forms to a larger audience using innovative ideas, such as communication technology, audiovisual materials and techniques.
Artie Gold Artie Gold (15 January 1947 – 14 February 2007) was a Montreal-based Canadian poet who rose to prominence in the 1970s as a member of the circle of Montreal-based writers known as The Vehicule Poets. Characterized as one of the wildest and most daring of the Vehicule poets, Gold was influenced by the work of Jack Spicer and Frank O'Hara, his cats (to whom he was allergic) and his myriad eclectic autodidact interests. Though plagued by illness throughout his life, he worked prolifically and was always less interested in fame or academic placement than he was in creating poetry "at the front of the arts". In a tribute to Gold, the Montreal "Gazette" considered him "one of Canada's finest poets".