IRA COHEN

Ira Cohen - (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Cohen

“I’d like to say something more perfect about Vali, that would actually shed light on her beauty and how

important she is to me. She’s really a great artist, and she’s always followed her own star, which is to me

the most important thing. Especially when you’re talking about authenticity, a word which doesn’t have a

lot of play in the art world. For me Vali is both a great artist and a great person, absolutely unique. Anyone

who has ever seen her or knows her can tell that. But she herself is her greatest work of art. I never really

saw her when she was drawing, although I have a tiny doodle she made on an envelope and gave me

which I put in a little frame.”

— Ira Cohen

Ira Cohen - (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011)
poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker.

Vali and Ira Cohen, photo by Carol Beckwith 1979

“Perhaps the Armenian carving elephants

on a human hair between heartbeats

can tell you better why you were born

at midday during a storm


or what the Moroccan is thinking

in the asylum

Perhaps he can tell you why the best

sailors can’t swim or how to freeze


two perfect tears on a Chinese face

Perhaps the fox holding an egg

in her mouth can tell you better

how red conquered the rain

or how the blue line curves


around the nipple & I am sure

that the hound knows better


the meaning of the maidenhair fern

or the secrets of lavender under pillows

But only the harpooned whale

can tell you as he turns, rising


to the sun


how much he hates your blue green eyes,

how much a whale’s heart weighs


when it is finally undone.

”

— Ira Cohen, poem for Vali Myers

Allen Ginsberg, Life Mask

“Part of Ira Cohen’s Bandaged Poets series, which first began when Ira met his second wife Caroline

Gosselin in Amsterdam in the late 1970s. Gosselin had been making ‘life masks’ and Ira began

photographing the process of bandaging all the noted poets that crossed their path. Cohen had originally

published Ginsberg in Gnaoua in 1964. Cohen would later wryly comment that Allen Ginsberg made sure

New York City wasn’t big enough for two bearded Jewish poets”

Ira Cohen - Bom Shankar, an ascetic of the Aghori sect

IRA COHEN part 1


IRA COHEN part 2

William S Burroughs in Cohen’s New York loft, also part of his Mylar Chamber series.
Cohen met Burroughs in Tangier, Morocco in the early 1960s,
where he published Burroughs in his Gnaoua magazine.

From The Mylar Chamber series, late 60s

Jimi Hendrix by photographer Ira Cohen

Vali and Ching Ho Cheng , New York City, 1970. Photo by Ira Cohen

Jimi Hendrix by photographer Ira Cohen