Dial-A-Poem is a public poetry service established in 1968 by the late poet, artist and activist John Giorno[1] after a phone conversation with William Burroughs.
[2] The service enabled members of the public to call Giorno Poetry Systems and to listen to a poem selected at random by writers including Amiri Baraka, William Burroughs, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale, Patti Smith and Anne Waldman.
[3] However, it was also known for its counter-cultural content – including polemics, Black Panther speeches, Buddhist mantras and queer love poetry – and following complaints and an investigation by the FBI, the service was shut down in 1970.
[4][5] Dial-a-Poem has had a number of iterations since Giorno’s original service, including the Museum of Modern Art's 'Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language' exhibition and Ugo Rondinone’s 2017 ‘I ♥ John Giorno’ exhibition at the Red Bull Arts Gallery in New York.
[8] In 2020, a new version of the service was launched as a mobile app from Nottingham Trent University and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.