Surrealism and Spontaneity with Zack Rogow

New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Aug 3, 2026 Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of twenty books or plays. His most recent book of poems, Irreverent Litanies, was published by Regal House. Rogow’s other books of poetry include Talking with the Radio: poems inspired by jazz and popular music. His play Colette Uncensored (coauthored with Lorri Holt) had its first public reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC; was performed in Berkeley and in London. Rogow is the editor of an anthology of poetry of the U.S.A., The Face of Poetry, from University of California Press. He has also translated two books by André Breton, considered the “godfather of surrealism”, Arcanum 17 and Earthlight, which won the PEN/Book of the Month Club Award for translations. In this video, rebooted from 2021, he discusses the history of surrealism as a movement influencing both painting and writing. Paradoxically, the surrealists emphasized the spontaneous productions of the unconscious and of coincidence or synchronicity. Yet, they developed a rather rigid social structure. They enjoyed playing games, and Zack shares some of his poetry expressing these games – as well as other poems from his book, Irreverent Litanies. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “Parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on Thursday, February 12, 2021)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *