John Giorno’s inspiration for Dial-A-Poem came from observing the innovations being made in the 1960s by his friends Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, among others, who were expanding their visual art practice beyond painting to film, performance, and multi-media installation.

“It occurred to me that poetry was seventy-five years behind painting and sculpture and dance and music…. In 1965, the only venues for poetry were the book and the magazine, nothing else. Multimedia and performance didn't exist. I said to myself, ‘If these artists can do it, why can't I do it for poetry?’”

In January 1969, Giorno rigged together a phone bank of 10 phones and industrial-sized answering machines at the Architectural League of New York, which housed and supported the initial version of the project. 

Anyone could call a number, at any hour of the day or night, and hear a randomly-selected poem read by one of 35 artists, poets, and musicians that Giorno had invited to contribute, such as Vito Acconci, John Ashbery, Joe Brainard, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Bernadette Mayer, Frank O’Hara, Peter Schjeldahl, Diane Wakowski, and Anne Waldman, among others. 

The “poems” weren’t what people expected them to be—there were Buddhist Mantras, speeches by members of the Black Panther Party, and an excerpt of John’s Cage’s infamous “4'33,” for example. When The New York Times published an article about the project and included the phone number, the lines were stretched far past their capacity and led to 250,000 busy signals at any given moment.

The project’s popularity led to its inclusion in Information, the landmark 1970 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art curated by Kynaston McShine. Dial-A-Poem was connected to physical phones in the MoMA galleries, as well as to a public line, with recordings by many of the same artists, poets, and musicians that had been included in 1968, but with additional recordings by Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Diane DiPrima, Bernadine Dorhn, Barbara Guest, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rothenberg, Aram Saroyan, and Bobby Seale, among others. 

John Giorno with Joy Bang at Dial-A-Poem phones, New York, c. 1968-1970

”If a caller was bored with John Ashbery, they hung up and called again, and got John Cage, William Burroughs, Jim Carroll. I also discovered that creating a desire that is unfulfillable is the ultimate success.”

The selection of poems would change daily, and would often advocate urgent social issues of the time such as the Vietnam War, the AIDS crisis, and the sexual revolution. In 1971, the FCC, and then the FBI, investigated complaints of indecency and claims that the poems, many of which were explicitly sexual and political in nature, would incite violence. 

Dial-A-Poem reading schedules from 1970 Museum of Modern Art Log Book, 1970

And so Giorno chose another form of distribution for the Dial-A-Poem poets and launched a record label.

”With Dial-A-Poem, I stumbled on the phenomena of the telephone as a new media, connecting three things: publicity, a telephone number, and content accessed by a huge audience. Before Dial-A-Poem, the telephone was used one-to-one. Dial-A-Poem’s success gave rise to a Dial-A-Something industry: from Dial-A-Joke, Dial-A-Horoscope, Dial-A-Stock Quotation, Dial Sports, to the 900 number paying for a call, to phone sex, and ever more extraordinary technology. Dial-A-Poem, by chance, ushered in a new era in telecommunications.”

In 2012, again at The Museum of Modern Art, Giorno created a series of Dial-A-Poem interactive sculptures that contained 200 poems on a computer chip inside a phone. Visitors could pick up a phone and hear a single randomly-generated poem. In 2019, Giorno created a final edition of push-button phone sculptures that contained 293 recordings by 135 poets, artists, musicians, and activists.

The Architectural League 
of New York, 1968

Bob Bielecki, Sound engineer

Vito Acconci
John Ashbery
Bill Berkson
Ted Berrigan
Joe Brainard
Jim Brody
Michael Brownstein
William Burroughs
John Cage
Joe Ceravolo
Andrea Codresco
Kenward Elmslie
Larry Fagin
Dick Gallup
Allen Ginsberg
John Giorno
Brion Gysin
David Henderson

Lenore Kandel
Kenneth Koch
Jackson MacLow
Gerard Malanga
Bernadette Mayer
Taylor Mead
Frank O’Hara
Ron Padgett
John Perreault
Ed Sanders
Peter Schjeldahl
Tony Towle
Tom Veitch
Diane Wakowski
Anne Waldman
Lewis Warsh
John Weiners
Emmett Williams

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970

Joe Brainard
Ted Berrigan
Michael Brownstein
William Burroughs
John Cage
Eldridge Cleaver
Kathleen Cleaver
Diane DiPrima
Bernadine Dorn
Kenward Elmslie
Allen Ginsberg
John Giorno
Barbara Guest
Brion Gysin

Abbie Hoffman
Lenore Kandel
Lewis MacAdams
Bernadette Mayer
Renfreu Neff
Frank O’Hara
Lennox Raphael
Jerry Rothenberg
Aram Saroyan
Bobby Seale
John Sinclair
Diane Wakowski
Anne Waldman
Emmett Williams
Heathcote Williams

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012

Bob Bielecki, Sound engineer

Vito Acconci
Kathy Acker
Helen Adam
Miguel Algarin
Laurie Anderson
Penny Arcade
John Ashbery
Amiri Baraka
Bill Berkson
Charles Bernstein
Ted Berrigan
Joe Brainard
Michael Brownstein
Charles Bukowski
William Burroughs
David Byrne
John Cage
Jim Carroll
Nick Cave
Tom Clark
Clark Coolidge
Gregory Corso
Jayne Cortez
Robert Creeley
Diane Di Prima
Ed Dorn
Robert Duncan
Kenward Elmslie
Karen Finley
Four Horsemen,
Diamanda Galas
Allen Ginsberg
John Giorno
Daniela Gioseffi
Philip Glass
Barbara Guest
Brion Gysin
Jessica Hagedorn
Deborah Harry

Bernard Heidsieck
David Henderson
Bob Holman
Husker Du
Lenore Kandel
Kenneth Koch
Denise Levertov
Frank Lima
Jackson MacLow
Bernadette Mayer
Michael McClure
Taylor Mead
Eileen Myles
Frank O’Hara
Maureen Owen
Ron Padgett
Miquel Pinero
Lennox Raphael
Rene Ricard
Jerome Rothenberg
Aram Saroyan
Peter Schjeldahl
John Sinclair
Patti Smith
Gary Snyder
Jack Spicer
Lorenzo Thomas
Tony Towle
Paul Violi
Cabaret Voltaire
Andrei Vosnesensky
Tom Waits
Diane Wakowski
Anne Waldman
Lewis Warsh
Philip Whelan
John Wieners
Emmett Williams
Sonic Youth
Frank Zappa

Push-Button Edition, 2019

Bob Bielecki, Sound engineer

Vito Acconci
Kathy Acker
Helen Adam
Miguel Algarin
Cabaret Voltaire
Charles Amirkhanian
Beth Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Penny Arcade
John Ashbery
Robert Ashley
Amiri Baraka
Barbara Barg
Bill Berkson
Charles Bernstein
Ted Berrigan
Paul Blackburn
Joe Brainard
Glenn Branca
Jim Brody
Otis Brown
Michael Brownstein
Charles Bukowski
William Burroughs
William Burroughs Jr.
David Byrne
John Cage
Jim Carroll
Charlotte Carter
Nick Cave
Tom Clark
Coil
Clark Coolidge
Gregory Corso
Jayne Cortez
Robert Creeley
Jackie Curtis
Edwin Denby
Diane Di Prima
Ed Dorn
Didi Susan Dubelyew
Robert Duncan
Kenward Elmslie
Karen Finley
Diamanda Galas
Allen Ginsberg
John Giorno
Daniela Gioseffi
Michael Gira
Philip Glass
Peter Gordon
Ted Greenwald
Barbara Guest
Brion Gysin
Jessica Hagedorn
Deborah Harry
Bernard Heidsieck
Richard Hell
David Henderson
Henry Rollins Band
Bob Holman
Four Horsemen
Susan Howe
Eric Huggins
Husker Du
David Johansen

Joe Johnson
Lenore Kandel
Ken Kesey
Bill Knott
Kenneth Koch
Rochelle Kraut
Joanne Kyger
Denise Levertov
Frank Lima
Arto Lindsay
Lydia Lunch
Jackson MacLow
Bernadette Mayer
Steve McCafferty
Michael McClure
Taylor Mead
W.S. Merwin
Robin Messing
Meredith Monk
Charlie Morrow
Eileen Myles
Einsturzende Neubauten
Frank O’Hara
Claes Oldenburg
Charles Olson
Joel Oppenheim
New Order
Peter Orlovsky
Maureen Owen
Rochelle Owens
Ron Padgett
Charles Plymell
Lennox Raphael
Ishmael Reed
Rene Ricard
Trungpa Rinpoche
Jerome Rothenberg
Ed Sanders
Aram Saroyan
Peter Schjeldahl
John Sinclair
Patti Smith
Gary Snyder
Jack Spicer
Charles Stein
Chris Stein
Ned Sublette
Lorenzo Thomas
Tony Towle
Psychic TV
David Van Tieghem
Paul Violi
Andrei Vosnesensky
Tom Waits
Diane Wakowski
Anne Waldman
Lewis Warsh
Tom Weatherly
Philip Whelan
John Wieners
Emmett Williams
Robert Wilson & Christopher Knowles
Sonic Youth
Frank Zappa