Giorno Poetry Project & the AIDS Treatment Project

John Giorno, COIL, William Burroughs, and the AIDS Crisis

This small archive of correspondence between Giorno Poetry Systems and the band Coil — Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and John Balance aka Geff Rushton aka Geoffrey Burton — begins with Giorno soliciting a contribution for the album A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse. Soon, however, it begins to document Giorno’s urgent response to the developing AIDS crisis. Giorno founded the Aids Treatment Project in 1987 in order to help raise funds and provide compassionate treatment for those suffering from HIV. These documents are thus important not just in mapping the relationships between William Burroughs, John Giorno, and other figures but in detailing early efforts to combat the devastation wrought on the artistic and literary community by AIDS.