A special radio series inspired by the music of John Giorno was broadcast on 11 October 2021. John Giorno has been played on NTS shows including Shanghai, with Grasping At Emptiness first played on 16 May 2014.

John Giorno (1936-2019) was an American poet and performance artist. He founded the artist collective Giorno Poetry Systems and coined its mass communication experiment Dial-A-Poem. He became prominent as the subject of Andy Warhol's film "Sleep". He was also an AIDS activist and fundraiser.

Giorno was born in New York. In 1962, while in his early 20s and working in New York as a stockbroker, he met Andy Warhol. Giorno and Warhol are said to have remained very close until 1964, after which time their meetings were rare. Their relationship was revived somewhat in the last year before Warhol's death.

In 1968, Giorno founded Giorno Poetry Systems to connect poetry to new audiences, using innovative technology.

In addition to his collaborations with William S. Burroughs, Giorno has produced a number of albums, tapes, videos and books.

Giorno died from a heart attack on October 11, 2019, at his home in Lower Manhattan, NY.