Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997)

In October 1955, there was a low-key event at the 6 Gallery on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, with the promise of a "remarkable collection of angels on one stage reading their poetry." Jack Kerouac went around with the collection bowl, whilst Allen Ginsberg whipped the audience into excitement by reading Part I of his work-in-progress, Howl. When Lawrence Ferlinghetti published the completed poem the following year as the fourth in his Pocket Poets series, it soon became a runaway show more bestseller (partly thanks to a high-profile obscenity trial) and one of the defining works of what came to be called Beat literature.

The poem itself is in three parts: Part I is a grand, Whitmanesque celebration of the lives of his poetic heroes and of his own struggle against the modern world, with copious amounts of (gay) sex, drugs, bumming around and political subversion thrown in; the incantation of Part II confronts the destructive forces of the child-eating Moloch directly, and in Part III he addresses the dedicatee of the poem, Carl Solomon, whom he met while they were both patients in the same psychiatric institution. Then there's a "Footnote to Howl", which is another incantation, a kind of Beat Sanctus.

As in Whitman, the first thing that hits you about the poem is its tremendous momentum and kinetic energy, but there's a lot more to it than just the pounding impact of the long lines: every line is dense with paradoxical, unexpected but never quite nonsensical language (negro streets, starry dynamos, unshaven rooms, pubic beards, ...), and there's a clear thread of insight into the hostile world under all that counter-culture posturing. It's tempting to think of it as nothing more than drug-induced ramblings from long ago, but that's not at all what's going on here: this is a serious attempt to push beyond the usual limits of poetry and make it relevant to people who are confronting the dehumanising effects of fifties society, and it still clearly has things to say to us today.

The Pocket Poets collection includes five more, shorter, incantatory poems in the same kind of Whitman long-line format, plus four rather more conventionally lyrical "earlier poems". Probably the most striking is "Sunflower Sutra", where he and Kerouac sit in the shade of a locomotive on a dockside and contemplate a dead sunflower. show less

This is the unpublished transcript between William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg around the peak time of the early 1990s, when both were having a somewhat resurgence in popularity. Recorded over a period of days, it really provides a whole canvas of talks between these two giants of the beat generation. There is informality, like the banality of cooking chicken in a pot, to the spiritual (The premise of some of the meetings was that WSB was having a shaman exorcise a demon he had in him since show more he shot his wife, Joan, during the infamous "William Tell routine".), to the downright fascinating gossip and heyday remembrances of times past (Kerouac, Burroughs and others pulling down Ginsberg's pants at a party and he "got a hard on" at the excitement of it all.)

There are just all of these flowing, winding conversations that go on and on, and while that may seem mundane for some, I found it quite involved, as if I were in the room with them, imagining their voices echoing through the rooms as they sometimes wandered in and out while preparing supper, for example. Some pretty charming moments between them as they call each other darling and dear as well, you can just feel their presence at times.

The format for this is great, like a play, easy to read and approach, and the footnotes are definitely helpful. It would be interesting if they did release an audio version of this, with their actual voices, but I have the feeling the quality may be not up to audio book snuff.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and a fantastic cover by R. Crumb would be great on a tee shirt! show less

Wait Till I'm Dead: Uncollected Poems by Allen Ginsberg edited by Bill Morgan is the latest and possibly the last update to the complete works of Allen Ginsberg which already number at over 1,200 pages. Ginsberg needs little introduction even to the most secluded or unread person -- The standout poet from the Beat era who continued to write poetry until his death in 1997.

Wait Til I’m Dead is a collection that spans Ginsberg entire career and from a variety of publications. Included are show more Marrahwannah Quarterly, High Times, Shambhala, Fag Rag, City Lights Journal, and from a live impromptu performance at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Many of these were pieces done at the spur of the moment like "Cleveland Airport." Others are memories like his last conversation with Carl Solomon as Solomon lie dying in a hospital.

The introduction is provided by Rachel Zucker who first read Ginsberg in college and want more poetry in her education. She calls Ginsberg her gateway drug to poetry. The English chair was happy to comply with Bishop, Moore, and Plath but nothing moved Zucker like Ginsberg. In what is probably the best quote on poetry I have read, Zucker says, “Allen was a good mother to me. He invited me into the kitchen of poetry and made me a sandwich.”

This is a great collection of Ginsberg’s work that has not made it in his complete collection. Because these poems were not included in the complete collection of his work one may wonder if they are worthy of reading or just poems rejected by previous editors. The work here is well worth the read. It is Ginsberg, and as far as the quality of the work, it is like a bootleg Bob Dylan concert. It is the artist in perhaps in his truest form. There is a visible evolution in the work as it covers half a century of writing that is more recognizable in a shorter collection, yet it is always, without a doubt, Ginsberg.

Death spoke out of the singer’s throat; While, staring through a drunkard’s eyes, Fate confounded drinker’s lies:
For all the drinks that they had tried, Death still sat there at their side.
And death peered with contemptuous calm. From the barman’s open palm.
“A Night in the Village”, 1944

Where can he go with alcohol and the landlord’s
eviction notice comes to us all?
gentrification will oust us from our nest
where to put books and file cabinets heavy with paper gold? Wake, smoke,
another cigarette with aching back and the last breath though cancered
throat…..
Bob Dylan Touring with Grateful Dead, 1986

I meet Carl Solomon.
What is it like in the afterworld?
“It’s just like the mental hospital. You get along if you follow the rules.”
Dream of Carl Solomon, 1996

Wait Till I'm Dead: Uncollected Poems is a worthwhile addition to any Ginsberg or Beat book collection. Grab a sandwich for poetry’s kitchen and enjoy. show less

Howl

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, draggin themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dinamo in the machinery of night.”

Me pregunto ¿Quién no habrá leído las primeras líneas de “Aullido”? Un poema que influenció ampliamente la poesía norteamericana del siglo XXI, creado y disfrutado más recitado que leído , pero show more que sobre todas las cosas es tremendamente egoísta y socialmente masiva. Para Allen todo se trata de su círculo, de aquellos con los que convivió y cuáles fueron sus experiencias, se alejó de la rítmica y se enfocó en el sentimiento, y es por ello que terminó marcando una época por la sensación de desazón que desprenden sus versos, de que el mundo te ha traicionado, pero que al final te da esperanza.

Dividido en cuatro partes, las tres primeras son sucias, apasionadas y tristes, la última sección lo deja claro: no están solos. Sin importar si están en el psiquiátrico o en las abandonas calles de la ciudad, en la locura o en la drogadicción se tienen a ellos mismos y su libertad para ser, hablar y estar.

Para mi Aullido es un poema directo y maravilloso, que muestra a los marginados y a los olvidados como sólo otro individuo marginado podría haberlo hecho.

...

A supermarket in California

Quien hayan leído algo acerca de Ginsberg sabe de la gran influencia que tuvo Walt Whitman sobre él, y este poema puede ser tanto una oda a su persona como una visión de la sociedad común, de las situaciones del día a día, y dela transformación del mundo para bien o para mal.

…

America

Este es especial. Personalmente creo que junto con Aullido fue mi favorito. Es una conversación directa con América, donde Allen expone su sensación de traición, de desasosiego, de haber dado y no recibir nada a cambio. Conforme leía mi cabeza no deja de pensar en “Born in the USA” de Bruce Springsteen, ambas tienen ese mismo mensaje expresado desde la singularidad a la colectividad, sólo que aquí no hay música audible que nos haga omitir la letra, aquí todo es directo.

”America when will you be angelic?”

…

Otros poemas de la colección son Transcripción de música de organo,Sutra de girasol y En la consigna de Greyhound. Todos ellos son buenos pero carezco de notas respecto a ellos debido a que los leí mientras iba de pie en el metro a las 8 de la mañana, por tanto no puedo reseñarlos de manera correcta sin que se me mezclen los mensajes de cada uno.

Esta colección incluye además algunos primeros poemas los cuales difieren considerablemente respecto a los anteriores por su estructura: aquí se mantiene la rítmica clásica, la longitudes más corta y hay un mayor uso del sentido figurado, no obstante el sentimiento triste y perdido esinamovible.

Al final esta es una colección que merece ser leída (al menos por Howl y America), ya sea que te guste o no la poesía, porque el trabajo de Ginsberg es distinto de la poesía clásica, más cercano a una buena conversación que a un compilado de versos que disfrutar en tu soledad. show less