[New-Poetry] Re: Happy Birthday Ginsberg

[David Graham]

I appreciate all the comments on my Ginsberg poem.  I guess I have  
mixed feelings about Ginsberg, as the poem (I hope) makes  
sufficiently plain.  And I hope my admiration for the best of his  
influence is also clear.

There *was* a delicious irony in his becoming, by the end of his  
life, such an entrenched member of the establishment that he began  
his career by tweaking.  And from all the evidence I've seen, such  
irony was not lost on Ginsberg himself.  It wasn't AG who had to  
change in order to effect this change, of course.

I'll always remember fondly a reading he did at an MLA convention to  
celebrate the appearance of his big red Collected poems--he read  
"Howl" in its entirety, and then did some Blake songs with a guitar  
accompanist.  The strangest sight I ever saw at an MLA--hundreds of  
tweedy professors swaying back and forth, singing Blake lyrics in a  
wonderfully off-key manner.  No one more off-key, or more tweedy,  
than Ginsberg himself.

But I'm not one of those who makes blanket statements about him being  
a poor poet.  He was massively uneven, of course, even more than  
usual, I mean--but at his best I find him quite compelling.  I think  
"Howl" and "Kaddish" and a respectable handful of others will live  
on, and that's a decent batting average for any poet.

I've never found any reason to buy into the "first thought / best  
thought" aesthetic, which from the evidence of the work just isn't  
true, sadly enough.





On Jun 6, 2006, at 12:21 PM, David Bircumshaw wrote:

> yeah, I like David's poem too, rather more than I like Ginsberg's  
> or the
> character that comes across as 'Ginsberg'.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views"
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 1:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Happy Birthday Ginsberg
>
>
>>
>>
>>> Wonderful, David!
>>
>> Yes, a good one.  A Ginsberg better than any Ginsberg.
>>
>> --Bob G.
>>
>>> On Jun 3, 2006, at 2:49 PM, David Graham wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ginsberg born this day in 1926.  Here's the poem I wrote after he
>>>> died:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Goodbye Allen Ginsberg
>>>>
>>>> Old truth-goof, garrulous
>>>> and canny crow, finally
>>>> you're at one with polluted skies,
>>>> sidewalk grit, neon buzzing
>>>> messages to the Absolute,
>>>>
>>>> all those clippings of your face
>>>> candidly sweet, decently weary,
>>>> all your archives and footnotes
>>>> and tapes full of scat. . . .
>>>>
>>>> What use the FBI, CIA
>>>> keeping tabs on your slant self?
>>>> What did they ever learn
>>>> you hadn't already published?
>>>>
>>>> You printed come cries, vanities
>>>> and regrets, droopy-fleshed lust
>>>> and despair hard as a curb.
>>>> Farts of savvy delirium.
>>>>
>>>> Chanting your wet dreams
>>>> as if they would dissolve
>>>> the Pentagon, you bombed
>>>> the White House with squads
>>>> of paper airplanes, scribbled
>>>> all over with holy jokes
>>>>
>>>> --to no avail, no avail,
>>>> you big phony failure,
>>>> you stand up comic singing off key
>>>> in eternity's lounge, raking in
>>>> prizes like Miss America, sprawling
>>>> all over the anthologies at last.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, you were queer, start to finish
>>>> in every way, jabbering stowaway
>>>> on the flound'ring ship of State,
>>>> crazy angel of the honorarium,
>>>> philosopher goat.
>>>>
>>>> Goodbye to your smoldering ashes,
>>>> goodbye to pages of yellow gibberish
>>>> and their sudden shafts of pure sun
>>>> warming the forest floor . . . .
>>>>
>>>>


==========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
==========================================



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20060606/7d3de94b/attachment.html