The Allen Ginsberg Project

Introducing Andy Clausen's "Without Doubt" in 1991, Allen wrote: "Andy Clausen's character voice is heroic, a vox populi of the democratic unconscious, a "divine average" thinking working man persona. As "one of the rough", a Whitmanic laborer, precisely a union hod-carrier longstanding, his bardic populism is grounded on long years' painful study experience earning family bread by the sweat of his brow. His comments on the enthusiastic 'sixties, defensive 'seventies, unjust 'eighties and bullying 'nineties present a genuine authority in America not voiced much in little magazine print, less in newspapers of record, never in political theatrics through Oval Office airwaves. The expensive bullshit of Government TV poetics suffers diminution of credibility placed side-by-side with Mr Clausen's direct information and sad raw insight. Would he were, I'd take my chance on a President Clausen"

Andy's new (second volume of) Selected Poems, Home of the Blues, is just out, and, alongside it, we would draw your attention to this - "President at Home of the Blues", Michalis Limnios' illuminating interview with him - "There are saints and assholes everywhere!" (great quote!)

Here's Andy performing the title poem (with back-up/accompaniment from Sylvie Degiez, Angela Babin, Perry Robinson and Gerry Drum Achee)

Andy has also been (and continues to be) hard at work on his memoir - "Allen, Gregory (Corso) and Me". Here's a taster of that work:

[Andy Clausen Reading Allen Ginsberg at the recent celebration of the re-issue of "First Blues" at the Housing Works Bookstore, New York City, January 2013 - photograph by Haley Schwartz]

For the time being, Home of the Blues is only available at the Museum of American Poetics.

Today, February 8, is Neal Cassady's birthday. He would have been 87 today. See our illustrated and highly-annotated last-year's post.

In a move that would no doubt have bemused Cassady, Denver Mayor, Mayor Michael Hancock made official proclamation of (a) "Neal Cassady Day", and, last week, in honor of it, and of Neal, Denver Beat historian Mark Bliesner, hosted, (at the Mercury Cafe down on California Street), the (now 4th) annual "Neal Cassady Birthday Bash".

More mayoral intervention.
The late Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, was, it seems, a big Allen Ginsberg fan. Here's an interesting document, (emerging from our office), an official letter he wrote, back in 1978

"Allen, I salute you for your literary brilliance which has enabled you to open new doors in poetry, and for your intellectual courage, which has inspired others to do the same".

Next Thursday, at the Musee d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme in Paris, in celebration of a new French edition of the Journals 1952-1962 and the Indian Journals and a bilingual edition of thePoems, (and in anticipation of Jean-Jacques Lebel's upcoming touring exhibit, Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation), there will be a round-table discussion featuring Lebel, writer and director Alain Jaubert, and Beat scholar/Ginsberg biographer Barry Miles. Actor and theatrical director Arthur Nauzyciel will read and present a performance of Allen's "Kaddish".

Speaking of "Kaddish", here's another recitation of "Kaddish" (this time, in Italian), and back in 2006) - Roberto Biselli, (along with dancer Daniela Malusardi and Gabriele Mirabasi on clarinet) performs the piece at the Teatro di Sacco in Perugia.

Beat Memories - the show of Allen's photographs currently up in New York, at the New York University's Grey Gallery (until April 6), has inspired some intelligent response. Here's Roslyn Bernstein in Guernica. Here's Seth Rogovoy in the Jewish Daily Forward. Here's Alana Shilling in The Brooklyn Rail. Here's the Agence-France Press report. Here's Arielle Budick in The Financial Times. Here's the Huffington Post (with a slide-show!).

Kill Your Darlings - yes, we're still going on about that! Here's Michael C Hall(in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal('s blog) (we've noted this relationship before) - "I was lucky enough to meet (Allen) Ginsberg in the early '90's...I was in awe of him...He had a very sort of deliberate, grounded, hyper-articulate presence...I was right out of grad school in Henry V and he said "show me your lines"..I delivered one of them and he said, "Do you always deliver your lines in such a monotone voice?". I said "Of course, not". That was the end of the conversation".

Kristopher Jansma in The Outlet has just published a must-read piece - Literary Artifacts - The Ginsberg Collaborators - "So what then could (can) be done for Allen in the digital age?"

Michael Rumaker's memoir of Robert Duncan in San Francisco was recently published by City Lights.

Peter Riley on Ed Dorn (the first part of which has been published here - second part forthcoming) is another essential piece of reading.

and for you Harry Smith-0-philes, here's a two-part video interview (here and here) - Jonas Mekas' recollections of Harry Smith.

It's that Ginsberg mis-spelling thing again! (see here) - but, as with Trent Harris' Allen interview clip, this brief clip on You Tube of (Barry) Miles "telling the tale" of the infamous 39th-birthday encounter seemed/seems eminently worth re-posting, notwithstanding.

(We've actually featured it (the story) on an earlier occasion here).

Miles: "When he was staying with me, he had his 39th birthday and he wanted to have The Beatles come to his birthday-party, so, I knew the address of NEMS [Brian Epstein's Company], that was about all, but some friends of Allen's drew some very beautiful (sort of) invites, and, sure enough, John Lennon and Cynthia (Lennon) and George Harrison with Pattie (Boyd) came along to the birthday party, which was in Chester Square, or somewhere like that. And Allen, by that time, had stripped down to his birthday-suit, since it was his birthday, and he was standing there with his underpants on his head and a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging round his dick! [laughs]. And I must say the two Beatles took it pretty well. First of all, they immediately made sure that there were no photographers present, because clearly that would have been really bad. And they stayed long enough for a drink. And when they left I asked John, you know, "Why are you going so soon?". And he said [Miles affects Lennon's Liverpudlian accent], "You don't do that in front of the birds!" - And then, like, a few years later.. there he was stark naked on the cover of one of his own albums!."

John Lennon,Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins - Apple - Ex,Netherlands,Deleted,LP RECORD,550612

Allen's 1976 annotated reading-list continues with comments on Antonin Artaud, Ted Berrigan and Philip Whalen.

AG:Antonin Artaud. The text I like best is "To Be Done With the Judgement of God" - Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu - in which he describes his experience in a bug-house, and how he died on the (electric) shock table. (It) contains among the first mantric, pure sound syllables to be screamed as part of recitation. In other words, he finally gets to a speech that transcends any common sense and gets into pure sounds. "Da kiss ka tell canta la die canta lel o wit did dees so ept to lah" - Sounds like that. Mixed in with his French. Are there translations of... yes?

Student: What is the title of that?

AG: "To Be Done With the Judgement of God" - to be finished, once and for all, with the judgement of God - Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu - And I think it's in the City Lights anthology of Antonin Artaud, which we have in the library.
Almost anything he did is interesting, because he was, after Rimbaud and Apollinaire - everybody knows, or most people know, Rimbaud as the big hot mind, punk suicide poet -and the next inheritor of all the grandeur and apocalyptic freak-out suicide power is Artaud, in the 20th Century. Not necessarily the best poet (maybe Apollinaire is better, or there may be other poets), but Artaud was the most piercing, penetrating mad-head of the century. He was a big influence on me, I know. And I think (Artaud), prosadaically, could be one of the most important influences, once you get his method, because he's one of the few French poets whose lines on the page are adjusted to the heavings of his breath. Each line, in that poem, is a discrete cry or shriek, exclamatory utterance. So his measure is interesting, It comes right out of his body. The measure of his lines is interesting. For those (of you) involved in the theatre, he has a very famous book, "The Theatre And Its Double", which has been very influential on all American theatre, almost..

Ted Berrigan. I like his Sonnets. They're easy to get into [turns to Anne Waldman, who is also attending the class] - What other..?

Anne Waldman: They're out-of-print [1976].

AG: They are? But they would be anthologized in..where would you pick up his poems in anthologies that we have in the library, Anne?

Anne Waldman: (The) New American Poetry has a few [editor's note - no, it doesn't] - and the New York Poets anthology

AG: Yeah, your anthologies, The World Anthology - and America-A Prophecy - (and) is he in that Milton Klonsky anthology you got there? What other single bravura piece?

Anne Waldman: Any poem in "Many Happy Returns"

AG: Is that a book or a poem?

Anne Waldman: A book. Corinth.. It's no longer.. It was in the library.

Student: Bean Spasms.

AG: Bean Spasms, yeah, with Ron Padgett. It's a collaborative book. Do we have that here, yeah? Well, you get his taste from that. Bean Spasms is the title of the book.

Student: And he has a book called In The Early Morning Rain.

AG: Do you know his work?

Student: Yeah, I can bring it in, my copy, to the library..

AG: Yeah, what I've done, is the books that I like, like the Mayakovsky, that are precious, I just put them there on the shelf. They can't be taken out but they can be read there..

Student: He (Ted Berrigan)'s going to be here, in the second session, for a short time, (I think).

AG: Actually, a bibliography on Berrigan will be handed out by Al Santoli, (who'll be preparing bibliographies on all the poets, early, before they come through) will also be teaching here. (And I should say, here, now, I'm not sure what my fate (will be) here in the next coming weeks, because my father is dying, and can't get out of bed any more, and I may be having to go home. And I don't know when (I'm just waiting for the phone-calls to tell me). And I have arranged that Philip Whalen come and take my place if I have to leave. I know I'll be gone for the second session (and I may have to leave any minute, or any day, or any week)..I can't miss my father's situation now. So if I go, Whalen will get a plane from the Zen Center in San Franciscoand be here). His work is...

Anne Waldman:On Bear's Head

AG: Well, we have several books. A large collection, On Bears Head, that is in the library. Like I Say. There's a little thin orange book that I've forgotten the name. I guess it's Like I Say.

Student: Scenes of Life In The Capital

AG: Well, there's that, but there's also.. that's a long poem

Student: Severance Pay

AG: Severance Pay. Severance Pay

Anne Waldman: There's a new book coming out called The Kindness of Strangers

AG: Who put that out? - Okay. What I wanted to say was, in Severance Pay, if you look for a little poem called"Regalia in Immediate Demand!", you'll get a brief, ten-line, swift kick-in-the-mind. To paraphrase it - something like.. "skull cup" (description of various Tibetan thigh-bone horns and skull cups, all sorts of traditional Tibetan regalia, and then it ends, "Dear Mr Nixon, welcome to Lhasa! And where is your friendJ. Edgar Hoover?", or "where is dear Mr Hoover"? - Also "Sourdough Mountain Lookout" is a nice, long poem, built on basic principles of composite composition, like Pound, out of Williams, out of Pound, out of Williams' Paterson, which was an early text, which I think we mentioned (Michael McClure and I mentioned (it) atthe reading the other day) - one of his early, very easy poems to get into.

Student: That's in the (Donald) Allen anthology.

AG: Yeah, that's in the Donald Allen anthology. So you can get a good fast early sampler of Phil Whalen from the Don Allen anthology

Vachel Lindsay, only nineteen people (in this class) have read. He wrote a poem called "The Congo". How many here know "The Congo"? How many don't know of "The Congo", have never heard of "The Congo"? We don't have it here, but, basically, it's a powerful rhythmic thing that everybody would enjoy. They used to teach it in grammar school, but...
[Allen quotes from the poem to show why, unsurprisingly, it's fallen out of fashion] - "Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room/Barrel-house kinds, with feet unstable.." (continues down to) "Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost burning in hell for his hand-maimed host/ Hear how the demons chuckle and yell/ Cutting his hands off/ Down in hell" - Well, that's part of it. There's three sections. It might be here actually [turning to the Norton Anthology]. Let's see if it is here. That's always worth going into. Because it's such a great piece of circus rhythm.
Also, "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" is another. "The Congo" by Vachel Lindsay and " "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" - [turning to student] - I think we have aComplete Lindsay (t)here - [Allen reads from General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" - "Booth led loudly with a big bass drum.../(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)/ And the Saints all cried out loud, "He's come."/(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" - it goes on for thirty or forty lines like that] -[Allen, returning to student] - No, I don't believe they do have Lindsay in the Norton Anthology, so that's a problem, they may have it in Shaking the Pumpkin, or something. [editor's note: Allen is confusing Milton Klonsky's anthology, Shake The Kaleidoscope with Jerome Rothenberg's Shaking The Pumpkin" anthology here ]

Student: No, it isn't in there either.

AG: Well, there should be a whole book of Lindsay in the library. I think we got it last year. So, "The Chinese Nightingale" by Vachel Lindsay, also, "Booth Enters Into Heaven", "The Congo". He also did a very famous poem that's in lots of anthologies about factory-windows (and why they) are always broken . Do you know that? Sort of like a children's song - "The Factory Windows Song"

John Ashbery - The easiest way to get into Ashbery's earliest poems is in the Don Allen anthology, a short poem called "The Instruction Manual". It's a very early, very easy reading. (And a whole booklet, bibliography (has been made up), has that been passed out already?

Student: Yes, Allen

AG: Today?

Student: It's assembled here. I'll pass it on tonight to (the) credit students...

AG: Ok. Guillaume Apollinaire. Apollinaire is actually the first modern, modern poet in the sense of setting international style - dropping punctuation marks, using Surrealist run-on lines, [pre-Surrealism] inner thought-forms, mixing rhyme and non-rhyme, long and short lines. T.S.Eliot basically modelled his own Waste Land style on the Apollinaire style. If you want to know the background of T.S.Eliot, you gotta read Apollinaire (assuming you've ever read T.S.Eliot, who I didn't put on this list, oddly).

Student: Yes you did.

AG: I did? Huh?.. Oh I did put him on. Fifty-one, okay. Everyone's read Eliot, practically, but few have read Apollinaire (or less than half) and Apollinaire's poem, "Zone" - Z-O-N-E - is the great modern model. One interesting thing to do is to compare the style of "Zone" with the style of (The Beatles) "A Day in the Life" on the Sergeant Pepper's album. I think "A Day In The Life" is equally good. I think it ("A Day In The Life") is a great modern poem and it's in the style of Apollinaire's "Zone". Also "For the Marriage of Andre Salmon" is a nice poem by Apollinaire - easy to read. These are open, modern, poems. Do you know his work at all? And...yeah?

Student: Is there a (good) selection of translations?

AG: Yeah, well, there's whole books. I would recommend Roger Shattuck's translations, by the way, Roger Shattuck's translation of "Zone".

Student: That's not the one in my edition (here)...

AG: Well, Penguinbooks would probably have an Apollinaire. New Directions has a Selected Apollinaire - and we have that in the library, I think

Student: Do you know how the last line (of "Zone") is translated?

AG: "Sun's neck cut." - "Soleil cou coupe."...Yeah, well - "Sun's neck cut." - "Soleil cou coupe.". "Neck of sun cut" (in other words - "Sun's neck cut"), I think is Shattuck's translation

Student: The one I read is "Farewell, farewell, beloved sun"!

AG: Yeah, well, that's why I'm saying read Roger Shattuck's translation! "Soleil cou coupe." - "Sun's neck cut", not "Farewell, farewell, beloved sun"! - Good God! - The greatness of Apollinaire was that "Sun's neck cut", just (at) the end .He goes on with the poem, and, all of a sudden, he jumps a line and ends the poem "Cut the neck of the sun" or "Sun's neck cut".

Anne Waldman: I've seen that - (and an equally flat) "The Sun's leaving the horizon" (as the translation)

AG: Uh-huh. ""Le Pont Mirabeau" is a(nother) nice one. "Mirabeau Bridge", on Mirabeau Bridge - "Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine/ Et nos amours" - "Under the Mirabeau Bridge, the Seine flows as well as our loves flow".

So at least those three poets to check out. In other words, what I'm giving you is easy interesting reading for some idle winter's night in Alaska..

Student: Samuel Beckett has translated from Apollinaire.

AG: Yes, he did. (And) I think he translated "Zone".. but the Beckett translations, I don't know if they're easy to (find), where you can find them? What I'm trying to do is to suggest things that would be available, (especially of those poets that nobody has read), just things you can get your hands on, that you can look at and get into, get a taste, get a taste of Melville, get a taste of Apollinaire...

Student: Allen, can you speak up, please?

AG: Yes. (John) Dryden.“In Memory of Mr. Oldham” ["To The Memory of Mr. Oldham"] by John Dryden, is just one single poem that gives you his quality. There is a long poem, the name of which, I’ve forgotten, which ends “Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall/ And universal darkness buries All”. [Allen is confused here, this is actually the concluding couplet of Alexander Pope's "The Dunciad"] Do you know what that is?

Student: “To St.Cecilia” ["A Song For St. Cecilia's Day"]

AG: Is that “To St. Cecilia”? No.. no..I’m not sure. I may have it mixed up. I always thought that was Dryden. “..Mr. Oldham”, however, has that same quality. I’ll read that because that’s short. We’ll get into that. Dryden is one poet that’s got a very strangely gloomy Buddhist view of life, and not sufficiently appreciated. How many have not read Dryden here [Allen searches for a show of hands] – and how many have? – So it’s mixed. Do we know “..Oldham”?

Student: Here it is.

AG: Oh

Student: Allen, do you want to wait a second while I change the tape….

AG: “In Memory of Mr Oldham” (by John Dryden) – “John Oldham(1653-1683)” (so he died at thirty!), “author of Satires Upon the Jesuits, was a promising young poet, harsh (partly by calculation) in metrics and manner, but earnest and vigorous” - is the footnote. (I might as well read you the footnotes – “Nisus - N-I-S-U-S – a foot-racer in Virgil’s Aeneid”, “his young friend Euryalus came from behind to reach the goal before him.”) Who else is here in this? (just so we don’t get bogged down in not understanding). Marcellus, “Augustus Caesar’s nephew, who died at twenty after a meteoric military career” – “Hail and farewell” (I think Virgil used that, and perhaps Horaceused that phrase – “Ave Atque Vale” (Hail and farewell) [The phrase, of course, is famously evoked in Catullus] – [Allen begins reading the poem – “Farewell, too little, and too lately known/ Whom I began to think and call my own/ For sure our souls were near allied, and thine/ Cast in the same poetic mold with mine..”’] [concluding with] …”Once more, hail and farewell, farewell thou young,/ But, ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue,/ . “Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound/ But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.”

So that’s very somber, solemn, but strong – and realistic. “Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound/ But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around” - Good. There’s a lot of intelligent Dryden.

AG: Frank O'Hara.Lunch Poems is an easy way to get into O'Hara. Put out byCity Lights.

Anne Waldman: Selected Poems would be the best buy tho'

AG: Yeah

Anne Waldman: And there are some (of them) in it.

AG: Are (the) Lunch Poems in there? - Yeah? - Okay, then the Selected Poems. There's a giant book (Collected Poems) and then there's a selection of the giant book - and of those.."Khrushchev Is Coming To New York"[the actual title is "Poem (Khrushchev is Coming On The Right Day)"]- well, a lot of things in the Don Allen anthology are classic Frank O'Hara - "In Memory of My Feelings", "Khrushchev is Coming To New York", "Ode to Mike Goldberg" (is that in there?) [ the full title, "Ode to Michael ('s birth and other births)"] - Goldberg- So look him up in the Don Allen anthology and then, there's the whole book. He is the most modern American poet, in that sense ofApollinairebeing the first modern-world, international-style, poet. Yeah.

AG: Hart Crane. (A) great soul. There's a lot of Crane in the library. He has a long poem called "The Bridge", in which different sections are interesting. The "Proem" is interesting, and "Atlantis", but anywhere you look in "The Bridge" will be good. "Atlantis" is a great peon Bach- fugue hymn rhapsody (somewhat like (Percy Bysshe) Shelley's "Ode To The West Wind" in its quality of rhapsodic ascent.

Student: Allen?

AG: Yeah

Student: "Voyages I, II, (and) III" is a.. good short..introduction to Hart Crane.

AG: Yeah, I would say "Voyages" and "In Memorium, Ernest Nelson"

(Michael) McClure, you've already a sample of, (Robert) Duncan, you've already a sample of ....

AG: (John) Milton. Since under half (according to the survey) haven't read Milton, try getting in to "Lycidas", that's one poem, "Lycidas", his elegy for a dead poet friend.

Student: Il Penseroso?

AG: Well, there's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" - they're the best known ("L'Allegro is the best known poem. (Then there's) the sonnet "On His Blindness" (and) "On The Piedmont Massacre"("On The Late Massacre in Piedmont") , but "Lycidas" is probably the strongest thing, among short poems by Milton.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

LOVE FORGIVEN

Straight and slender
Youthful tender
Love shows the way
And never says nay

Light and gentle-
Hearted mental
Tones sing & play
Guitar in bright day

Voicing always
Melodies, please
Sing sad, & say
Whatever you may'

Righteous honest
Heart's forgiveness
Drives woes away,
Gives Love to cold clay

( Allen Ginsberg - Tubingen, December 16, 1979)

From last weekend's Round-Up:

Beat Memories - the show of Allen's photographs currently up in New York, at the New York University's Grey Gallery (until April 6), has inspired some intelligent response. Here's Roslyn Bernstein in Guernica. Here's Seth Rogovoy in the Jewish Daily Forward. Here's Alana Shilling in The Brooklyn Rail. Here's Arielle Budick in The Financial Times. Here's Martin Chilton in the Daily Telegraph. Here's Mariano Andrade's AFP report. Here's the Huffington Post (with a slide-show!) - and Flavorwire with even more of a side-show!)

The show continues to gather international responses - here, here and here, for example.

Jill Krementz's personalized portfolio for the New York Social Diary, on the occasion of the opening, is not to be missed and can be accessed here.

Chris Felver's Lawrence Ferlinghetti documentary, "Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder" (we mentioned it here earlier), is starting to gather some appreciative, positive reviews. Daniel Gold in the New York Timesnotes: "This biography is often effusive in its praise, but some lives and legacies were meant for a tribute". Here's Matt Kohn on TheHuffington Post - (Ferlinghetti) - "The Poet Who Brought You Some Freedom of Speech".
Well worth reading also is Louis Proyect, in Counterpunch- "Though having departed to higher spiritual realms", "Allen Ginsberg", he notes, "makes a striking appearance (in the film)...sitting side-by-side with Ferlinghetti as they are interviewed on art and politics".

Here's a thoughtful review of Lawrence's most-recent poetry collection - Lisa Pasold in Truthdig on "Time of Useful Consciousness"

Gerald Nicosia presents a first-hand account of working alongside director Walter Salles on the recently-released On The Road film here. And his opinion of the movie? -
"I especially liked British actor Tom Sturridge's Allen Ginsberg", he writes... "He gets across the emotional intensity, frustration, and seething anger of the young Ginsberg better than any portrayal I have seen--suggests the powder-keg that Ginsberg was in those early days, and how he could have exploded into actual violence or destructive behavior, but instead put that powder-keg inside a poem that blew American literature wide open, Howl."

"A rehearsed reading of Allen Ginsberg's Howl with bebop accompaniment is among the potential highlights of the Shetlands Jazz Festival in Scotland, which runs through until 17th of February (Sunday)"

Vintage paperback Kerouac's and much more (so much more!) are available from here, Andrew Sclanders Beat Books - he's just put out his 62nd Beat catalog

Tomorrow, Naropa University celebrates the ceremonial inauguration of Charles G. Lief, whose tenure as president officially began last August.

More Anselm Hollohommages. (Naropa's page to him is here). Allen Kornblum, his publisher, posts a fond remembrance here. Tom Raworth hosts further memories. His (Anselm's) 1972 interview with Barry Alpert in Vort magazine is availablehere and Kyle Schlesinger, over at Mimeo Mimeo, has kindly made available his early (1963, Dead Languages Press) book, Lover Man.

Today's an auspicious day at Naropa (University). Charles G Lief, ("Chuck") Lief, whose tenure as president began in August 2012, gets officially sworn in as the 6th (we think it is) President..

Here's how the news of Lief's appointment was announced last May in the press - Brittany Anas in TheDenver Post and The Daily Camera -

Here's the Naropa press-release.

AG (Regarding Robert Duncan) – “A Poem Beginning with A Line by Pindar” (in) and (indeed, the whole book) “The Opening of the Field”is quite beautiful. His comments on Walt Whitmanin that are very tearful ["It is across great scars of wrong/ I reach towards the song of kindred men/ and strike again the naked string/ old Whitman sang from.."]
There’s also a very beautiful passage about Whitman in Hart Crane’s “The Bridge” too ["Yes Walt,/ Afoot again, and onward without halt-/ Not soon, not suddenly -, no never to let go/ My hand/ in yours,/ Walt Whitman -/ so -"] – a great passage about Poe ["Whose head is swinging from the swollen strap?/ Whose body smokes along the bitten rails.."] and about Whitman – that might be nice to look at) - What?

Student: There’s a poem of his in the (Don) Allen anthologycalled “This Place Rumord To Have Been Sodom”

AG: Yeah, well, the “..Pindar” poem is in the Don Allen anthology, also

AG: Andrew Marvell – [Allen examining his “Survey” results] - Twenty-four. That’s less than half have read Marvell. How many here have read Marvell’s “(The) Garden”? and “To His Coy Mistress”? How many here have read “To His Coy Mistress”? – [responding to a show of hands] More. Maybe I’ll go through, well, “To His Coy Mistress” and “The Garden” and.. Marvell was, I believe, (John) Milton’s secretary at one point.

Student: Right

AG: As Milton was (Oliver) Cromwell’s secretary, right?

Student: I think Milton mightbe more substantial than Marvell

AG: There’s a great deal of Marvell worth reading - “The Garden”, ” To His Coy Mistress”, “(The) Definition of Love”– (and) some really weird “pretty things” in a poem called “(The) Bermudas”. You know that English thing of the “pretty things”? – there’s a rock group that was called The Pretty Things– you know, that little English delicacy that can produce that kind of title for a rock group?, well, Marvell has that in his poetry. I’ll read you a “pretty thing” – “The Bermudas” – This is (a) sort of mythological view of the English sailors, or foreign sailors, discovering the New World. This was written in 1681. [Allen reads from Marvell’s “The Bermudas” – “Where the remote Bermudas rise/ in th’ocean’s bosom unespied,/ From a small boat that rowed along,/ The listening winds received this song…”] [concluding with] “Thus sung they in the English boat,/ An holy and a cheerful note,/ And all the way to guide their chime,/ With falling oars they kept the time.” That’s really a pretty thing, that “He hangs in shades the orange bright/ Like golden lamps in a green night” (“He hangs in shades the orange bright/ Like golden lamps in a green night,/ And does in the pomegranates close/ Jewels more rich than Ormus shows..”) – He really likes that green shade he cast there, because he used it again in “The Garden”, which, since most people here.. you haven’t read “The Garden”, most of you, huh?. So I’ll read that.

The reason I’m stopping, say, on Marvell, is because “The Garden” is considered by a lot of people to be about the best poem anybody ever wrote in English (or used to be (so) considered by some people). It is very perfect and very pretty, and suggestive and proper in a Buddhist context, because it’s a Gnostic Western poem, but (and) it also has some very great lines (like “To His Coy Mistress” has the famous lines, “But at my back I always hear/ Time’s winged Chariot hurrying near/ And yonder all before us lie/ Deserts of vast Eternity”, which is, for (a) sort of classic period-piece poetic quotation, about as famous as almost anything in English, except in Shakespeare, perhaps). But “The Garden” is.. He’s a politician, who’s retired from the world, so, into his garden, to cultivate his garden. Palm, oak, and bays. Whatever little footnote you need is.. palm, oak (and) bays – Palm is for.. let’s see.. the athlete wins the palm, the palm crown – (then there’s) the oak for politics (the dictator gets the oak crown), and the bay (laurel or bays) are the crown garland for the poet or singer. Okay. [Allen begins reading] – “How vainly men themselves amaze/ To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes…” [reads the entire poem] - "How could such sweet and wholesome Hours/Be reckon'd but with hebs and flow'rs!" - So that's very precious and luxurious and funny - obviously "Stumbling on Melons as I pass/ I snar'd with Flow'rs, I fall on Grass".."The Luscious Clusters of the Vine/ Upon my Mouth do crush their Wine,/ The Nectaren, and curious Peach,/ Into my hands themselves do reach" - With all that comedy, a very rich comedy, then to get that sort of Gnostic "The Mind, that Ocean where each kind/Does streight its own resemblance find", is a sudden serious shot. "Yet it creates, transcending these,/ Far other Worlds, and other Seas" (which anybody who's been on LSD knows all about!). "Annihilating all that's made/ To a green thought in a green Shade" (and (it) gets to a point where nobody knows what that means, actually - or, at least, I don't know (what) a "green thought in a green shade" is, except it's like that funny thing in "The Bermudas", where he's got "He hangs in shades the orange bright,/ Like golden lamps in a green night." That's amazing. There's some kind of archetypal dream he's got going (there).)

Student: Allen?

AG: Uh-huh.

Student: Is Marvell the beginning of that sort of thing where a city person (is) looking for a country (life) he's lost, like Wordsworthor something?

AG: Actually, no, because Raleghhad that too. But it's a traditional Roman thing, the Roman poets also did that - got sick of the police state, or the military state, and withdrew back into the country. Catullus did that, and Virgil's Eclogues are about getting out of the city. So it's an old trick.

This list doesn't really cover all the "pretty things" in English poetry, because there's lots of (Robert) Herrick, lots of (Henry) Vaughan, lots of (Sir John) Suckling, songs all over.

AG: I was thinking originally, when I came in to move on from ballads to those songs – (Thomas Nashe, James Shirley– and I will get, I think, to Shirley at any rate), but I want to just finish off with this list up to, let us say, Charles Olson, because it’s up to that point that, after (Robert) Creeley, from Creeley on up, at least half the class has read something, so I’ll leave any further suggestions to a written list that I’ll make up. But of Olson, I‘d suggest the sections in Don Allen’s anthology, the first “Maximus” poems, the first “Songs of Maximus”

Student: The Distances?

AG: No, I wouldn’t suggest that. Please, let me…

Student: Just a suggestion.

AG: Will you just let me suggest the things that I think people can understand, to begin with? – So, the first Maximus songs (one little song about his kitchen tap that drips, the toilet that he has to get to work by putting it together with a rubber band, a little section that says, “You also sing”, so it’s from the first book of Maximus, the songs) – and a longer poem, detatched from Maximus, called “The Death of Europe – In Memory of Rainer (M) Gerhardt”, which has a very beautiful line, as he’s standing about Gerhardt's (grave), a young kid poet, German kid, putting earth into the grave, putting some dirt in the grave, saying, “O that the Earth/ had to be given to you/ this way!”. It’s a really moving line. For those of you (who) have not read any Olson, I would start with those poems, then “The Distances”. (I’m trying to suggest things that people can get into, not…)

Student: No, I mentioned it (The Distances) as a book

AG: Well, as a book, but I’m not talking about books. I’m just talking about fragments of just two or three lines, that somebody can understand, Yes?

Student: Do you have any one that you could read to us, because I’ve tried..

AG: Olson?

Student: There’s an index in the back.

AG: Yeah, I guess I’d better use it, instead of figuring out..

Student: (There’s that poem) about tansy buttons, or something?

AG: Yeah..ok..

Student:There’s his poems here in this anthology

AG: Can I have (it)? Can you find the Olson in it? Ok, yeah, thank you. In the Don Allen anthology, the “I, Maximus of Gloucester, To You” and "The Songs of Maximus”.I’ll read a little bit out of those. He’s interesting because he was one of the innovators of writing by ear, and trying to measure out on the page his own speech, as it came out of his mouth, with a certain nervous speediness, laying out long lines as they would emerge from his mouth, hesitating, and putting one word down, and then hesitating, and then continuing out with another streak of speech” [Allen then reads from “The Maximus Poems” – "I, Maximus of Gloucester To You" - “By ear, he sd”/ But that which matters, that which insists, that which will last/ where shall you find it, my people, how, where shall you listen/ whn all is become billboards, when all, even silence is/ when even the gulls,/ my roofs,/ when even you, when sound itself .." - and, as reprinted in the Allen anthology, the first six "Songs of Maximus", in their entirety - (concluding with) "Song 6 - "you sing/ you/ who also wants")] - So it's just his speech, divided into lines fast and slow. Most of that makes sense, doesn't it?

Student: Yes

AG: The thing I liked was his comments in/on "The Death of Europe" (that poem to Rainer Gerhardt, that passage I spoke of) - "O my collapsed brother,/ the body/does bring us/ down/ The images/have to be/ contradicted/ The metamorphoses/are to be/ undone/ The stick,/ and the ear/ are to be no more than/ they are: the cedar/ and the lebanon/ of this impossible/ life./ I give you no visit/ to your mother./ What you have left us/ is what you did/ It is enough/ It is what we/ praise/ I take back the stick./ I open my hand/ to throw dirt/ into your grave/ I praise you/ who watched the riding/ on the horse's back./ It was your glory to know/ that we must mount/ O that the Earth/had to be given to you/ this way!/ O Rainer, rest/ in the false/ peace/ Let us who live/ try." - So that's very clear and heartfelt. So that's Olson at his early best. Clear, heartfelt. Concerned mainly with the discovery of American mind and clearing away the "musickracket of (all) ownership" or dead hand of Academic wooden repetition.

[Allen continues to consult his "survey"] - Over half have read (Robert) Creeley,(W.H.Auden),(Pablo) Neruda... For those who haven't read Creeley, the easiest Creeley are his earliest poems, "For Love". For those who haven't read Auden, the easiest poems to get into are "In Memory of W.B.Yeats" and "September 1, 1939", and a short love poem that begins "Lay your sleeping head, my love/ Human, on my faithless arm.." - That's (from) about 1938 - Okay. So..there's a swift survey of what you might read of these poets, that I made up out of a list of people I thought had written archetypal, or poems basically so moving or rhythmically so strong that they should be introduced into your nervous systems.

Student: What about (Pablo) Neruda

AG: Well, for Neruda, there's a really great rare poem, "Que despierte el lenador" ("Let The Rail Splitter Awake") - that's not so well-known. It was published in Masses and Mainstream, a press, which was a Communist press, in the (19)40's, in a very good translation. It's the best Neruda I've ever seen and I haven't seen any good text (reproduction) of that. We may have a copy of it in the library. I think I got one last year. Does anybody know that? - "Let The Rail Splitter Awake"

Student: I think the New Directions [Grove actually] Selected Poems has that one in it.

AG: Do you know who translated that?

Student: Ben Belitt or something

AG: Grove...hmm..see.. there are lots of bad translations of Neruda around

Student: There's a good volume of Nathaniel Tarn and W.S. Merwin and people like that translating him

AG: Yeah, we have that in the library.. Well, "Canto General" is reasonably well-done -("General Song"), is ok - But, anyway, I would say, if you get a chance to look up the last sections of "Let The Rail Splitter Awake" by Neruda, they are marvelous. It's the most moving of Neruda that I've read. There are a lot of very funny, Surrealistic, political poems in General Song" (which New Directions put out), a big long book, a long curse on Franco, seeing Franco in Hell, being washed by millions of babies' eyes sliding past him, (a) sort of Surrealist horror image, actually..

[The Shepherd (1886) - Edward Frederick Brewtnall ( 1846-1902)]

AG: I wanted to get on to.. having run through all this (reading list)..to go back slower, just in case people don't know a couple of the Shakespeare songs. From "Love's Labour's Lost", there's one poem, a "Song", that combines song with absolute precise detail, which is, I think, a model for any kind of poetry, whether free verse or formed, formalistic.. - [Allen begins reading - "When Isciles hang by the wall, And Dicke the Shepheard blows his nail.."] - It's just "And Dicke the Shepheard blows his nail" [Allen imitates somebody blowing on their chilled fingers] - it's winter, he's blowing on his nails. It took me years to realize it was that simple. (I didn't know) what that nail was he was blowing. I thought it was a nail in the barn door or something.

Student: It's fingernails.

AG: Yeah, it's fingernails. Did anybody ever have trouble with that line, besides me, or is that just my nightmare? [Allen surveys the room] - One person.

Student: I think that's what you said the last time..

AG: Yeah, well. it was... (So) you all know "Full fathom five".

Students: Read it anyway.

AG: Does anybody not know it? - [looks around] - One German visitor - From "The Tempest" [Allen reads in its entirety "Full Fathom Five" from "The Tempest"] - There's an odd, swift..

Student: Allen?

AG: Yeah.

Student; It just occurred to me when I heard you read that that that's.. except for the difference in line-length, that could be the same melody as the "Call for the robin-redbreast .." in (his contemporary), (John) Webster. Do you know that one?

AG: (T.S.) Eliot quoted it ["Or with his nails he'll dig it up again" - in the opening section of The Waste Land] - It's probably in here - "For with his claws, he'll dig him up again.." - Do you remember? [the quote, as Eliot himself notes, is from Webster's "The White Devil"

Student: There's a first line where...

AG: Well, I'll get Webster, I'll find it.. (here), page 272... (So) what are your favorite early songs (or poems)?

Student: The ones in The Tempest. (And) of course, the Orphelia..

AG: Yeah. We have it. Wanna read it? Why don't you read that?

Student: Sure. I like Webster's songs a lot, too.

[Another] Student: Could you read Orphelia's song? Do you know Orphelia's song?

Student; Yeah. Not by heart. Oh. [looks through his books] - This is a song, let's see, from "The Duchess of Malfi". This is a song by a contemporary of Shakespeare's named John Webster, and it's interesting because he belongs to that first generation, (like) Shakespeare does, that came into blank verse as a kind of improvement in the art of the theatre. When blank verse was introduced into the theatre, it was like the introduction of Cinemascope into film today. Before that, the plays had been written in these very awkward couplet-rhyming line-lengths that were very difficult to memorize and didn't sound anything like natural speech. So when blank verse was bought in, it was, like, a great improvement in the theatre and allowed this whole impetus, this whole blossoming of Elizabethan theatre to take place. (Christopher) Marlowe is the one who mastered the mighty line, or blank verse, and then Shakespeare's was the next generation to pick up on that. And in that generation with Shakespeare were some other absolutely incredible poets, like John Webster. The difference between a man like Webster and Shakespeare was not only in the metric, it was in the subject-matter, and the scope of their mind. Webster is just as perfect as Shakespeare. It's just that the scope of his intentions in theatre is narrower. The songs, then, are usually rhymed and go back like a jewel. In a sense, they're not only songs, but they're almost like a reflection of the early (earlier) rhyming verse. They're almost like you're hearing something in the past and you're hearing a little jewel, set in a perfect ornament. And Webster specialized very much in the macabre, and especially in the violent, and in the macabre aspect in the violent. And his songs reflect that, and they're very beautiful but they reflect the rest of what's happening in his plays. Shakespeare's songs are almost set like little perfect glittering diamonds in the fields of his plays, and Webster's are more of a part of the play, in a way. [Student reads John Webster's "Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren" - "Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,/ Since o'er shady groves they hover..."] - You hear the temper of Webster in these, whereas Shakespeare's sometimes almost like Agathon, where they're talking about Agathon's Songs, or as you hear aboutEuripedes. Sometimes the song is not essential to the context, I mean, it's not essential in the context of the play.

AG: They could be put in or pulled out.

Student: Oh yeah, you could take Shakespeare's songs out. This has a life of its own as a poem, but it has to do intensely with the mood of the play. I'll read it again so you can hear it [Student re-reads "Call For The Robin Redbreast And The Wren" in its entirety] - "Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,/ Since o'er shady groves they hover,/And with leaves and flowers do cover/ The friendless bodies of unburied men./ Call unto his funeral dole/ The ant, the field mouse and the mole,/ To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,/ And when gay tombs are robbed, sustain no harm/ But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men/ For with his nails he'll dig them up again" - Dracula movies next!

AG: We have ten minutes

Student: Why don't you read some more Shakespeare. That was really good.

AG: Well there are several things... Dana (Naone) (sic) brought in something that we've been talking about, a song that was recorded by Pentangle?

Dana Naone: No, this is Ray Fisher

AG: And what is the song?

Dana Naone: A traditional Scottish ballad called "Mill O'Tifty's Annie", and it's sort of rare, in that it's not very common, but it's very classical in that it's got the Scottish sort of drama in it.

AG: It's right on there and it's easy to get at. Okay, it's just that we had mentioned, during the previous classes, that some of the ancient ballads were picked up by modern pop groups, and I thought...

Dana Naone: This is relatively..

AG: ..since there's only ten minutes left, I wanted to get that in, and then I'll go back to Shakespeare.

Student: Sure

AG: And Nashe, I want to do (Thomas) Nashe.. (but, since) she (Dana) went to all the trouble to bring it in..

Dana Naone: It's in the English, but (with) a Scottish dialect, so it might be difficult to understand some of the words. "Mither" (for example) is "Mother", ""fither" is "father", "brither" is "brother", "new" is "now", "say" is "so", "tay" is "two".. So you can pick it up just by following it. [Dana then performs, in its entirety, a version of the ballad "Mill O'Tifty's Annie"].

AG: I couldn't... [tape ends here - then resumes]

Student: What's the name of the album (this comes from)

Dana Naone: Ray Fisher - "The Bonnie Birdy" - and the song is called "Mill O'Tifty's Annie"

AG: Okay. It's time to quit. I have one last song I want to sing. From Thomas Nashe. I've used this poem in my class before, but I'd just like to end this particular (class) on it because I think it's the most perfect song sung in English. I don't know what the tune is, so I'll just have to make it up as I go along [Allen sings, along with harmonium accompaniment, "Song (In Time of Pestilence") - "Brightnesse falls from the ayre....] - Okay. 8.30. Time for the Visiting Poet's Class. We'll zap right into it. [class, and tape, ends here].

AG: George [sic -a Naropa student], were you ever able to figure out the music? There's a book of (Thomas) Campion in the library, with his own music. And those of you who are interested in music and can read music might check out the book because Campion has an essay on poetics, an essay on rhythm and rhythm in relation to music, on how to write songs, 1600, the best ear possible. [Allen is presumably referring to Campion's Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602)]

George [holding guitar]: All you have to do..

AG: What do I got to do?

George: ...is a "D"

AG: Do you want me to pump? You want me to pump? [Allen begins playing the harmonium]

George: Yeah, okay, a "D", a "D"...

AG: You change?

George: ...at this line, put the "D", a not-too-high "D" - that's alright.

AG: Oh really?

George: Yeah

AG: It never changes?

George: Yeah, you can (now play) Vobiscum Et Iope

[Allen begins singing, with harmonium accompaniment, the Campion poem - "When Thou Must Home.. - "When thou has told these honours done to thee/ Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me".]

AG: Terrific.

George: Yeah

AG: I didn't.. you mean it's only one (chord)?

George: No, you could have followed the cello part here, but, since you can't read music..

AG: But that's still on, that could be done on a "D" chord? - or an"A"? that's an "A"?

George: Yeah "D"

AG: No, it was a "D' minor.

George: And then here, see, where it starts to come down, when the melody starts to come down, you can put the bottom note on top..

AG: Uh-huh

George: ...the sequel. At that time music, of course was so much more...

AG: Wow! Fantastic!

George: Yeah

AG: Let me try that. You didn't hear the words probably

George: What's the title?

AG: The title is "When Thou Must Home To Shades of Underground" - number 20 in his songs and poems. I'll read you the text so you can hear it, because it's a terrific text and real famous, and, as he says, it's adapted from a poem by (Sextus) Propertius (also translated by (Ezra) Pound later). Propertius, in Latin translation is - "There are so many thousand(s of) beauties among the dead. Let just one beauty stay above ground, if it may be. With you among the dead already is Iope, with you snowy (white) Tyro, with you is Europa and impious Pasiphae" - So it's Campion's adaptation. [Allen reads Campion's poem in its entirety ("When thou must home to shades of underground/ And there arriv'd a new admired guest,/ The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,/ White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,/ To hear the stories of thy finish'd love/ From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;/ Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,/ Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,/ Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,/ And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:/ When thou has told these honours done to thee/ Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me" - "Murther me"! - [to George] Want to try singing it again?

George: Yeah

AG: Now that everyone knows the words.

George: Yeah. The reason I used that kind of accent is because that's the way it was sung in those days. They sang with those.. to project your voice.. without having a nasal sound, without an electric microphone, that's the way opera singers sing, that way, You have to make the sounds sound like that or it'll sound obnoxious some people feel.

AG: Go on

[George & Allen begin with the song again. George begins and seven lines in, Allen joins in "for something approaching harmony]

AG: That's his music eh?

George: Yeah

AG: It's real pretty. Real music

George: It sounds like a folk song or classical song.

AG: A pop song. A pop song in the taverns, I guess, wouldn't it be? Do you know where it would be sung? Courts and taverns.

George: In courts not taverns

AG: Not taverns at all? He didn't go out drinking and sing it to Shakespeare?

George: I don't think so.

AG: He didn't sing it to Shakespeare?

Student: I've got a question. Were they all constructed on block chords at the time, just all block chords ?

AG: George knows it. Were they still using all block chords?

George: No there was a cello part and a harpsichord part too. But really it doesn't change that much as..say.. Beethoven is changing every measure, he's changing his chords. And that time, that time that's Bach's time, where you could really have a bass part that just went continually. You had the instruments and voice and everything on top and..

Student: This is not Bach.

George: And it's not Beethoven.

[ The tape begins in media res, Allen is reciting Christopher Marlowe's "A Passionate Shepherd To His Love"]

AG: "...Fair lined skippers for the cold/ With buckles of the purest gold,/ A belt of straw and ivy buds,/ With coral clasps and amber studs;/ And if these pictures may thee move,/ Come live with me and be my love... " -

And then Sir Walter Ralegh, about a year later registered a reply and answered (with) "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" [Allen recites this poem, in its entirety - "If all the world and love were young.."]

It's, like, really cynical but much more realistic. It was nice that they had that much poetic telepathy with each other to lay it back and forth.

File:Thomas campion.jpg

[Thomas Campion (1567-1620)]

I'm going to continue just a little bit more with song. I had spoken of song written for music. The great singer that (Ezra) Pound points attention to is (Thomas) Campion. When he's read aloud, the time in his poetry is very slow and clear, almost clearer than anybody else's time, just for where you have caesuras, and where you have rests, if you hear it aloud. I want to read a couple of poems and then we'll have one song sung aloud. The one (that) I like most is pretty well-known - "Rose-cheek'd Laura, come"(first line, "Rose-cheek'd Laura - comma - come - comma. So it isn't "Rose-cheek'd Laura come", as it normally would be read by a high-school teacher. It's [Allen sings on a descending scale, ending with "come"] - or [sings on an ascending scale] - "Rose-cheek'd Laura, come" - well, anyway, there's a break, there's a halt. [Allen reads, in its entirety, the poem] - The first lines, I'll just read (you) the first lines of each of the four stanzas - " "Rose-cheek'd Laura, come" , "Lovely formes do flow", "These dull notes we sing", "But still mooves delight" - What he's counting there are the vowel-lengths, incidentally, because he's making song, and he was especially interested in making vowel-lengths. Pound was interested in Campion because Campion was one of the rare English song men that had developed an ear for classical measure, for vowel-length measure.
"Follow thy fair sun" (is) also Thomas Campion, if you listen to it, those of you who know accentual measure, counting accents, if you listen to it and see how different it is when pronounced aloud from anything that would be counted by accent, you'll get some ear for the quantitative verse we've been talking about .We're on Thomas Campion, (for the new arrivals), the great pop singer of the beginning of the 17th century! - [Allen proceeds to read "Follow thy fair sun.." in its entirety] - In five short verses it actually builds up a strong rhythmic pulsation. "Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow", "Follow her whose light thy light depriveth", "Follow those pure beams who's beauty burneth", "Follow her while yet her glory shineth", "Follow still since so thy fates ordained". Those are the first lines so, if you hear them in sequence, you see how he builds it up.

[Neal Cassady & Natalie Jackson, San Francisco, 1955. Photo c Allen Ginsberg

Estate]

Another notice (see the flood of notices last week) of Allen's photographic Beat Memories show - Tim Keane (on Hyperallergic) - ""I Noticed My Friends" - Allen Ginsberg's Photography" - "At best these pictures are a celebration within a rite of mourning", Keane astutely notes. "And if photography prolongs a lived moment that vanishes as soon as it arrives, [and surely it does] Ginsberg sensed how better suited [perhaps?] photography than writing can be to that impulse.." [Tho' he was hardly a slouch, we might add, when it comes to preservation of the moment, elevation to eternity, via writing!]

"I am with you in Rockland". As we've noted before, among our most popular postings over the years are our periodic postings on Ginsberg tattoos. This one, however from "Brandon" in Benin is a little different. He writes, "I do believe there are cases where getting a tattoo can be deeply meaningful (which I'll get to) but I am basically here to ruin tattoos for you...To be clear: I don't regret my tattoo..But I have sort of a problem with it.."

Elizabeth Pusack over at Tin House has been burrowing through the John Wilson Special Collections Room at the Portland, Oregon library, and came across this little gem, which she dutifully transcribed - an August 1965 postcard (from Allen) to "Bill" Burroughs -
"Dear Bill, out in Fresno awhile, + visited Big Sur, then spent $2000 and bought a Volkswagen 1964 Camper-like a transistorized trailer - now I'm a householder! - and went up here then Crater Lake + 2 days backpacking on Mt Rainer + we'll go on foot 8 days into Olympics or Cascade Mountains - Seattle a lovely 1920's American City - great Goodwill shops + 2nd-Hand clothes + Tambourine markets - I'll weave with Peter [Orlovsky] across states to NY in a month or more. I'm up here withGary Snyder before he goes to Japan again. How long you be around? I see the heat is closing in on me (?) love, Allen".

"I can feel the heat closing in" - Allen echoes the famous line from Naked Lunch. Bravo! deciphering the Ginsberg scrawl!

Eliot Katz's and Tom Savage's recollections of Allen in Volume 2 are just two of a myriad of lively, informative entries in Clayton Patterson's recently-published three-volume, monumental "Jews - A People's History of the Lower East Side". Tuli Kupferberg, Abbie Hoffman, Ed Sanders,Philip Glass, andRobert Frank, are further names with which readers of the Ginsberg Project will be familiar. The delight is that there will be plenty of names and facts with which they're not familiar. For more about this particular project, see here

Speaking of Eliot Katz, his introduction to the newAndy Clausen collection, recently noted in these pages, may be read here.

Ray Bremser's birthday today - what would have been his 79th. For more about Ray Bremser see here (our Ray Bremser birthday posting).

Jed Birmingham's bibliographic work over at the Burroughs-centric, cannot-recommend-it-too-highly, Reality Studio is truly amazing. This past December, he published a sensitive screed against all-too-complacent academic Beat scholarship - We're going to call it essential reading. "When will the Beat Generation generate the criticism it deserves?", he writes. "Verdict - Enough of this shit. I get it. Beat studies is not accepted in the academy. But enough of a Beat Criticism that has to present a grey flannel suit of accepted academic jargons and buzzwords. This is CV padding and the donning of the university tie required for interviews with tenure boards and trustees. It is time to let one's hair down. When will we get a Beat Criticism of "wild form" and "spontaneous prose" instead of clumsy parroting of Deleuze and Guattari?" - He goes on - "When will we get archive research from primary sources instead of worn-out cliches pulled from secondary sources, reprints and anthologies?"
- We should pause to remind him that there's the exemplary CUNY Poetics Initiative(new titles imminent on Ed Dorn, David Henderson, Selected Correspondence of Pauline Kael and Robert Duncan..),but, point taken.

"Enough of the Beat Criticism nightmare. Enough talk of fairy tales. It is time to get real, it is time to wake up...there is no reason that, more than half a century after its birth, Beat Criticism has to step and fetch it before the academic powers-that-be. Enough of justifying and testifying to (it's) validity and importance.."
The whole piece may be read in its entirety here.

Birmingham doesn't just rant. He puts-his-money-where-his-mouth-is, uploading important primary documentation.
Yugen - the complete run of all 8 issues of this seminal magazine is now available as a pdf download - here- (Allen's in every issue, except for 2,6 and 8, but that information is so incidental - it's so not about Allen, and so much about, rather, a vibrant samizdat independent communal energy).
Here's "4 Poems" from the initial issue (1958), beginning with a short untitled piece:

We rode on a lonely bus
for half a night
shoulders touching, warmth
between our thighs,
bodies moved together
dreaming invisibly.

I longed for a look of secrecy
with open eyes
-- intimacies of New Jersey --
holding hands
and kissing golden cheeks.

HITCH-HIKING KEY WEST

I walked for miles
toward that bedroom
on the starlit highway
in the lonesome night.

I knock. The bridegroom
opens the door.
"I've come on the first
night as due"

"Farewell, man,"
his reply.
I go into the house,
he to the wild.

IN A RED BAR

I look like someone else
I don't like in the mirror
-- a floating city heel,
middleclass con artist,
I need a haircut and look
seedy -- in late twenties,
shadows under my mouth,
too informally dressed,
heavy eyebrowed, sadistic,
too mental and lonely.

ON BURROUGHS' WORK

The method must be purest meat
and no symbolic dressing,
actual visions and actual prisons
as seen then and now.

Prisons and visions presented
with pure descriptions
corresponding exactly to those
of Alcatraz and Rose.

A naked lunch is natural to us,
we eat reality sandwiches.
But allegories are so much lettuce.
Don't hide the madness.

[Ben Jonson (1572-1637) - portrait by Abraham Bleyenberch (c.1617), oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, London]

AG: I want to move on to Ben Jonson, who's not so read as a poet among lowbrows like ourselves. On a little elegy on his first son, who died. A few little poems of Jonson. What I'm following now are, like, those rests or caesuras or the time. I'm reading poets for their good time, or for the lyric poets that I am reading, (all) have a very sweet sense of rest in-between words, or little gaps in-between words which are in the page-text a by-product, when spoken, of music. The breath necessary for singing that can be done as breath for drama or breath for speaking. [Allen begins reading Ben Jonson's "On My First Son" - "Farewell, thou child of my right-hand..".."Seven years thou wert lent to me.." - The kid's birthday, seventh birthday - "O could I lose all father now! for why/ Will man lament the state he should envy,/ To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage.. ".. "Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, "Here doth lie/ Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry"/ For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such/As what he loves may never like too much."] - That's real sweet for a father -  "Here doth lie/ Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry". There's a(nother) great line in there too - " To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage".

Student: What's the last couplet?

AG: "For whose.." "Here doth lie/ Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry" - his son, his best making. "For whose sake" (the kid's sake), "all his (Jonson's) vows be such/As what he loves may never like too much" (as what he loves, he may never get too attached to).

Student: Yes

AG: (And) also there's a little pun in there - "may never like too much" - there's a "likeness" of the son, I imagine, built into that.

Student: A likeness?

AG: Well, like-to-like, father-to-son. There's just some little sub-echo of the word "like" - being a mirror of Jonson's son being a mirror of him."Likeness", I guess. Maybe. I don't know. That's what I flashed on when I was reading it the first time - "As what he loves may never like too much".

There's other Jonson I like. He's good on little epitaphs for children - "Epitaph on Saloman Pavy, a Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel". This was a company of boy actors and little Salomon Pavy had acted in his plays at the age of ten. [Allen reads, in its entirety, Jonson's poem - "Weep with me all you that read/ this little storie"... "And have sought (to give new birth)/ In bathes to steep him/ But, (he) being so much too good for earth,/Heaven vows to keep him"] - "(B)athes to steepe him"? - (There's a) note here - "Aeson, the father of Jason, was made young again by a magic bath prepared by Jason's wife, Medea".

Another little tiny, "Epitaph on Elizabeth L.H. - [Allen reads, in entirety, the poem - "Wouldst thou hear what man can say/ In a little? Reader, stay./ Undernea,/th this stone doth lie/ As much beauty as could die/Which in life did harbour give/ To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault,/ Leave it buried in this vault./ One name was Elizabeth,/ Th'other let it sleep with death;/ Fitter where it died to tell,/ Than that it liv'd at all. Farewell."

He has some songs from his plays, Jonson (being, primarily a playwright). I don't know the tune, but, just spoken, the timing of the songs is so exquisite that it's worth vocalizing. "Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount" - it's a song (as footnoted) from "Cynthia's Revels", a play, sung byEcho for Narcissus. Narcissus fell in love with his own simulacra in the water. The "daffodil" in line 11 ("Since nature's pride is now a withered daffodil") is a species of narcissus. [Allen begins reading, and pauses after that line] - It's just real pretty - [he continues, re-reading the poem - "Droop herbs and flowers;/ Fall grief in showers;/Our beauties are not like ours. O, I could still,/ Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, Drop, drop, drop, drop,/ Since nature's pride is now a withered daffodil" - That takes a great ear - just the pleasure of that - solid - silence - solid - silence - solid - silence..

Student: Who's that by?

AG: That's Ben Jonson. The last few poems..

Student: Still Ben Jonson?

AG: Still Ben Jonson. His most famous piece of music, or song, to Cynthia, or Diana, goddess of the moon and of the hunt - "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair" - Queen and Huntress comma chaste and fair. [Allen recites all three stanzas of this poem - reads the poem in its entirety] "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair..".."Thou that mak'st a day of night,/Goddess, excellently bright." - It's like a good cello piece that " - "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair..".. dah-duh-duh-dah dah-duh-duh-duh. You can hear cellos in it.

He's got a funny sound, like [ he reads from Ben Jonson's "Simplex Munditis" -   "Still to be neat, still to be dressed,/As you were going to a feast.." - So, it's all those divisions. Probably for singing. Duh-duh-duh-dah, dah-duh-duh-dah. "As you were going to a feast" - "Still to be neat, still to be dressed,/As you were going to a feast.." - "Give me a look, give me a face/ That makes simplicity a grace" - It's (a) perfect ear. Much of it composed of listening to the vowels, and most of it composed listening to the rests, the divisions in between the middle of the line, or the caesuras. So you've just got to listen.
Like..for..these are all songs. John Fletcher, (a) song published 1639, which has, if you're interested in that, (that line) "Still to be neat, still to be dressed", or (Jonson's) "Drop, drop, drop, drop", or (Thomas Nashe's) "Queens have died, young and fair", or (Shakespeare's), "Take, oh, take those lips away" - Dah.. dah.. dah-duh-duh-duh-duh. "Take, oh, take those lips away/ That so sweetly were forsworn" - he's got it. He had that first solid take, then, "Oh", then, take those lips away/ That so sweetly were forsworn". It's a run-on line. And not only that he has "and those eyes". So it goes [Allen reads the poem] - "Take, oh take those lips away/ That so sweetly were forsworn/ And those eyes like break of day,/ Lights that do mislead the morn/ But my kisses bring again,/ Seals of love, though sealed in vain./ Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,/ Which thy frozen bosom bears,/ On whose tops the pinks that grow/Are of those that April wears;/ But first set my poor heart free,/ Bound in those icy chains by thee." - It's just good sound there. I'll read one more time that first verse, just to get that long, long little sequence -  Take, oh take those lips away/ That so sweetly were forsworn" - all one breath - "take those lips away/ That so sweetly were forsworn/ And those eyes", after the bah-bah-bah, buh-buh-buh-bah.

Student: Allen, where exactly is that?

AG: That's John Fletcher. England, 16-something. Well, that's a very famous one. "Take, oh, take those lips away"as a song(is) in any anthology of English poetry. These are all standard items if you open up the Oxford Book of English Verse, or any anthology of traditional English poetry, you'll find these. "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair", "Take, oh, take those lips away, orRobert Herrick, various poems.

[Robert Herrick (1591-1674)]

AG: How many have read any (Robert) Herrick? Raise your hand? And how many have not read no Herrick? How many haven't read Herrick? Come on, raise your hands. Okay, so I'd be encouraged to read it. So this is "The Argument of His Book", or the proposition (that) he has. There is a book you can buy (I think Everyman has a complete Herrick, Everyman's Library), the argument, or proposition, or subject-matter of his book. [Allen begins to read] - "I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,/ Of April, May, of June and July flowers./ I sing of Maypoles, hock carts, wassails, wakes/ Of bridegrooms, brides and of their bridal cakes"..."I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall)/ Of heaven, and hope to have it after all"

Student: That's called "The Argument?"

AG: "The Argument of His Book, or description of the contents. It's the opening of a large book he wrote.

There's a kind of pretty ditty-like quality to a thing called "The Scare-Fire" (which is a sudden conflagration) [Allen reads "The Scare-Fire"] - "Water, water I desire/ Here's a house of flesh on fire,/ Ope' the fountains and the springs,/And come all to bucketings./What you cannot quench, pull down,/ Spoil a house to save a town;/ Better is that one should fall/ Than by one to hazard all." - "Water, water I desire/ Here's a house of flesh on fire".

There's a very famous "Delight in Disorder". I think he finally got to be a cleric. I think he got to be a priest of some sort, I'm not sure.Does anybody know?

Student: Read "Delight in Disorder"

AG: Huh?

Student: Read "Delight in Disorder"

AG: I was going to, but was he a priest. Did he get to be a priest?

Student: Aren't you thinking of (George) Herbert?

AG: Well, Herbert was a priest, but I think Herrick may have also.. Well.. [Allen proceeds to read Herrick's "Delight in Disorder"] - "A sweet disorder in the dress/ Kindles in clothes a wantoness./A lawn about the shoulders thrown/ Into a fine distraction;/ An erring lace, which here and there/ Enthralls the crimson stomacher".."A careless shoestring, in whose tie/ I see a wild civility;/ Do more bewitch me than when art/ is too precise in every part." - It's for flower-children's dresses!

"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" - I guess this is about the best-known poem in English [Allen reads Herrick's "To the Virgins.." in its entirety] - "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,/ Old time is still a-flying;/ And this same flower that smiles today/ Tomorrow will be dying."..."Then be no coy, but use your time/ And, while ye may, go marry;/ For, having lost but once your prime,/ You may forever tarry/" - Everybody has heard that poem before, haven't (you)? Is there anyone who never remembered hearing that? That was a song too. [to one Student] - You never heard? Terrific. How did it sound? How old are you?
- How old are you?

Student: Twenty

AG: Just the time for the rosebuds!

Student: Allen?

AG: Well, it's advice then to "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,/ Old time is still a-flying"

Student: Allen?

AG: Yeah

Student: Do you know anything about (the symbolism of botany - (the) flowers) and herbs in (Herrick)?

AG: I don't know much about it but there are whole books on it (particularly relating to (Andrew) Marvell's "The Garden" - the poem by Andrew Marvell called "The Garden" in which he made an image of herbs and flowers as a sundial and, apparantly, there were very complex gardens (in those days) with astrophysical suggestions connected to them, but I don't know anything about it.

Student: I've seen in a lot of...

AG: He might know. [Allen points to student]. Tom (sic) might know..

Student: I was just thinking, Ben Jonson wrote "Drink to me only with thine eyes.."- the class might know that.

AG: Well, we're already on to Robert Herrick..I don't want to go back to Jonson.

Student: Is he later than Jonson?

AG: Well, yes, actually. "To The Virgins.." is 1648. Yeah.
So there are local herbs, just as today, that had symbolic significance. I mentioned in Marvell's "Garden", there is - the palm, the oak, the bays (the palm for military victory, the oak for civic power and the bays for poetic power - laurel. Rue, with maidenheads, virginity..

Student: No

AG:...what? For losing virginity?

Student: Yeah, like take (the imagery of) rue..or.."when I was in my prime/I had some bonnie thyme", something like that, and now it's all gone.

AG: "When I was in my prime/I had some bonnie thyme - T-H-Y-M-E ?

Student: Well, yeah.

AG: "I had some bonnie thyme"?

[Another] Student: "When I was in my prime/ I cherished my thyme..

[Another] Student: "..stole your bunch of thyme" (sic)

AG: Sow your what?

Student: "Stole my bunch of thyme"

AG: "like a false young man, who stole my bunch of thyme (stole my sprig of thyme)". Actually, there are whole books on that subject, none of which, I've read!

Student: Does anybody know a publisher? a name?

[Another] Student: Maud Bodkin has a book called "The Archetypal Images in Poetry" [actually, "Archetypal Patterns in Poetry" (1934)]

AG: Maud Bodkin - B-O-D-K-I-N. Maud Bodkin - The Archetypal Images in Poetry, which would touch on that?

Student: I don't know. Some of it maybe. I don't know if she gets into...

AG: In her book there would be a footnote, recommending a complete book on it.

Student: There must be a bibliography in it.

AG: "To Daffodils". Still Herrick. [Allen reads Herrick's "To Daffodils" in its entirety] - "Fair daffodils, we weep to see/ You haste away so soon/ As yet the early-rising sun/ Has not attained its noon/ Stay, stay/ Until the hasting day.."..."We have as short a spring;/ As quick a growth to meet decay/As you or anything/ We die,/ As your hours do, and dry/ Away/ Like to the summer's rain;/ Or as the pearls of morning dew/ Ne'er to be found again" - That's real sweet - "To Daffodils" - "As you or anything/ We die,/ As your hours do, and dry/ Away".

Herrick wrote a tiny little prayer to Ben Jonson, because Ben Jonson wrote such perfect verse and had so good an ear - [Allen reads] - "When I a verse shall make/ Know I have prayed thee/ For old religion's sake,/ Saint Ben, to aid me./ Make the way smooth for me/ When I, thy Herrick/ Honouring thee, on my knee,/ Offer my lyric. Candles I'll give to thee/ And a new altar/ And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be/ Writ in my psalter." - Cute (actually, he's written much).

[George Herbert (1593-1633)]

AG: On George Herbert, there are a few poems which.. I mean, there is a great deal to read. Has anybody read any of Herbert? How many have read Herbert? And how many don't know any of his poems. Raise your hands. So I'll just get a couple in. He was a priest, and "God" 's in and out of his poetry, plus a funny kind of personal eccentricity and crankiness, which makes him interesting now because he's a strange goof. [Allen begins by reading George Herbert's "The Collar"- "I struck the board and cried, "No more,/ I will abroad!?/ What? shall I ever sigh and pine?..."..."But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild/ At every word./Methought I heard one calling Child!/ And I replied, My Lord!"] - Big, strange shift. I think there's an element of S & M, of masochism, in Herbert, which comes through, which I don't think has been commented on completely by critics. Here's one called "Discipline" [Allen reads, in its entirety, George Herbert's poem, "Discipline" - "Throw away thy rod,/ Throw away thy wrath,/ O my God,/ Take the gentle path.."..,"Throw away thy rod,/ Though man frailties hath,/ Thou art God/ Throw away thy wrath."] - That's like good pleading. Now...

Student: Can you wait a second, Allen? [end of the tape...tape then resumes]

AG: So this is in the 1630s - round about - One poem on death and one on love, of his. Really funny conceptions and funny images. (First), on death [Allen reads, in its entirety, George Herbert's poem, "Death" - "Death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,/ Nothing but bones,/ The sad effect of sadder groans:/ Thy mouth was open but thou could not sing"..."But since our Savior's death did put some blood/ Into thy face,/ Thou art grown fair and full of grace,/Much in request, much sought for as good".

And on love - this is again that odd element of spiritual S & M, but (an) almost universal display of it. Here, the love of Christ or God, but it's mixed with total erotic, straightforward, imagery (or straightforward erotic imagery) [Allen reads, in its entirety, George Herbert's poem, "Love" - "Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back/ Guilty of dust and sin/ But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack/ From my first entrance in,/ Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning/ If I lacked anything.."..""You must sit down", says Love, "and taste my meat"/ So I did sit and eat."] - That's pretty good. You can have that with a God, or you can have that with a human being. You can have that particular relationship with a human.

Andy Clausen

Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 112

Allen Meets The Beatles/ The Beatles Meet Allen

Spontaneous Poetics - 33 (Reading List 4) (Antonin Artaud, Ted Berrigan, Philip Whalen)

Spontaneous Poetics - 34 (Reading List 5) (Vachel Lindsay,John Ashbery, Guillaume Apollinaire)

Spontaneous Poetics - 36 (Reading-List 7) - (John Dryden)

Spontaneous Poetics - 35 (Reading List 6) (Frank O'Hara, Hart Crane, John Milton)

Valentine's Day Post - Love Forgiven

Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 113

Naropa - Chuck Lief Inauguration

Spontaneous Poetics - 37 (Reading List 8) - (Robert Duncan, Andrew Marvell)

Spontaneous Poetics - 38 (Reading List 9) (Charles Olson, Pablo Neruda)

Spontaneous Poetics - 39 (Reading List 10) (Shakespeare and Webster)

Spontaneous Poetics - 41 (Campion's Music)

Spontaneous Poetics - 40 (Marlowe & Ralegh and Campion)

Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 114

Yugen & Jed Birmingham's Call To Beat Scholarship

Spontaneous Poetics - 42 (Ben Jonson)

Spontaneous Poetics - 43 (Robert Herrick)

Spontaneous Poetics - 44 (George Herbert)