Got this one from my brudder The Warden's site. You should check it out.
I didn't know of this Allen Ginsberg poem , and I am pretty good on most of the big names from The Beat Generation. Punk Rock You Big Crybaby is pretty cool. I had the pleasure of seeing Ginsberg read back in the early 80's (and had a really cool autographed sign from the event that has since disappeared from the Nomad Archives).
Ginsberg certainly had his punk creds. The dude was punk before rock n roll even shot out of Chuck Berry's loins. College irritant, Jail time, constant irritant to more than one President, recording with The Clash.
If Howl is not the greatest poem of the 20th century, it's certainly on the short list. The trial that resulted due to Obscenity Charges, incurred because of the poem's religious and sexual nature, made Ginsberg possibly the first counter-culture star.
If you click HERE, you will be sent to a site that has The Life & Times Of Allen Ginsberg.
If you click HERE, you will be sent to a site that has The Life & Times Of Allen Ginsberg.
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8 comments:
I got to sit, literally, at the feet of Ginsberg in the Paterson, NJ public library, when I was 16. I love him so much that I have a couple of lines from the footnote to howl tattooed on my right arm. Yep he was alright.
Glad you dug it, Nazz! I've got to get my scanner hooked up because I have a lot of cool clips from the pre-Internet days that are of interest (to me at least).
I think his poem America is right up there with Howl. I visited City Lights Books when I was in San Fran in 1988 -- how can that be over 20 years ago now! The Beats if nothing else dusted off Poetry and made it alive again -- took it out of the books and put it back on stage where it belonged.
I think the integrity of a guy like Kerouac -- who refused to change his vision in the face of repeated critical backlash -- speaks to Punk Rock as well. Even when no publisher would touch On the Road for something like 10 years, he wouldn't change a word of it. Too bad he had such a tragic ending -- man, he hated him some Hippie at the end!
Gluons from Colorado had a song Birdbrain with Allen Ginsberg on vocals.I think 7 came out in 1981.
I still have my City Lights t-shirt from my pilgrimage to the bookstore.
You know, Kerouac lived in Queens for a spell. And, of course he lived out in Northport- one of the bars he drank at is still in business.
The last few years of his life were not happy ones... ironic how so many of his peer group embraced the hippie thing too (Casady, Ginsberg, Snyder).
I just realized. I was wearing my City Lights hoody as I was reading the comments.
Saw Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso one incredible night when I was 15. My mom went with me. She did not like Ginsberg's chanted poem-songs about anal sex. She couldn't understand a word Corso said (he was drunk and crying the whole time) and said, of Burroughs, "He's such a sad little man."
corso drunk and crying would be worth the price of admission! and your mom was very wise!
One of my big regrets from when I was younger - and like most of us, I have a few - is that I didn't take the opportunity to see Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs doing readings here in Manchester.
Both of them performed? (played? read?) at the Hacienda club within a couple of weeks of each other. I was too wrapped up in The Clash, Joy Division etc to spend my student grant on someone merely READING OUT LOUD. Hey, where's the rock'n'roll in THAT?
Nowadays, I'd be at the front of the queue.
Nice posting, though. Thanks!
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