Kerouac and the Clones

A correspondent suggests that Jack Kerouac has no place in the slice-and-dice Penguin anthology even though Ginsberg has, and would have made the cut but for those evil money-grubbers at HarperCollins. I've heard this kind of stupid prejudice against Kerouac many times, but I still can't help wondering what planet people live on. Everybody who isn't looking for the employee of the month badge at McDonald's or next year's £50 000 Anaemic Poetry Prize and the big seat at the English Department table in the University of Clones knows Kerouac is a great poet. Here's Ginsberg's own view on the matter from an old issue of Gargoyle Magazine.
http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/scanned/issue10/ginsberg.htm

Dove: Digging Deeper

 

I've been reading further on Rita Dove's decision to exclude Ginsberg and Kerouac from the new Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Verse and I've unearthed a couple of interesting details. First this old quote from Dove, which demonstrates she has no particular prejudice towards Ginsberg (I'd never heard of her before I read about the anthology, so what did I know?):

Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world! And he continues to do so! There are generations who stumble across HOWL and find it speaks to them. Yet it takes a tragedy to make people notice. http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/dove/dove-interview.html

Dove says in her introduction, apparently, that she couldn't afford to blow her whole budget on hefty permission fees from copyright owners. I don't know if she refers specifically to HarperCollins and Rupert Murdoch (I am so out of the political loop in literary matters I didn't know they were owned by the liberal's own antichrist Rupert Murdoch), but I suppose the inference is there even if the declaration isn't. So, then, she simply couldn't afford Ginsberg.

That's a credible argument. Perhaps, then, Dove's mistake was tactical rather than political, in that she has included in her anthology a whole lot of people who could have been excluded so that the most significant American poet of the 1950s - in cultural as well as literary terms - didn't have to be. And if it was a question of late negotiation with HarperCollins when most of the money had already been spent, the same applies. It's bad housekeeping. Blaming the capitalist monster Murdoch and the devils of the Ginsberg estate might be fun but it's too easy.

And I still wonder what really motivated Dove's selections for the book. While including four of her own poems, Dove excludes Sylvia Plath too, and Plath's poetry is taught in every university from here to the other side of Mars. I don't like it personally but even a pig-headed bastard like me has to admit it's technically brilliant. Is Plath owned by the horned Australian one also? Most of the stuff I've read seems to indicate that Dove just hates her poetry, which is fair enough, but not a good basis for the editing of a poetry anthology.

As for Kerouac...well, some of the reviews of the anthology have been kind about his writing while discussing its absence from the book, but prejudice against him is so deep-rooted in 'respectable' circles an editor who could afford to buy Manhattan probably wouldn't include him. The professor of American Literature at Northampton University described Jack's Essentials of Spontaneous Prose as 'hippie shit' in a lecture only last year. I forced him to admit he was wrong in a private discussion in his office a few days later, but I'm sure his submission was only made to prevent me from breaking the furniture.

Ginsberg: The Ugly Spectre of Revisionism

also published at Suffolk Punch (http://bluefredpress.blogspot.com/)

The rather wonderful Allen Ginsberg blog (http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com) reminds us that Allen's poetry has been left out of Rita Dove's Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry.


WHAT??? Who the hell is going to represent American poetry at mid-century and into the Sixties then? Robert Lowell?? Kenneth Patchen??


This doesn't warrant a polite "Boo!", Ginsberg people, it warrants a howl, if you'll pardon the pun, of objection. It's philistinism. Absolute philistinism. And an absurd attempt to rewrite history, excluding the only serious challenge to the strangulating dullness of respectable literary life in those times.


I recommend we all write emails and letters of strenuous complaint and refuse to buy any more Penguin books until they correct their ridiculous error


footnote:
Well, I say the ONLY serious attempt, but I find that Kerouac's not in there either. Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti are, which is fine, but by no stretch of the imagination could it be said that they've written work of the same profound, original, epoch-making significance as Ginsberg and Kerouac. And I think they'd probably both tell you that too.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal: Three Poems

WITHOUT LANGUAGE

Without words,

books, and dictionaries,

the silent type might rule.

Without language,

there’d be no use for pens

and ink.  Our tangled

nets would fill with fish

and their smell could not

be described.  They would

not be fish.  On cold nights

we would shiver and cough.

The rotting corpses would

not have names.  Home

would be a place and there

would be no word for it.  Sound

would fill our ears and

the sky would just be a thing

like the sunset would be something

without a name.   Home would

be where we dream and like

everything it could not be

described.  The wind would be

soothing like your soft kiss.

There would be no word for love

without language.

THE CRYING WOMAN

I heard the crying woman in the yard last night.  She does not come around as often as before.  I have never seen her.  I only hear her cries.  She is an apparition, a ghost.  She only appears to some of the neighbors, who describe her as lean, with fair skin, and long hair.  I hear she grew up around these parts.  She died after she lost her husband in the first World War.   She drowned in her bathtub leaving behind a small note.  I am going to meet my soldier.  She did not sign it.  I cannot sleep a wink when I hear her cries.  She makes me feel like crying too.  It is so infectious.  It sounds like she’s pouring out her soul to love long gone.  I could not comfort her because I have troubles of my own.

HOMEMADE GRAVE

The invisible woman wept transparent tears.

She sealed her heart away.

She walled her heart and remained at home

inside her homemade grave.

In the airless room the disappeared woman

welcomed no strangers.

She preferred to be alone because she could

not be with her one true love.

The invisible woman believed heaven was

in her room and thought

she was blessed and completely dead

inside her homemade grave.

Luis was born in Mexico.  He lives in Los Angeles County and works in the mental health field.  His last chapbook, Digging A Grave, was published by

Kendra Steiner Editions.   Alternating Current will publish his chapbook, Peering Into The Sun, and Poet's Democracy will publish his chapbook,

Songs For Oblivion.

David Nix: Two Poems

Midnight Meanderings

Dark and twisty

The ash of a cigarette

Spiraling down to oblivion

Never good enough

Used and tossed away

With the filth

Tired but conscious

The ache of an old scar

Pondering endless nothings

Endless everythings

To only return

Alive but dead

Blazing into silence

I am alone.

So It Goes

Cultural boundaries hide nebulous           

          quandaries.

All I see are dull people,

arguing dull topics,

with other dull people.

Is it enough to live?

It is enough to die, apparently.

I can’t express my deepest feelings,

but I can ride a mule.

Let’s pick and choose

because it suits our idea of perfection.

Ambitions outweigh our commissions      

          and omissions.

What even is perfection?

Is it our elitist, exclusive

communities of righteousness?

Letting no one in

and no one out?

Fuck that.

It’s not about you.

It’s about everyone.

And everything.

The meek are on a losing streak, so to      

          speak.

I’m not arguing the idea,

only the practice.

I have no doubt.

I’m just fed up

with the bullshit.

Cliques reject you,

parents hate you,

job enrages you,

and you’re left with the one

who loves you.

I get it.

No one is mistaken, they just need to        

          reawaken.

It’s global.

It’s viral.

When devotion becomes zeal,

that’s when you have to watch out.

I just don’t get it.

Live and let live.

Let.

Live.

Is my point.

Because murder is ok

if you’re told to do it.

You know.

I’m comfortable with the     

          unobservable.

People are going to be petty and vile.

You have to accept it.

I don’t know I’m right.

I don’t know much.

But what I do know

is when that sun chases the moon

around the Earth to bring the night,

it goes on.

And on.

A few words for David Nix  midnightmeanderings.tumblr.com.

Hey everyone! My name is David Nix and I am currently a student at George Mason University and an English major with a concentration in Poetry Writing. I started my college career as a physics major, switching to English because I decided I liked the power of words more than the power of numbers. I hope you enjoy my poems!

Editor's Note

All poets waiting to see their contributions appear on this august page are advised that we will be approximately a week later than planned in publishing them. This couldn't be avoided, but once we get back on schedule we'll let you know. The Beatnik.

Neil Ellman

 

 

In Love

I am in love

with stars, tarantulas and you

porcupines, pyramids

cellophane

and mayonnaise

Picasso and gumbo-limbo trees

the frost on the morning cloak

shredded paper raining down

on streets

crowded with asteroids

and caviar

with you as well

as the smell of lavender

and the touch

of a stranger on the train

no stranger than

the love I have for you.

Snake

Coiled conceit

unraveling

           

in arms

cold to the touch

the cobra springs

           shedding skin

                   (not  yet her own)—

and I trusted you

for what you were.

From Your Side of the Sun

On your side of the sun

  insinuations

            spread

       this     &      that

              secrets

          in cold colors

         white fireflies

         contained in

         incandescent jars

it never stops

                these rumors

                recriminations

                age define

       dark spots on an old man’s face

       suggesting spittle from its mouth

      certainty

      when there is none.

Vodka

Vodka becomes me

i, it

we are friends

from the playgrounds

of our youth

old lovers

behind a barn

grappling

in the grass

we climbed

Everest

it and I

plunged to the soft

bottom

of the Mariana Trench

where no neighbors

could see us

nothing touch us

we had no shame

where shame itself

was light

no remorse

we grow old

really old

i and it

fulfilling our pledge

till death do us part.