Professor Norm has decided that Thursday is going to be "poetry day" around his joint. Super coolness. He's also running another one of his infamous polls asking about our favorite English language poets (mine remains, as ever, Dylan Thomas, especially "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" . While doing a Google search to find a good link to a copy of this poem, I was terribly depressed by the number of returns for research papers available for a price. I know cheating has been a part of the educational institution forever, but the fact that the internet has made it so easy is disgusting).
Anyhoo, Allen Ginsberg's masterpiece Howl turns 50 very soon, and today's E-Verse Radio newsletter had a ton of links about it. City Lights Bookstore will be having a year-long celebration. Here's a great article about Ginsberg's first reading in San Francisco. Here's an piece in the Guardian about it as well, though it is preceded by a number of corrections regarding the liberal use of facts in the original article and the caption under the accompanying photo has Ginsberg's first name misspelled, so I'm not sure how much it's worth, though there's plenty to talk about in terms of the poem's impression on a generation, good or bad. From the Guardian:
"That evening, on October 7 1955, had an extraordinary resonance," said Simon Warner, a former rock musician (see correction - Emily) who lectures in popular music at Leeds. "It woke up a generation dulled by McCarthyism and the repressive conformity imposed by the cold war."Its return coincides with renewed tension at the grip of "American values" and growing unease over the lone superpower's dealings with the world.
Ginsberg, who died in 1997 aged 71, was a textbook outsider: Jewish, gay and the child of socialist parents. He worked as a seaman, dishwasher, spot-welder and night porter before his poetry brought him fame, notoriety and royalties.
Veterans of the original recital, which saw the poet sing his lines like a synagogue cantor as his confidence grew, while Kerouac chanted "Go, go, go" from the front row of the audience, still recall a sense of taking part in history. The feeling that youth and nonconformity were at last striking back engulfed the Bay area, then the US and much of the western world.
Part exaggerated bullshit, part true, though I can't imagine that anyone in the original audience, except perhaps in hindsight, would have had any reason to believe they were "taking part in history" to have watched a then-unknown poet, no matter how theatrical or emotionally charged, simply read a piece of his work. I still find the insistence at glorifying every moment that led up to the the late sixties an overly-romantic distortion conjured by either those that were there and have nothing left to celebrate or those that were not and only know it from pictures and the hyperbolized memory of others.
Now go send the Professor the names of your favorite poets.
Posted by Emily at October 6, 2005 08:43 AM | TrackBack (1) |I would LOVE to have been there at that first reading. What a trip.
Posted by: red at October 6, 2005 09:18 AMSlightly OT, but, what is the purpose of a research paper? Especially, in light of the way information is transmitted in the age of the computer and the internet?
Even when I did them for college in the early 80s (before word processing and obviously the internet) I found these exercises an incredible waste of time.
Posted by: JFH at October 6, 2005 09:18 AMSheila,
I know. I can just see Jack Kerouac in the front shouting "go, go, go!" and Ginsberg started winding up. I've heard recorded versions of subsequent readings, but they're certainly not the same (incidentally, I know you're not a big fan of Kerouac's, but I've got these great tapes of Allen Ginsberg reading The Dharma Bums. They are AMAZING.
JFH,
I loved writing papers. Even for subjects I didn't particularly enjoy. But I seriously don't understand your question as to why someone would write a research paper about literature or poetry? I think an individual exploration of an author's meaning, intent, purpose, and style is very necessary. Anyone can just read someone else's thoughts and parrott them like a mindless tool.
As for research in other subjects like science, I imagine it's done for the purpose of discovery. We have yet to conquer technology and mystery.
I'm sorry if my answer sounds condescending, but like I said, I don't think I fully understand the question.
Posted by: Emily at October 6, 2005 09:27 AMI know I've told you before, Emily, about the Beat exhibit I went to at the Whitney Museum a couple years ago - Just amazing. They had these incredible photographs of Jack Kerouac doing readings - they had all of Dennis Hopper's photos - they had Kerouac's typewriter as well as the long roll of paper that "On the Road" was on - and all of Allen Ginsberg's photographs. Fascinating.
Posted by: red at October 6, 2005 09:38 AMThere was a similar exhibit somewhere in SF that I went to ages ago. I thought it was a bit over-the-top on the worship-meter, as you might expect in San Francisco, but still interesting.
But going to City Lights was still almost like a religious experience for me.
Posted by: Emily at October 6, 2005 09:55 AMCity Lights is so so cool. When I lived in San Fran, and was out of work, I went and sat there every day. Just to read, and chill out.
Posted by: red at October 6, 2005 10:00 AMThere used to be a great bookstore in Hermosa Beach. You know, sort of dusty and so welcoming that you feel like you could spend hours there and nobody would mind. The kind of place that had a pet cat. Do you know what I mean? When I got back from Humboldt it was gone. I was depressed for months. I'm not opposed to the giant retail places like B&N and Borders or anything. They have pretty wide selections and very affordable prices, but sometimes you just want the cozy place run by the Birkenstock lady.
Posted by: Emily at October 6, 2005 10:09 AMOh man. Definitely. I love book stores with pet cats. If I really need to find a specific book, I definitely go to Barnes & Noble or Borders - but to hang out, and browse? I love those little dusty places.
Posted by: red at October 6, 2005 10:13 AMAt my local B & N, a lot of people go there to study. Study! Huh? Would you have ever said to yourself "I need to study. I think I will go to the bookstore"?
Thomas,
Did you send those to the professor?
It's too loud at most B&Ns for me to get any real work done - they play music, it's crowded - too distracting for study.
Posted by: red at October 6, 2005 10:28 AMThat's my main problem, but I'm kind of extreme when it comes to studying. I get distracted too easily, so I would always have to go to the furthest corner of the library and bury myself in a cubicle until I got my work done. If I bumped into anyone I knew, sat near a shelf of interesting books, anything...that's it. My study time was OVER.
Posted by: Emily at October 6, 2005 10:31 AMRead Kipling's "Sons of Martha" and guess, then, this engineer's opinion of beat poetry.
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at October 6, 2005 10:32 AMI know that poem pretty well, though I would have preferred you were a little more specific in your own words, Walter.
Posted by: Emily at October 6, 2005 11:04 AMSpeaking of Edna St. Vincent Millay, I'd like to tell y'all that Marion Ross is playing Ms. Millay in a one-woman show in my hometown.
Let me say it again:
MRS. C is playing "bohemian poet" Edna St. Vincent Millay (Average Marionite: Who the what now?) at the local "Cultural and Civic Center."
I have to laugh.
Here's the link if you don't believe me:
http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2005/10/04/top/13857444.txt
Oh, and my favorite poem is "When You Are Old" by Yeats.
Posted by: Lisa at October 6, 2005 11:10 AMI've never seen her in anything except "Happy Days," so I couldn't even begin to guess how she'd carry the part.
Posted by: Emily at October 6, 2005 11:11 AM"Lake Isle of Innesfree" is also good, Lisa. Yeats has it all over Eliot (the blowhard). Kipling is also very good.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, anyone?
Posted by: Nightfly at October 7, 2005 01:37 PM