THE BEAT GENERATION

THE LAST GATHERING OF BEATS POETS & ARTISTS, CITY LIGHTS BOOKS North Beach, San Francisco 1965 Lawrence Ferlinghetti wanted to document the 1965 Beat scene in San Francisco in the spirit of the early 20th century classic photographs of the Bohemian artists & writers in Paris.The Beats, front row L to R: Robert LaVigne, Shig Murao, Larry Fagin, Leland Meyezove (lying down), Lew Welch, Peter Orlovsky. Second row: David Meltzer, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Langton, Steve (friend of Ginsberg), Richard Brautigan, Gary Goodrow, Nemi Frost. Back row: Stella Levy, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Because this is a vertical image about half of the Beats attending are not shown.

Allen Ginsberg, Bob Donlon (Rob Donnelly, Kerouac’s Desolation Angels), Neal Cassady, myself in black corduroy jacket, Bay Area poets’ “Court Painter” Robert La Vigne & poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in front of his City Lights Books shop, Broadway & Columbus Avenue North Beach. Donlon worked seasonally as Las Vegas waiter & oft drank with Jack K., Neal looks good in tee shirt, Howl first printing hadn’t arrived from England yet (500 copies), we were just hanging around, Peter Orlovsky stepped back off curb & snapped shot, San Francisco spring 1956, 1956, gelatin silver print, printed 1984–97, 11 1/8 x 16 3/4 in. (28.3 x 42.6 cm), National Gallery of Art, Gift of Gary S. Davis. © 2012 The Allen Ginsberg LLC. All rights reserved.

“He looked by that time like his father, red-faced corpulent W.C. Fields shuddering with mortal horror…” Thus reads the inscription of a photo depicting American icon Jack Kerouac and taken by Allen Ginsberg in 1964 — just a few years before the former’s death. Far from the exuberant youth depicted in earlier photos, this portrait offers an entirely different image of Kerouac: that of the aging alcoholic, slumped dejectedly in a battered armchair.

Beat Memories presents an in-depth look at the Beat Generation  as seen through the lens of Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997). Although well known for his poetry, Ginsberg was also an avid photo- grapher, capturing the people and places around him in spontaneous, often intimate snapshots. His black-and-white photographs include portraits of William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, and others, along with self-portraits. The images not only are revealing portrayals of celebrated personalities, but also convey the unique lifestyle and spirit of the Beats

The Beat movement, also called Beat Generation, American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s and centred in the bohemian artist communities of San Francisco’s North Beach, Los Angeles’ Venice West, and New York City’s Greenwich Village. Its adherents, self-styled as “beat” (originally meaning “weary,” but later also connoting a musical sense, a “beatific” spirituality, and other meanings) and derisively called “beatniks,” expressed their alienation from conventional, or “square,” society by adopting an almost uniform style of seedy dress, manners, and “hip” vocabulary borrowed from jazz musicians. Generally apolitical and indifferent to social problems, they advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism. Apologists for the Beats, among them Paul Goodman, found the joylessness and purposelessness of modern society sufficient justification for both withdrawal and protest.

Beat poets sought to liberate poetry from academic preciosity and bring it “back to the streets.” They read their poetry, sometimes to the accompaniment of progressive jazz, in such Beat strongholds as the Coexistence Bagel Shop and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. The verse was frequently chaotic and liberally sprinkled with obscenities but was sometimes, as in the case of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956), ruggedly powerful and moving. Ginsberg and other major figures of the movement, such as the novelist Jack Kerouac, advocated a kind of free, unstructured composition in which the writer put down his thoughts and feelings without plan or revision—to convey the immediacy of experience—an approach that led to the production of much undisciplined and incoherent verbiage on the part of their imitators. By about 1960, when the faddish notoriety of the movement had begun to fade, it had produced a number of interesting and promising writers, including Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Philip Whalen, and Gary Snyder, and had paved the way for acceptance of other unorthodox and previously ignored writers, such as the Black Mountain poets and the novelist William Burroughs.

Gregory Corso

Gregory Corso

By Denise Enck

Gregory Corso passed away on January 19, 2001 at the age of 70, after a long illness. Corso was one of the major figures of the Beat Generation. He was a poet, painter, traveler, and occasional lecturer. His vibrant, vital, authentic poetry celebrates the mystery of life and death through everyday detail and mystic visions.

Though he never gained the truly widespread fame that his fellow Beats Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs enjoyed, his work had an impact on contemporary poetics that continues to this day.

His poetry has earned praise from many. Jack Kerouac is quoted as saying (on the back cover of Corso’s “Gasoline”) “I think that Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg are the two best poets in America and that they can’t be compared to each other.

Gregory Corso, Marin Headlands, 1978 © Larry Keenan

Gregory was a tough young kid from the Lower East Side who rose like an angel over the rooftops and sang Italian songs as sweet as Caruso and Sinatra, but in words. ‘Sweet Milanese hills’ brood in his Renaissance soul, evening is coming on the hills. Amazing and beautiful Gregory Corso, the one & only Gregory the Herald. Read slowly and see.”

Bob Dylan has spoken about how the early Beat writing, and particularly Ginsberg’s “Howl,” Ferlinghetti’s “Coney Island of the Mind,” and Corso’s “Gasoline” awakened him to new possibilities of the written word.

Corso was born in Greenwich Village, New York, on March 26, 1930. He had a turbulent childhood, his mother abandoning the family to return to Italy, and his father unable to offer much support. Gregory was a chronic runaway, and was in and out of jail during his adolescence.

He began reading & writing poetry while serving time in prison for theft. Shortly after his release, he met Allen Ginsberg in a Greenwich Village bar, and, after showing Ginsberg some of his poems, the two became close friends. Allen Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac, Burroughs, and his other literary friends. Thus was the beginning of a great literary career.

Some of Gregory Corso’s major publications are:

• “The Vestal Lady on Brattle & Other Poems,  1955
• Gasoline,  1958
• The Happy Birthday of Death,  1960
• The American Express,  1961
• Long Live Man,  1962
• Elegaic Feeling American
• 1970
• The Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit,  1981
• Mindfield: New and Selected Poems,  1989

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Here’s some more info on Gregory Corso:

• tributes to Gregory by fellow poets in Woodstock Journal, 2000 – 2001
• Robert Creeley’s remembrance of Gregory Corso. Includes some links too.
• the text of six of Gregory Corso’s poems is found here
• Gregory Corso’s page at the Modern American Poetry site

Last Night I Drove a Car

Last night I drove a car
not knowing how to drive
not owning a car
I drove and knocked down
people I loved
…went 120 through one town.

I stopped at Hedgeville
and slept in the back seat
…excited about my new life.

Online Source

Destiny

They deliver the edicts of God
without delay
And are exempt from apprehension
from detention
And with their God-given
Petasus, Caduceus, and Talaria
ferry like bolts of lightning
unhindered between the tribunals
of Space and Time

The Messenger-Spirit
in human flesh
is assigned a dependable,
self-reliant, versatile,
thoroughly poet existence
upon its sojourn in life

It does not knock
or ring the bell
or telephone
When the Messenger-Spirit
comes to your door
though locked
It’ll enter like an electric midwife
and deliver the message

There is no tell
throughout the ages
that a Messenger-Spirit
ever stumbled into darkness

Online Source

GREGORY CORSO

Gregory Corso biography
Quick Facts
NAME: Gregory Corso
OCCUPATION: Poet
BIRTH DATE: March 26, 1930
DEATH DATE: January 17, 2001
PLACE OF BIRTH: New York, New York
PLACE OF DEATH: Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Full Name: Gregory Nunzio Corso

Gregory Corso was a troubled youth who spent time in prison and grew up to become one of the leading voices of the Beat poetry movement.

Born in New York City in 1930, poet Gregory Corso became one of the leading voices of the Beat movement along with his friend and mentor, Allen Ginsberg. His poetry is known for its imagery, directness and rebellious tone. Notable collections include The Vestal Lady on Brattle (1955) and The Mutation of the Spirit (1964).

Contents
Synopsis
Early Life
Beat Poets
Poetry Career
Lifestyle and Death

Early Life

Gregory Nunzio Corso was born to teenage parents in New York City on March 26, 1930. His mother abandoned him as an infant, and he had a troubled youth that included a span of foster homes, orphanages and a months-long stint in prison while awaiting trial for selling stolen goods at the age of 12. The stay was hard on the boy, and he was hospitalized under observation for months after his acquittal. He served time again when he was 16, for robbery. Having missed out on a traditional education, Corso took time to educate himself while incarcerated.

Beat Poets

After he was released from prison, Corso traveled the country working a series of odd jobs. In 1950, Corso met Allen Ginsberg in a bar in Greenwich Village, a chance encounter that would change his life. Ginsberg was intrigued by the potential he saw in Corso’s poems. He introduced the new poet to less-conventional poetry styles and to his social circle, a group that included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. In 1954, Corso moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and spent extended amounts of time reading poetry at the Harvard University library. The Harvard Advocate published his first poems.

In 1956, Corso moved to San Francisco, where the Beat movement was taking off. As the Beat poets gained notoriety and success, they began to travel the country together. In the late 1950s, they lived in Paris, all sharing one bed in a hotel near St. Michel. Corso also lived in England and central Europe for several years.

Poetry Career

Corso’s poetry is known for his diverse vocabulary, imagery, directness, sense of humor and, most of all, rebellious nature. Corso is frequently referred to as the “bad boy” of the Beat poets. He authored more than 20 books of poetry, including The Vestal Lady on Brattle (1955), The American Express (1961) and The Mutation of the Spirit (1964).

Lifestyle and Death

Corso was a heroin addict. He struggled financially and at times sold his notebook of poetry for drug money. In his later career, he taught at universities, including New York University. In 1965, the State University of New York at Buffalo fired Corso after he refused to sign a legal document denying membership in the Communist Party. He was married three times and was survived by his three daughters and two sons. Corso died of prostate cancer on January 17, 2001, in Robbinsdale, Minnesota.

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Some Gregory Corso: Online Poems

Last Night I Drove a Car

Last night I drove a car
not knowing how to drive
not owning a car
I drove and knocked down
people I loved
…went 120 through one town.

I stopped at Hedgeville
and slept in the back seat
…excited about my new life.

Online Source

Destiny

They deliver the edicts of God
without delay
And are exempt from apprehension
from detention
And with their God-given
Petasus, Caduceus, and Talaria
ferry like bolts of lightning
unhindered between the tribunals
of Space and Time

The Messenger-Spirit
in human flesh
is assigned a dependable,
self-reliant, versatile,
thoroughly poet existence
upon its sojourn in life

It does not knock
or ring the bell
or telephone
When the Messenger-Spirit
comes to your door
though locked
It’ll enter like an electric midwife
and deliver the message

There is no tell
throughout the ages
that a Messenger-Spirit
ever stumbled into darkness

Online Source

The Mad Yak

I am watching them churn the last milk they’ll ever get from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his — I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they’ll do with his bones?
And that beautiful tail!
How many shoelaces will they make of that!

ORIGINAL BEATS-HERBERT HUNCKE AND GREGORY CORSO

Original Beats: Gregory Corso and Herbert Huncke

City of Strangers

youtube width=”560″ height=”400″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbY6KXPg6wY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Often overshadowed by the Beat triumvurate of Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac, Herbert Huncke and Gregory Corso were nonetheless integral to the Beat family and, on a personal level at least, often the most interesting. Both had been in jail (the same jail though not at the same time), both, in contrast to the Big Three who were all Columbia Grads, were self taught.

I never read a lot of Corso because he mostly wrote poetry and I don’t read a lot of poetry. I still have my copy of Huncke’s ‘The Evening Sun Turned Crimson‘, which, despite a relative lack of artlessness, is direct, honest, even charming. Huncke details his early life hustling, plumbing the depths of drug addiction (I still recall, even years after I read the book, Huncke describing walking into Alphabet City with open sores on his face after scratching his skin raw shooting speed). This kind of thing has been done to death (literally), but Huncke was the firstest, even amongst the Beats, and his stories about the people he met along the way – drag queens, hustlers, junkies, and general people around the city – often have warmth, even tenderness, even when he described the most desperate characters.
Herbert Huncke and Allen Ginsberg 1960s
Corso I remember most from ‘The Beat Hotel’, a dive hotel in Paris where Corso lived and shared a bed with Ginsberg and Ginsberg’s love Peter Orlovsky. Not that Corso got into any kinky three way thing. Corso knew from his days in jail that he was into chicks, and chicks only – they shared a bed because they had no heat.

In contrast to the gaunt, priestlike (or creepy, depending on your point of view) Burroughs, who lived in his own room on an upper floor, the three younger men (and Corso was the youngest of all) run wild like especially Rabelesian college kids on a spree. Invited to meet the French surrealists, they arrive ecstatically drunk, crawl around on all fours barking like dogs in what they thought was an appropriately Surrealist action. Corso, I think it was, jumped on Breton’s lap and chewed on his tie. Breton and most of the other guests, good Parisian bourgeoisie despite their pretensions, were not amused by this behaviour. Duchamp, the exception, was charmed by their very American irreverence and energy.

These guys were still around when I first got to New York. I had a friend who knew Huncke through Robert Frank. Huncke used to come by his place on East 3rd, bum cigarettes and talk. He was a great talker apparently. I missed meeting him one afternoon by a few minutes apparently. I missed meeting Ginsberg as well, which I regret less, having been oggled by the Great Man in the East Village a couple of times. I don’t say this out of any vanity – if you were under 30 and male and in the East Village before 1995, you were likely oggled by Allen Ginsberg.

In this charming half-hour short by film-maker Francois Bernadi, which was shot in 1996 shortly before Herbert Huncke’s death, Corso and Huncke read at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project and are interviewed separately. Corso is irascible, brittle; Huncke is more amenable, sitting at a desk in his room in the Chelsea Hotel. We see the lobby of the Chelsea, and the 42nd that Huncke first discovered in the ’50s. Of this discovery, Huncke says:

“I liked the lights, I liked the way people moved. It was fresh . . . people seemed a lot freer in their actions than people did elsewhere.”

Corso, who also hustled on 42nd for a time, getting older men to take him out to dinner then running off, remembers the Deuce in less romantic terms:

“The most deplorable area to hang around – only the lowest of the low hang around there, if you’ve got nothing to offer society or even themselves . . . there was no class there.”

When I first moved to New York, the Beat tradition lived on, in places like the Tribes gallery, Nuyorican Cafe, in countless places now long gone, and amongst the Unbearables, Sensitive Skin Magazine, Red Tape. By the mid-’90s, the Beats were becoming a brand, more famous for their lives than their books, endlessly imitated in form if not in spirit. Some of these groups, or former members of these groups survive in rent-controlled apartments, in places they were lucky enough to buy when the real estate was still cheap. But no one would call the East Village bohemian now.
Gregory Corso in sunglasses
With thanks to Dangerous Minds where I found this video

“ORIGINAL BEATS” FILM BY FRANCOIS BERNADINE -HERBERT HUNCKE AND GREGORY CORSO

 

 

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/CbY6KXPg6wY