I had an experience this past summer that revived my passion for ginsberg. A gay friend in Mexico, old resident of the bay area & now living as an expat in Oaxaca, pulled out an autographed transcript of HOWL. Sitting in his small living room in his cabin in the mountains, drinking tea, we did a reading together.
It was a very intimate moment, and a distinct connection between the generations. He is in his 50s, I'm in my 20's. He lived to know Ginsberg as a young man, I came on the scene way too late. But our love for Ginsberg was palpable, and was a beautiful connection that went beyond the erotic. It isn't the first time this has happened.
For me at least, Allen Ginsberg's poetry has opened many windows of friendship and appreciation for others. There is just something about having such a powerful gay poet in our "lineage" that helps foster connection and kinship. Does anyone else feel the same way?
It was a very intimate moment, and a distinct connection between the generations. He is in his 50s, I'm in my 20's. He lived to know Ginsberg as a young man, I came on the scene way too late. But our love for Ginsberg was palpable, and was a beautiful connection that went beyond the erotic. It isn't the first time this has happened.
For me at least, Allen Ginsberg's poetry has opened many windows of friendship and appreciation for others. There is just something about having such a powerful gay poet in our "lineage" that helps foster connection and kinship. Does anyone else feel the same way?
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Oregon
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Re: Reading Ginsberg
Fri, November 17, 2006 - 3:47 PMI'm not sure Ginsberg's homosexuality is the key to increased connection kick & openness necessarily, how about his brave weird human candour instead, above beyond & below sexuality? Or in addition, I mean? I was a Kerouac man for years but recently my attention & interest's shifted to Ginsberg - the rawness & hopefulness of his example - & I was in Tokyo a couple of months ago & showed my friend Max a paragraph of Ginsberg's advice to young poets (where he finishes with 'Cheerful! Help everyone!') & Max read it & said 'God that's SO GOOD' with brighteyed appreciation & glad wonder - both of us straight but Ginsberg's words connecting us to each other & to everyone at once in the instant - it's just the hope & the try & the power in there. I'm less interested in Ginsberg being gay than I am in what that did to his sense of himself & bravery consequent. But do I dig him all the way? That I do. -
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Re: Reading Ginsberg
Sat, November 18, 2006 - 8:40 AMHi Jason,
You might also be interested in the work of James Broughton, a great poet and filmmaker.
You can google his name, but as a starter, try this: www.geocities.com/Paris/Met...ghton.html -
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Re: Reading Ginsberg
Tue, November 28, 2006 - 11:08 AMGinsberg gay? That's news to me. What I've appreciated about him (one thing, that is) is a sexual openness that often comes out as very unashamed and almost spiritual. We can all learn from this. In this way Ginsberg, gay or not, helps us all to become more comfortable with our sexuality and that is a message that crosses all lines of orientation or gender. -
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Re: Reading Ginsberg
Wed, November 29, 2006 - 4:50 AMFundamentally we are all somewhere on this great spectrum of sexuality, and I think most of us here realize that the labels of our language and culture at the moment are apallingly inappropriate. However, Ginsberg wrote many poems in open awe of male beauty... while I still haven't run into a poem where he will praise the physical beauty of the female form.
My dad has an anecdote when, living in SF in the 60's, he hung out with Ginsberg for an evening. A new Beatles album had come out, and he and his buddy invited Ginsberg over to listen to it. It seems that Ginsberg was interested in getting into my dad's buddy's pants. This is so Ginsberg to me that I treasure this memory, as distorted as it may have gotten with the years... -
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Re: Reading Ginsberg
Thu, November 30, 2006 - 12:48 AMGood point, Lorenzo, though it must be said that Ginsberg seemed to be predominantly innarested in other guys (usually young, straight guys, according to Bill Morgan's recent biography) though it also seems he slept with his fair share of girls too, either during concerted attempts to so-called straighten out his life (homosexuality still widely considered a mental illness & therefore correctable in 40s & 50s) or during orgies or threesomes with (predominantly straight) Peter Orlovsky, etc. Morgan also claims that Ginsberg slept with 'Mardou Fox' (of Kerouac's Subterraneans) & that she damaged his penis by bending it somehow. Who knows? And who cares? I like the zip & boom of the poems language-wise & since the message seems to generally consist of 'Be yourself' Ginsberg's own sexuality is incidental to the point (though the courage it engendered in him must've contributed to the honesty blow-outs he became capable of from Howl on).
Dig the Beatles story!
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Re: Reading Ginsberg
Sat, July 28, 2007 - 4:47 PMI know this is an old post, but I haven't been reading tribe all that regularly.
I really appreciated this post. I too enjoy reading Ginsberg aloud, though I have not had the pleasure of sharing intimate space with anyone who knew Ginsberg when he was young. (Side note: a friend of a friend, Sun Frog, told me once that he'd gone to a reading where Ginsberg tried to pick him up in the men's room.) Earlier in my relationship, my boyfriend and I enjoyed intimate space in which I read Ginsberg's Indian Journals and poetry aloud to him.
I started reading Ginsberg in high school. I'd make a big pot of coffee, then drink coffee, read and take notes, and write all night long. My favorite moments where shortly before dawn when the air had turned cool and the atmosphere had taken on a greenish hue. More recently, my all night jags are more rare but I still associate all night reading binges with Ginsberg and the Beat lineage. Many of my travel experiences have -- out of habit -- included some intense hours of interaction with Ginsberg's work, whether poetry, journals, or prose. My love of Ginsberg has framed much of my literary activity as well as what little "output" I have had.
Anyway,
thanks for introducing the subject.
Jim
