Posted by NikkiT2 on July 22, 2001, at 15:34:02
In reply to Re: favorite poets? » kid_A, posted by Cam W. on July 22, 2001, at 11:13:02
I have always hated poetry... Then one night, late on tv, there was Ginsberg reading his own poetry, and isnging one of them... it was amazing and I so wished I'd videoed it..
I still find most poetry rushes staight over my head, but theres soomething about beat poetry I adore....
nikki xx
> Kid - Dude, I knew there was something I liked about you. Beat poetry is great. Ginsberg's "Kaddish" is cool when you realize he is dealing with his own mortality through his mother's death, while high on morphine (I believe). Much of beat poetry was written in altered states, but, because of this, I think that some of it reaches a little deeper into the primitive parts of our brains; adding another piece to the puzzle we call life.
>
> BTW - I am sure that you have read Kerouac' "On the Road", but have you read "Off the Road" by Carolyn Cassady (Neil's long suffering wife). Like Rock Scully's scathing tome "Living with the Dead", "Off the Road" tears off the glamour and mystique of the original Beats and shows the all too real inbetween times.
>
> I believe that you would have to special order "Off the Road". I know my wife ordered it from the publisher for my birthday a few years back and it cost her a small fortune (relatively).
>
> One of Ginsberg's shorter poems that I have always liked is "To Lindsay". To me, it deals with those flashes of the past one gets when doing something by rote (eg. driving to work or on a highway).
>
> To Lindsay
>
> Vachel, the stars are out
> dusk has fallen on the Colorado road
> a car crawls slowly across the plain
> in the dim light the radio blares its jazz
> the heartbroken salesman lights another cigarette
> In another city 27 years ago
> I see your shadow on the wall
> you're sitting in your suspenders on the bed
> the shadow hand lifts up a Lysol bottle to your head
> your shade falls over the floor
>
> Allen Ginsberg - 1958
>
> Of course, this must be read with Ginsberg's excitely-infectious delivery, for full effect.
>
> Thanks Kid - Cam
poster:NikkiT2
thread:7677
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010717/msgs/7770.html