=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 07:59:48 -0500

Reply-To:     Patricia Elliott <pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Patricia Elliott <pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>

Subject:      Re: lurker speaks

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Patricia Elliott wrote:

>

> Mike & Barbara Wirtz wrote:

> >

> > Diane Carter wrote:

> > >

> > > Mike & Barbara Wirtz wrote:

> > > >

> > > > I reread Howl this afternoon...and I think not so much that it is

> > > > misunderstood as suffering from a very specialized and narrow

> > > > audience.   I read it and thought.....period piece...I don't think it

> > > > will transcend time... Usually people can empathsize and relate to

> > > > another's emotional trauma...but it is very difficult to connect to

> > > > Ginsberg in Howl.  I do have an appreciation for the poem...he does

> > > > convey some stunning ideas and displays verbal dexterity and wit...... I

> > > > feel as if people who can relate, would really hoist this poem as the

> > > > icon of the the time and/ or experience...it would be ...the emblem poem

> > > > that it is..  But as a reader, I'm an outsider, gawking  and

> > > > rubber-necking a tragedy I can only witness from afar and listen to the

> > > > howling without ever wanting to howl myself.

> > > > Barb

> > >

> > > Barb,

> > >

> > > Howl, as well as the rest of the poetry of Ginsberg, will stand the test

> > > of time.  You and I obviously come from very different experiences.  When

> > > I first discovered Howl, it literally saved my life.  It was not until he

> > > died and I read the hundreds of memorials posted on various web pages

> > > that I saw in writing what I had known intellectually all along.  That he

> > > truly touched the souls of masses of people, many whom would not be alive

> > > today if his words had not given them the freedom and power to be

> > > themselves.  And beyond that, to write of themselves.  Not only do I

> > > identify with Howl, although I wasn't born until the fifies, I knew that

> > > it marked the beginning of a time when poetry would no longer be the same

> > > again.  It marked a time when no longer would the same limits be placed

> > > on thought or the poetry that came from that thought.  In his incredible

> > > body of work, of which Howl is just the cornerstone, Ginsberg gave us a

> > > new definition of how humanness, every little speck of humanness, could

> > > indeed be poetic.  He also spoke of America, an imperfect America, and

> > > how it is necessary for poets to address the culture which is at their

> > > feet.  But the big thing about Ginsberg is that he was remained positive

> > > in addressing the darkness of the mind and what he saw as the darkness of

> > > America.  While he pointed the the dusty, rotting imageless locomotives,

> > > he also pointed to the sunflower of the soul.

> > >

> > > I cannot understand how you cannot relate to the emotional trauma of

> > > Howl!  How can you possibly not want to howl yourself?   Life is a howl.

> > > I would urge you to start to howl.  Find it inside of yourself.

> > > The rhythm of Ginsberg's poetry is the rhythm of life in America today.

> > > When you say that "I think that Howl and many of his major works...are

> > > limited, and honestly will end up, not as the major voice of the 20th c.,

> > > but a voice of a period for a particular subsect of the population,"  I

> > > have to wonder how much of Ginsberg you have read.  He was a major voice

> > > in the twentieth century but he obviously did not take poetry in the

> > > direction you want it to go.

> > >

> > > You are reading beat literature but you don't really see it as enduring.

> > >  Only time will tell. I for one think it will. But for that to happen

> > > beat literature has to keep being published, being taught in schools and

> > > colleges all over this country equally, so that people continue to read

> > > it, and whole new generations of writers develop their own voices from

> > > the influences of the beats.

> > >

> > > I seriously want to know what path your line of thought takes in terms of

> > > twentieth century poetry.  You mentioned, "I am awed by Plath, Sexton,

> > > Rich, Bishop, Levertov, Walker...Women with strong voices, writing on

> > > issues that concern not only women, but humanity."  What did these women

> > > say that inspired you in a way that Ginsberg does not?  The confessional

> > > mode of writing is a uniquely twentieth century development but although

> > > Plath and Sexton got their concerns out in words, it did not, could not,

> > > save their own lives.  I don't think that their writing will stand the

> > > test of time.  Do you?

> > > DC

> >

> > About the women standing the test of time...you or someone had asked

> > what was the most significant development/work of the 20th C....I think

> > that the voices as a whole is the most significant development...

> > Perhaps as individuals they may not endure...but they spoke up and wrote

> > from a perspective that had been long neglected.  I see it as the most

> > significant development...because I project that women will dominate

> > literature in the 21st C.... at least in America.

> >

> > As for literature saving lives...I have never once thought it was the

> > purpose.  I have never read literature, or chosen literature, on that

> > basis.  My life has not needed saving...and I'm not sure a poet is the

> > one for the job if it were the case.  I'm actually not even concerned

> > about literature as therapy.  I am much more concerned with the

> > expression of ideas and how well  ideas conveyed through

> > devices/technique.  A good idea should be expressed in a way that is

> > beyond compare...perfectly suited... an astounding  synthesis of sound

> > and meaning .

> >

> > As for howling....no thank you.  At times I do feel the need to applaud

> > and cheer... but howl, no.  If I don't like my life or situation, I do

> > something to change it.  And...we are from different worlds....I've

> > always been very lucky in many aspects. I've attended great schools,

> > always had diverse interests...extremely active in dance and

> > sports....and if I want to get high...I run in the desert or push

> > physical endurance somehow.  I do not glamourize drug use nor condone it

> > in any fashion.  I honestly think the beats were great

> > experimenters...and some truly were on quests, but their lives are

> > tragic as a whole.  (and where many thought they had attained

> > enlightenment...or epiphanies...they were just spewing the frazzled

> > synaptic mishaps of an overdose... It does NOT make for great art.  When

> > I read poetry where the poet is obviously wacked, I think "junk"

> > ...not revolutionary, novel, genius driven art)  Ok *grin*...everyone

> > jump on me now.....

> > Barb

> patricia wrote

>         I resist the flame, since you don't need your life saved, you don't

> appreciate the death and rebirth in beat literature that is so important

> to me.  I saw so many people living lifes not of quiet desperation but

> half lifes, zombies through careful little doses of being careful

> "normal" and denial > I burned, I felt i would rather die than live life

> asleep.

>  i don't dispise altered consciousness of the many forms, the most

> dangerous one being in love. I see a herd of women being goaded by

> culture to wear buffant hairdos and i thought beat literature helped the

> ladies let their curls run free like sunshine and summer. I don't know

> about taking my own temperature during the altered states of being but

> the reflections of light after helped illuminate the ideas that got me

> an inch past provincial, and god knows here in kansas where eisenhower

> didn't die and strange is a guy from arkansas, any concept that takes

> you past "taters should be fried" helps fight hate and fear. Perhaps the

> most important aspect of altered conciousness is that we have a "choice

> or even responsibility" of perspective, be it zen or dispair.  We even

> have the right. To experiment in words reflects the deepest experiment

> that in how we think and view the world and in that way all good

> literature affects me and changes me. but of course that is how i define

> good literature. and for me it saves my life every so often. curled in

> my soapbox like a cat, thinking that the great lie is the only sweet thing

 about death is the smell.

> p

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 09:32:30 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Re: forlorn rags of growing old

Comments: To: race@midusa.net

 

In a message dated 97-06-23 05:34:25 EDT, you write:

 

<<

 > >> "Lies! Lies! Lies! I lie, you lie, we all lie!

 > >> There is no us, there is no world, there is no universe,

 > >> there is no life, no death, no nothing--all is meaningless,

 > >> and this too is a lie--O damned 1959!" --Gregory Corso

 > >>

 > >> -leo jilk >>

 

this message has far too many ">>>"s. Nevertheless, i was just wondering if

anyone had seen that amazing painting of greg Corso that was featured in the

'Beat generation'  exhibit that passed through the Whitney about 1 year 1/2

ago? And do you remember who it was by? Anybody?

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 09:39:14 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Re: the last time i committed suicide.

 

In a message dated 97-06-23 07:30:25 EDT, you write:

 

<<  At the end of the movie Harry convinces

 Neal to drink with him.  This is what Neal's step brother did in the "great

 sex letter" (The one that starts off "To have seen a specter isn't

 everything..)  At the beginning of the movie Harry is as you described,

 Neal's pool buddy.

  >>

 

Sorry but i couldn't help thinking it should be changed to "To have seen a

sphyncter isn't everything" I'm sorry i know that's childish but i couldn't

help it. My apologies to Allen Ginsberg or whoever might take this

personally.

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 15:32:53 +0200

Reply-To:     Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Subject:      Re: Zabriskie Point revised

In-Reply-To:  <Pine.A32.3.93.970621105721.5506B-100000@srv1.freenet.calga

              ry.ab.ca>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

Derek A. Beaulieu writes:

>soundtrack for zabriski point also by the grateful dead's own prophet mr.

>jerome j. garcia. in case ya'll didnt know.

>derek

& when the policeman says what's yr name? Mark says "Karl Marx",

& the policeman typewrites "Marx        Carlo", this scene remember me

"On the Road" where Jack Kerouac describes "the dark mind that is

Carlo Marx", i cant' think Michelangelo Antonioni haven't read the

Kerouac's work... ( a quote & a tribute to JK dead a year before?)

 

btw who is really Carlo Marx in "On The Road"? this question is now

keep in my mind,

 

peace&happiness,

---

yrs

Rinaldo. * a beet is a beet *

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 08:23:40 -0600

Reply-To:     "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Organization: Calgary Free-Net

Subject:      Re: Zabriskie Point revised

Comments: To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

In-Reply-To:  <3.0.1.32.19970623153253.00be5594@pop.gpnet.it>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

as to the identity of poor carlo marx lost in the weeds:

well our own allen ginsberg.

the secrets out

there gonna be trouble.

keep yr trenchcoat on  yr fedora down low

derek

 

 

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Rinaldo Rasa wrote:

 

>

> Derek A. Beaulieu writes:

> >soundtrack for zabriski point also by the grateful dead's own prophet mr.

> >jerome j. garcia. in case ya'll didnt know.

> >derek

> & when the policeman says what's yr name? Mark says "Karl Marx",

> & the policeman typewrites "Marx        Carlo", this scene remember me

> "On the Road" where Jack Kerouac describes "the dark mind that is

> Carlo Marx", i cant' think Michelangelo Antonioni haven't read the

> Kerouac's work... ( a quote & a tribute to JK dead a year before?)

>

> btw who is really Carlo Marx in "On The Road"? this question is now

> keep in my mind,

>

> peace&happiness,

> ---

> yrs

> Rinaldo. * a beet is a beet *

>

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 08:27:16 -0600

Reply-To:     "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Organization: Calgary Free-Net

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

In-Reply-To:  <l03020908afd3cd92dfd5@[206.25.67.117]>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

mc (& co)

aint something to be said about eaving the sidewalk alone - weeds & all.

first thot best thot? welli dont know about that - but the firstthough

captures the image as well as that moment of creation. dont editing

distance the creation from the act of creation? distances the child from

the orgasm (to use a strange metaphor.)?

derek

 

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Marie Countryman wrote:

 

>

> This is a good issue for discussion. Spontaneous writing . . . there is

> definately a value, great writing erupts - yet it is with revision, the

> discipline of the writing art form that the literature is perfected.

> When the muse erupts in the body, spontaneously rising, there is nothing

> else to do but document it. Perhaps if one is so perfected in his

> language that the right word rises for every thought / emotion / etc.,

> then stream of consciousness / spontaneous prose is an end to itself.

> ________

> this is exactly what i am finding out. as i can 'trip' w/o the chemicals,

> due to having a somewhat cracked and multi-faceted mind and world view,

> also as one who has tripped as well for the experience of opening the doors

> of perception, i write down madly all that i thought all that has happened

> all the memories,

> first in prose

> then in verse

> again again again rehearse by pruning the garden and pulling the weeds out

> of the  cracks in the eternal sidewalk, etc etc

> also have found a wonderful editor on this list (who will remain nameless

> to protect her from burial under poems, unless s/he decides to uncloak.)

> mc

>

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:29:42 -0400

Reply-To:     Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Subject:      Re: lurker speaks

In-Reply-To:  <33AE7344.45F4@sunflower.com>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

> patricia wrote

>         I resist the flame, since you don't need your life saved, you don't

> appreciate the death and rebirth in beat literature that is so important

> to me.  I saw so many people living lifes not of quiet desperation but

> half lifes, zombies through careful little doses of being careful

> "normal" and denial > I burned, I felt i would rather die than live life

> asleep.

>  i don't dispise altered consciousness of the many forms, the most

> dangerous one being in love. I see a herd of women being goaded by

> culture to wear buffant hairdos and i thought beat literature helped the

> ladies let their curls run free like sunshine and summer. I don't know

> about taking my own temperature during the altered states of being but

> the reflections of light after helped illuminate the ideas that got me

> an inch past provincial, and god knows here in kansas where eisenhower

> didn't die and strange is a guy from arkansas, any concept that takes

> you past "taters should be fried" helps fight hate and fear. Perhaps the

> most important aspect of altered conciousness is that we have a "choice

> or even responsibility" of perspective, be it zen or dispair.  We even

> have the right. To experiment in words reflects the deepest experiment

> that in how we think and view the world and in that way all good

> literature affects me and changes me. but of course that is how i define

> good literature. and for me it saves my life every so often. curled in

> my soapbox like a cat, thinking that the great lie is the only sweet thing

 about death is the smell.

> p

_________

three cheers for patricia. couldn't agree more. distubing the way sexton

and plath wrote their suicide notes time and time again, trapped in

solopstic universes, where only pain was reward.

so different from the reaching out, the broadening of social awareness and

tenderness evoked in AG's poems they are all about life and how to live it,

to all of us at large. i studied plath, i studied saxton i read the

biographies and all i could think of was how sad these women are and how 2

dimensional both personality and writings. technically marvelous poetry, no

doubt about technique. but so hermetically sealed in their gazing into own

navel and snarling at world outside of them.

trauma can make excellent poetry when broadened out to reach others in an

expansive world view that allows poet to write to others and not just to

self or lovers/husbands/shrinks..

as a confessional poet who is always building bridges to get to other side

and dance out the pain with friendship sharing and openess, i must say that

AG did such writing so superbly. his pain is not just for himself, his pain

is for all. i first 'saw' myself in HOWL. and i walk that line carefully

through revisions of my work.

mc

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 08:31:53 +0000

Reply-To:     wirtz@ridgecrest.ca.us

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Mike & Barbara Wirtz <wirtz@RIDGECREST.CA.US>

Subject:      Re: who was around in the 60's?

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

Maya Gorton wrote:

>

> In a message dated 97-06-21 06:46:57 EDT, you write:

>

> <<

>  Sara Feustle wrote:

>  >

>  > I myself am a whopping 21, and I am soooooo pissed off about all the stuff

>  > I missed for being born so late!!!! Anybody else in the same predicament?

>

>  I am 23 and yes I am pissed, thinking about all that I missed. I'm also

>  annoyed being born so early. Imagine what I won't see in the future.

>  Still I wouldn't like to see myself in the mirror at the age of 200. I'd

>  be reeeally ugly. So all things considered, I'm happy.

>

>  -daniel

>

>   >>

> I don't get it.  I sed i was 22 before, but i don't feel like i should have

> been born earlier or later.  I feel JUST right.  I guess knowing that i was a

> gangsta chick in 1940's Chicago in my previous life helps.  I didn't miss a

> thing.  It's all happening NOW as far as i'm concerned.  Sara---just think,

> in a few years, you'll be saggy and wrinkly so enjoy yerself now, while you

> can still get some!

 

Sounds a bit like Miniver Cheevy:

 

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,

        Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;

He wept that he was ever born,

        And he had reasons.

 

Miniver loved the days of old

        When swords were bright and steeds were prancing:

The visions of a warrior bold

        Would set him dancing.

 

Miniver sighted for what was not,

        And dreamed, and rested from his labors;

He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,

        And Priam's neighbors.

 

Miniver mourned the ripe renown

        That made so many a name so fragrant;

He mourned Romance, now on the town,

        and Art, a vagrant.

 

Miniver loved the Medici,

        Albeit he had never seen one;

He would have sinned incessantly

        Could he have been one.

 

Miniver cursed the commonplace

        And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;

He missed the medieval grace

        Of iron clothing

 

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,

        But sore annoyed was he without it;

Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,

        And thought about it.

 

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,

        Scratched his head and kept on thinking;

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,

        And kept on drinking.

 

 

from Edwin Arlington Robinson......

 

Barb

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:37:56 -0400

Reply-To:     Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

In-Reply-To:  <Pine.A32.3.93.970623082432.29216A-100000@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

d: first thought may be best thought, but to make the thought

understandable to others and to craft a poem takes revision, if only a

second draft. too many thoughts (good and otherwise) fill my first draft. i

then need to listen to the voices, and then prune away the extraneous

flying squirrels who shit out of my tree of knowledge. all this is done to

make clearer and more universal the first thought. the end = first

thought+heightened awareness and beauty of form of poem on page.

look for example, as i know you have both, the difference made in editing

the plattsburg pome from first to second drafts. first draft was first

thought; second draft was to make those thoughts leap more clearly onto

page into rhythm of childhood chants and more immediacy of the poet circle

and less fumbling about in my head (the me/not me stanza).

just my way of doing things. works for me,

it also worked for JK who unlike the legend, reworked and edited his first

thoughts  to elevation of art.

mc

 

 

>mc (& co)

>aint something to be said about eaving the sidewalk alone - weeds & all.

>first thot best thot? welli dont know about that - but the firstthough

>captures the image as well as that moment of creation. dont editing

>distance the creation from the act of creation? distances the child from

>the orgasm (to use a strange metaphor.)?

>derek

>

>On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Marie Countryman wrote:

>

>>

>> This is a good issue for discussion. Spontaneous writing . . . there is

>> definately a value, great writing erupts - yet it is with revision, the

>> discipline of the writing art form that the literature is perfected.

>> When the muse erupts in the body, spontaneously rising, there is nothing

>> else to do but document it. Perhaps if one is so perfected in his

>> language that the right word rises for every thought / emotion / etc.,

>> then stream of consciousness / spontaneous prose is an end to itself.

>> ________

>> this is exactly what i am finding out. as i can 'trip' w/o the chemicals,

>> due to having a somewhat cracked and multi-faceted mind and world view,

>> also as one who has tripped as well for the experience of opening the doors

>> of perception, i write down madly all that i thought all that has happened

>> all the memories,

>> first in prose

>> then in verse

>> again again again rehearse by pruning the garden and pulling the weeds out

>> of the  cracks in the eternal sidewalk, etc etc

>> also have found a wonderful editor on this list (who will remain nameless

>> to protect her from burial under poems, unless s/he decides to uncloak.)

>> mc

>>

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:41:18 -0400

Reply-To:     Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Subject:      first thought and revision

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

btw, insp. derek:

them weeds in the sidewalk obscure the cracks in universe in which i slip

with tiny pad .

some weed, some do not

("some cook some do not" ole ezra said this i believe somewhere in them cantos.

ok, enuf

mc

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 10:40:10 -0500

Reply-To:     =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Subject:      TA-DA!

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

 

from literary kicks webside (http://www.charmnet/~Brooklyn/LitKicks.html)

 

'Marriage' by Gregory Corso

 

Thanks to Gene R. Truex (gene.r.truex@dartmouth.edu) for typing this

wonderful poem in.

 

Should I get married? Should I be good?

Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?

Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries

tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets

then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries

and she going just so far and I understanding why

not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!

Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone

and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky-

 

When she introduces me to her parents

back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,

should I sit with my knees together on their 3rd degree sofa

and not ask Where's the bathroom?

How else to feel other than I am,

often thinking Flash Gordon soap-

O how terrible it must be for a young man

seated before a family and the family thinking

We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!

After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?

 

Should I tell them? Would they like me then?

Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter

but we're gaining a son-

And should I then ask Where's the bathroom?

 

O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends

and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded

just wait to get at the drinks and food-

And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated

asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?

And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!

I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back

She's all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!

And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on-

Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes

Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!

All streaming into cozy hotels

All going to do the same thing tonight

The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen

The lobby zombies they knowing what

The whistling elevator man he knowing

Everybody knowing! I'd almost be inclined not to do anything!

Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!

Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!

running rampant into those almost climactic suites

yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!

O I'd live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls

I'd sit there the Mad Honeymooner

devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy

a saint of divorce-

 

But I should get married I should be good

How nice it'd be to come home to her

and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen

aproned young and lovely wanting my baby

and so happy about me she burns the roast beef

and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair

saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!

God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married!

So much to do! Like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night

and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books

Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower

like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence

like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest

grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!

And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him

When are you going to stop people killing whales!

And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle

Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust-

 

Yes if I should get married and it's Connecticut and snow

and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn,

up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me,

finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man

knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear nor Roman coin soup-

O what would that be like!

Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus

=46or a rattle a bag of broken Bach records

Tack Della Francesca all over its crib

Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib

And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon

 

No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father

Not rural not snow no quiet window

but hot smelly tight New York City

seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls

a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!

And five nose running brats in love with Batman

And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired

like those hag masses of the 18th century

all wanting to come in and watch TV

The landlord wants his rent

Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus

impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking-

No! I should not get married! I should never get married!

But-imagine if I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman

tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves

holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other

and we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window

from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days

No, can't imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream-

 

O but what about love? I forget love

not that I am incapable of love

It's just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes-

I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother

And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible

And there's maybe a girl now but she's already married

And I don't like men and-

But there's got to be somebody!

Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married,

all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear

and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me!

 

Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible

then marriage would be possible-

Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover

so i wait-bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life.

 

Literary Kicks

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:01:21 -0400

Reply-To:     Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Subject:      i forgot the thread title -RACE, response to spontaniety

Mime-Version: 1.0

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dave

you pick yr nose hairs

i'll prune my pomes.

no difference.

mc

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:18:47 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: lurker speaks

MIME-Version: 1.0

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Marie Countryman wrote:

>

> > patricia wrote

> >         I resist the flame, since you don't need your life saved, you don't

> > appreciate the death and rebirth in beat literature that is so important

> > to me.  I saw so many people living lifes not of quiet desperation but

> > half lifes, zombies through careful little doses of being careful

> > "normal" and denial > I burned, I felt i would rather die than live life

> > asleep.

> >  i don't dispise altered consciousness of the many forms, the most

> > dangerous one being in love. I see a herd of women being goaded by

> > culture to wear buffant hairdos and i thought beat literature helped the

> > ladies let their curls run free like sunshine and summer. I don't know

> > about taking my own temperature during the altered states of being but

> > the reflections of light after helped illuminate the ideas that got me

> > an inch past provincial, and god knows here in kansas where eisenhower

> > didn't die and strange is a guy from arkansas, any concept that takes

> > you past "taters should be fried" helps fight hate and fear. Perhaps the

> > most important aspect of altered conciousness is that we have a "choice

> > or even responsibility" of perspective, be it zen or dispair.  We even

> > have the right. To experiment in words reflects the deepest experiment

> > that in how we think and view the world and in that way all good

> > literature affects me and changes me. but of course that is how i define

> > good literature. and for me it saves my life every so often. curled in

> > my soapbox like a cat, thinking that the great lie is the only sweet thing

>  about death is the smell.

> > p

> _________

> three cheers for patricia. couldn't agree more. distubing the way sexton

> and plath wrote their suicide notes time and time again, trapped in

> solopstic universes, where only pain was reward.

> so different from the reaching out, the broadening of social awareness and

> tenderness evoked in AG's poems they are all about life and how to live it,

> to all of us at large. i studied plath, i studied saxton i read the

> biographies and all i could think of was how sad these women are and how 2

> dimensional both personality and writings. technically marvelous poetry, no

> doubt about technique. but so hermetically sealed in their gazing into own

> navel and snarling at world outside of them.

> trauma can make excellent poetry when broadened out to reach others in an

> expansive world view that allows poet to write to others and not just to

> self or lovers/husbands/shrinks..

> as a confessional poet who is always building bridges to get to other side

> and dance out the pain with friendship sharing and openess, i must say that

> AG did such writing so superbly. his pain is not just for himself, his pain

> is for all. i first 'saw' myself in HOWL. and i walk that line carefully

> through revisions of my work.

> mc

 

my ex-wife was a big Virginia Woolf fan.  i don't know if that is in the

same women's lineage.  She said I had to read this - and the only time

she'd said that before was with Farina's "Been Down So Long It Looks

Like Up to Me" so i tried and i tried - something about a room bunch of

rants about freedom to be i guess.  hell the whole universe is the room

as far as i'm concerned.  I didn't get it really.  one day i was in

special collections at the University of Iowa and on a lark i looked up

Woolf.  they had this book about VW (the original bug) spending an

entire day shopping for a pencil.  then i got it.  the pencil book

should be Woolf's most famous.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:22:22 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: first thought and revision

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Marie Countryman wrote:

>

> btw, insp. derek:

> them weeds in the sidewalk obscure the cracks in universe in which i slip

> with tiny pad .

> some weed, some do not

> ("some cook some do not" ole ezra said this i believe somewhere in them

 cantos.

> ok, enuf

> mc

 

as an old gardener said "watch which weeds you pull up!"

in the same vein

step on a crack - break your mother's back.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:44:04 -0500

Reply-To:     thomjj01@HOLMES.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Jennifer Thompson <thomjj01@HOLMES.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU>

Subject:      question for david

Mime-Version: 1.0

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david r:

        is your comment about the "forest of arden" aspect of the beat

hotel related to the sexual connotation that AG and JK were always trying

to convey to JC Holmes?

        by the way, where is the beat hotel?  (sorry for the ignorance,

but inquiring minds want to know) *smile*

 

Jenn Thompson

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 18:37:28 +0200

Reply-To:     Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Subject:      Marcel Proust questionnaire (Re: does anyone here speak french?)

Mime-Version: 1.0

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Quel est pour vous le comble de la mise're?

[]

Ou' aimeriez-vous vivre?

[]

Votre ide'al de bonheur terrestre?

[]

Pour quelles fautes avez-vous le plus d'indulgence?

[]

Vos he'ros de romans pre'fe'res?

[]

Votre personnage historique pre'fe're'?

[]

Vos he'roi:nes dans le vie re'elle?

[]

Vos he'roi:nes dans la fiction?

[]

Votre peintre favori?

[]

Votre musicien pre'fe're'?

[]

Votre qualite' pre'fe're'e chez l'homme?

[]

Votre qualite' pre'fe're'e chez la femme?

[]

Votre vertu pre'fe're'e?

[]

Votre occupation pre'fe're'e?

[]

Qui auriez-vous aime' e^tre?

[]

Le trait principal de votre caracte're?

[]

Ce que vouz appre'ciez le plus chez des amis?

[]

Votre principal de'feaut?

[]

Votre re^ve de bonheur?

[]

Quel serait votre plus grand malheur?

[]

Ce que vous voudriez e^tre?

[]

Le couleur que vous pre'fe'rez?

[]

Le fleur que vous aimez?

[]

L'oiseau que vous pre'fe'rez?

[]

Vos auteurs favoris en prose?

[]

Vos poe'tes pre'fe're's?

[]

Vos noms favoris?

[]

Le caracte'res historiques que vous me'prisez le plus?

[]

Le fait militaire que vous admirez le plus?

[]

Le don de la nature que vous voudriez avoir?

[]

Ce que vous de'testez par dessus tout?

[]

Comment aimeriez-vous mourir?

[]

E'tat pre'sent de votre esprit?

[]

Votre devise?

[]

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 18:07:37 +0200

Reply-To:     Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Subject:      Genesis in nuce.

Mime-Version: 1.0

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                Yahweh  by John Cage

 

                 Jabal

                hE was

                tHe

                 Of

                haVE

                 nAme

                  He

 

                  Just

                walkEd

                 with

                   gOd

        filled with Violence

                        And

                flesH

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:19:03 -0500

Reply-To:     =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Subject:      Re: first thought and revision

In-Reply-To:  <33AEA2BE.5A60@midusa.net>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

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RACE --- wrote:

 

>Marie Countryman wrote:

>>

>> btw, insp. derek:

>> them weeds in the sidewalk obscure the cracks in universe in which i slip

>> with tiny pad .

>> some weed, some do not

>> ("some cook some do not" ole ezra said this i believe somewhere in them

> cantos.

>> ok, enuf

>> mc

>

>as an old gardener said "watch which weeds you pull up!"

>in the same vein

>step on a crack - break your mother's back.

>

there were always a lot of weeds in the sidewalk at my aunt's house in

oregon. it was also there that my cousin who had been beaten and sexually

molested by his father told me about the time he tried to kill his mother

with a knife. but somehow, the thing i rember most is the little silver

dish of candies that always sat on a dresser in the front room and my aunt

putting her cripppled legs up on a dark leather chair.

 

-leo

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 14:14:46 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Re: lurker speaks

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>Mike & Barbara Wirtz wrote:

> About the women standing the test of time...you or someone had asked

> what was the most significant development/work of the 20th C....I think

> that the voices as a whole is the most significant development...

> Perhaps as individuals they may not endure...but they spoke up and

>wrote

> from a perspective that had been long neglected.  I see it as the most

> significant development...because I project that women will dominate

> literature in the 21st C.... at least in America.

>

> As for literature saving lives...I have never once thought it was the

> purpose.  I have never read literature, or chosen literature, on that

> basis.  My life has not needed saving...and I'm not sure a poet is the

> one for the job if it were the case.  I'm actually not even concerned

> about literature as therapy.  I am much more concerned with the

> expression of ideas and how well  ideas conveyed through

> devices/technique.  A good idea should be expressed in a way that is

> beyond compare...perfectly suited... an astounding  synthesis of sound

> and meaning .

>

> As for howling....no thank you.  At times I do feel the need to applaud

> and cheer... but howl, no.  If I don't like my life or situation, I do

> something to change it.  And...we are from different worlds....I've

> always been very lucky in many aspects. I've attended great schools,

> always had diverse interests...extremely active in dance and

> sports....and if I want to get high...I run in the desert or push

> physical endurance somehow.  I do not glamourize drug use nor condone

>it

> in any fashion.  I honestly think the beats were great

> experimenters...and some truly were on quests, but their lives are

> tragic as a whole.  (and where many thought they had attained

> enlightenment...or epiphanies...they were just spewing the frazzled

> synaptic mishaps of an overdose... It does NOT make for great art.

>When

> I read poetry where the poet is obviously wacked, I think "junk"

> ...not revolutionary, novel, genius driven art)  Ok *grin*...everyone

> jump on me now.....

> Barb

 

Hi Barb,

 

First of all, about women poets standing the test of time, I truly hope

that great poetry does continue to come from women, but not because they

are women.  There is no male or female in great poetry, only humanity, to

think that you can write from a female perspective and have it last as

female perspective, is a myth.  What you touch in yourself when you write

poetry is the great oneness of the human experience.  And you add to that

experience in one voice, that is neither male nor female, but one

that comes from the huge, expanding river of consciouness that passes

through and connects the minds of all of us.

 

You are lucky that your life has never needing saving, actually maybe not

so lucky, if your experience has kept your life safe and

compartmentalized, because that's not the way of things in the universe.

 No writer that has not touched the great despair of our humannness can

write about great joy.  I am not at all concerned with literature as

therapy but the quest of humanness in all its darkness and light is what

has propelled great literature to be written from Odysseus to now.  "A

good idea should be expressed in a way that is beyond compare...an

astounding synthesis of sound and meaning"...is from my perspective back

to the classical definition of creating a work of art outside of

yourself.  I would rather see each and every moment of life exalted and

poetic, in all its rambling and unrulely glory.

 

I don't think that beat writers glamourized drug use any more than Plath

or Sexton glamourized suicide.  It was a part of their world and a part

of an experimentation that covered all aspects of their lives.  You

should also consider that the use of drugs for some people is not that

different than the endorphin high that you might get from pushing

physical endurance.  Both take you to another level of consciousness, a

level that makes mind and body one, and gives you the space to be at

peace with the comings and goings of your daily existence. I spend my

days interviewing people about why they run or bike, why they incorporate

exercise into their lives, and that "sweet spot" that is reached in

pushing the human body is not that far removed from an addict getting

their hit for the day.  When I was in my twenties, I would have looked at

alcohol or drugs for an answer, now I look to my bicycle.  I would also

ask you to look at the epiphanies or enlightment of any writer and to

examine if they were any different if drugs were used or not. I think

not.  I thing that if you substracted the fact that Kerouac, Ginsberg or

Burroughs used drugs, you would still recognize the brilliance of their

work for what it is.   Have you read Finnegans Wake?  I see beat writers

as pushing the same stream of consciousness/mind into the heart of

American life.

DC

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 14:27:58 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

MIME-Version: 1.0

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Derek A. Beaulieu wrote:

>

> mc (& co)

> aint something to be said about eaving the sidewalk alone - weeds & all.

> first thot best thot? welli dont know about that - but the firstthough

> captures the image as well as that moment of creation. dont editing

> distance the creation from the act of creation? distances the child from

> the orgasm (to use a strange metaphor.)?

> derek

> I think it depends on every individual as to whether the spontaneous flow

is best revised or not.  The key to good revision is to illuminate

without losing the spontaneity of the flow.  I tend to write and revise

in my head, kind of a mind that creates and revises simultaneously so

that by the time my creation hits paper, it is seldom revised again.

DC

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:51:02 -0600

Reply-To:     "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Organization: Calgary Free-Net

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

In-Reply-To:  <33AEEA5E.2ED9@together.net>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Diane Carter wrote:

> Derek A. Beaulieu wrote:

> > mc (& co)

> > aint something to be said about eaving the sidewalk alone - weeds & all.

> > first thot best thot? welli dont know about that - but the firstthough

> > captures the image as well as that moment of creation. dont editing

> > distance the creation from the act of creation? distances the child from

> > the orgasm (to use a strange metaphor.)?

> > derek

> > I think it depends on every individual as to whether the spontaneous flow

> is best revised or not.  The key to good revision is to illuminate

> without losing the spontaneity of the flow.  I tend to write and revise

> in my head, kind of a mind that creates and revises simultaneously so

> that by the time my creation hits paper, it is seldom revised again.

> DC

dc (diane) and co.

by no means am i argueing that marie's way of composing is wrong or flawed

(flod) in any way. she & i been discussing poetry, etc for quite a while &

simply approach composition of poetry in different ways. several things at

play - what are you working at getting FROM yr poetry, what are you doing,

etc. for instance marie referred to herself as a "confessional" poet at

one point (dont remember where) and while that works for her & what she

needs to explore in poetry / words, it aint my bag. not that i cant

appreciate her poetry (exactly the opposite - in fact i'm frequently

humbled by her works)personally - at the moment ive been pushing around

words on page - words themselves - the way they *look*, feel, *act*, move

on the page almost sculpture of form not necessarily meaning. & what works

best for me is immediate interaction w/ page let the synapses fire where

they may & half (or more) falls flat - fine with me. i'll learn for

nexttime. the ACT, to me, is more important that the product (in my word

w(a)(o)nderings).

different ways of approaching wrds.

same core tho.

its all communication from a creator.

derek

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 15:04:36 -0400

Reply-To:     Matthew W Barton <mwb201@IS5.NYU.EDU>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Matthew W Barton <mwb201@IS5.NYU.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

Comments: To: "neudorf@discovland.net" <neudorf@DISCOVLAND.NET>

In-Reply-To:  <33AD8260.307C@discovland.net>

MIME-version: 1.0

Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

        having ignored the world for a spell, i hope i'm not saying

anything that has been said a dozen times already or ignores previous

explanitory statements -- however...  each writer has their own style as

well as method.  one should not attempt to duplicate either.  because one

author feels drugs inversely effect their craftmanship, what leaves you to

assume it will adversely affect all.  such blanket statements have led

more scholars to dismiss the beats, new york's downtown writers and

countless other genres of art created in connection to drugs.  burroughs

does alright by me.  smack wouldn't inspire your failing mind though.  if

your shit stinks before drugs, it sure won't help.  hemingway used to

stand before a podium to write.  he said it focused his whole mind upon

the task at hand.  it could have just been to alleviate the discomfort of

hemroids.  whatever, i wouldn't tell anyone how to write or judge the

product by the means one shapes their medium.  i didn't stand while typing

this.

 

mwbarton.

 

 

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, neudorf@discovland.net wrote:

 

> In response to Mike Skau's:

>

> > Writing on drugs: often I feel that I create some of my best work stoned.

 The

> > problem is that when I look at it again the next morning, I'm so embarrassed

> > that I can only pray that I hadn't somehow shown it to anybody: Ginsberg's

> > "in the morning were stanzas of gibberish." A Hallucination Dissertation

> > Manifesto of Coca, Saturn, and Sun.

>

>

> To paraphrase Gary Snyder, he states that ("The Real Work" interviews)

> if you write

> *under the influence* of psychedelics, it is as if you are entering the

> cave and

> *stopping* at the first gold pieces, instead of experiencing the cave

> for the cave, reaching farther into the cave where the diamonds lie.

> Writing is a form of documentation, and if you are constantly

> documenting, the pure experience, the beauty of the trip is compromised.

>

>         It is more rewarding to write after the fact - a little time for

> contemplation - understanding of the trip - Wordsworth writes: "poetry

> is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings [which is the trip] . .

> . recollected in tranquility" [after the trip].

>

>         This is a good issue for discussion. Spontaneous writing . . . there

 is

> definately a value, great writing erupts - yet it is with revision, the

> discipline of the writing art form that the literature is perfected.

> When the muse erupts in the body, spontaneously rising, there is nothing

> else to do but document it. Perhaps if one is so perfected in his

> language that the right word rises for every thought / emotion / etc.,

> then stream of consciousness / spontaneous prose is an end to itself.

>

> Joseph Neudorfer

>

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:02:57 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Re: first thought and revision

Comments: To: race@midusa.net

 

In a message dated 97-06-23 14:43:24 EDT, you write:

 

<< "watch which weeds you pull up

 in the same vein! ">>

 

I just edited you, race.  It makes a strange kind of sense this way, don't

you think

--------maya.

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 15:06:18 -0500

Reply-To:     Michael Skau <mskau@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Michael Skau <mskau@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>

Subject:      spin

Content-Type: text

 

Hi!

The current issue of _Spin_ has a memorial on Ginsberg: July 1997

issue, pp. 52, 54-55.

Right now I'm only 250 e-mail messages behind. In a couple of

days, I hope to get caught up, so if you sent me a message, don't

think that I'm ignoring you. I just haven't gotten to you yet.

Happy summer to all!

Mike Skau

6/23/97

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 15:14:03 -0500

Reply-To:     thomjj01@HOLMES.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Jennifer Thompson <thomjj01@HOLMES.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU>

Subject:      Re: Eliot and Ginsberg

Comments: To: Pamela Beach Plymell <CVEditions@AOL.COM>

In-Reply-To:  <970619221359_678499326@emout13.mail.aol.com>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

On Thu, 19 Jun 1997, Pamela Beach Plymell wrote:

 

> And both these boys ended up whores of Moloch.

> C. Plymell

>

And Kerouac once either wrote or said, "We're all whores."  I found this

quotation in _Memory Babe_ and have been meaning to ask Gerry for the

original source.  This saying really struck me as insightful; we're all

sell-outs, politicians, master manipulators. wow.

 

Jenn Thompson

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:20:10 -0400

Reply-To:     Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>

Subject:      Re: forlorn rags of growing old

Comments: To: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

In-Reply-To:  <33ADCA8B.55F7@together.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Diane Carter wrote:

 

> Just finished reading On the Road and saw it as pretty sad at the end.

> "...and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides

> the forlorn rags of growing old..."  That line took me back to something

> that Gerald Nicosia said in the Kerouac, meaning of life thread, that

> "the knowledge that 'we are all going to die' was why he [Kerouac]

> wrote."

 

An aside: didn't Kerouac directly say that somewhere? I seem to recall

having heard his voice speak those words -- maybe in the 4-CD _Jack Kerouac

Collection_ [which is a must-have btw, and when my then-girlfriend gave this

to me for my birthday in '93 it was the moment that I somehow knew she'd end

up my wife].

 

> Isn't the knowledge that we are going to die the reason that any writer

> writes?  Isn't that the reason that we also grab onto life, every moment

> of life?  What maybe affected me more was "...all that road going, all

> the people dreaming in the immensity of it,..."  The way Kerouac said it,

> it was a kinda a great thing but a sad thing.  The way I see it, it's a

> great thing and a positive thing, because it is individual dreams that

> pull people out of dispair and what Kerouac came to see as the sadness of

> America.  Anyone out there got an feelings about this?

 

To me, this is the essence of Jack -- I think it was this emotion that was

at the core of what drove him to write. Yeah it's a great thing and a sad

thing at the same time; the chiaroscuro high-low orchestration of Jack

Kerouac prose describes postwar Americana like no other. I wasn't there but

reading him I actually felt it, and could apply it to the now and the

internal moments of my own life -- so he has to use the word "redbrick" a

million times in _Visions of Cody_ and gushes on about candy counters like a

goofball -- it doesn't matter, that starryeyed dreaminess was testament to

his existence as master of grabbing onto life and its every moment.

Self-awareness is knowledge of your own life and damnation, it begets joy

and therefore art.

 

m

 

Michael Stutz

stutz@dsl.org

http://dsl.org/m/

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:27:22 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Re: TA-DA!

 

In a message dated 97-06-23 16:21:18 EDT, you write:

 

<<

 Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible

 then marriage would be possible-(corso) >>

 

yep, that pretty much sums it up for me.

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:51:23 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Collage of songs, (Exit light, enter night.)

 

how 'bout a poem for mah bay-bee

ooh, ya look so good

just a-walkin downda street

singin "evryting's gonna bee ah-ight"

And you know it truly truly is sin

that villains, always, blink their eyes!

 

HEY!

been tryin' to meetcha.

Dontcha know that happiness is a warm gun?

Burnin' a hole in my pocket (silver rocket).

Some men do it for diamonds, some do it for gold.

We danced the Cemetery Polka all night

and partied ev-er-y day.

But momma,

i'm gonna leave it all behind and face the pain.

Under the bridge over troubled water.

'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man

when... the streets have no name.

Base!

How low can you go?

Death Row?

Water buffalo!

So baybeh if ya feelin' good....

 

DISCLAIMER: THE LINES IN THIS POEM ARE NOT ORIGINAL THEY ARE INDIVIDUAL LINES

FROM DIFFERENT SONGS BY OTHER PEOPLE NOT ME.

so i don't wanna hear it ok?

 

Just for fun, how many of these lines can you identify?(singer and song!)

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 17:06:46 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      madness

 

crate, crate, crate.

That's all i do anymore.

Mommee, why did i hafta be born so damn crative?

"Shut yer cake-hole ya fuckin' brat"

Oh god is this one of those poems where i talk to myself.

(not only that but i cuss myself too)

Somebody send me some mail

to keep me from tapping endlessly!

I would rather read your stuff than mine.

And rather than you reading mine, wouldn't you rather i read yours?

(i'll show you mine....)

 

(some people tell her 'oh, you must have a very interesting inner life')

 

WELL THEY'RE RIGHT, OK???!!!

(maya, is that little girl you?)

--------------------------------------maya( truly mad, not just faking it for

artistic purposes)

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 14:09:55 -0700

Reply-To:     "Timothy K. Gallaher" <gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "Timothy K. Gallaher" <gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>

Subject:      Re: forlorn rags of growing old

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

At 04:20 PM 6/23/97 -0400, you wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Diane Carter wrote:

>

>> Just finished reading On the Road and saw it as pretty sad at the end.

>> "...and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides

>> the forlorn rags of growing old..."  That line took me back to something

>> that Gerald Nicosia said in the Kerouac, meaning of life thread, that

>> "the knowledge that 'we are all going to die' was why he [Kerouac]

>> wrote."

>

>An aside: didn't Kerouac directly say that somewhere? I seem to recall

>having heard his voice speak those words -- maybe in the 4-CD _Jack Kerouac

>Collection_ [which is a must-have btw, and when my then-girlfriend gave this

>to me for my birthday in '93 it was the moment that I somehow knew she'd end

>up my wife].

 

Yeah,

 

I was wondering why someone didn't quote this.

 

It's from Visions of Cody and is part of the reading he did on the Steve

Allen Show (funny how Jay leno doesn't have any authors reading nowadays).

 

"I wrote the book cause we're all gonna die"

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 15:23:49 -0600

Reply-To:     "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>

Organization: Calgary Free-Net

Subject:      Re: Collage of songs, (Exit light, enter night.)

Comments: To: Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

In-Reply-To:  <970623164937_1621369355@emout05.mail.aol.com>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

> how 'bout a poem for mah bay-bee

> ooh, ya look so good                                  - PATTI SMITH (?)

> just a-walkin downda street

> singin "evryting's gonna bee ah-ight"

> And you know it truly truly is sin

> that villains, always, blink their eyes!

> HEY!

> been tryin' to meetcha.

> Dontcha know that happiness is a warm gun?            - BEATLES

> Burnin' a hole in my pocket (silver rocket).

> Some men do it for diamonds, some do it for gold.

> We danced the Cemetery Polka all night

> and partied ev-er-y day.

> But momma,

> i'm gonna leave it all behind and face the pain.

> Under the bridge over troubled water.                - SIMON &GARFUNKEL

> 'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man

> when... the streets have no name.                     - U2

> Base!

> How low can you go?

> Death Row?

> Water buffalo!                                        - PUBLIC ENEMY

> So baybeh if ya feelin' good....

>

> DISCLAIMER: THE LINES IN THIS POEM ARE NOT ORIGINAL THEY ARE INDIVIDUAL LINES

> FROM DIFFERENT SONGS BY OTHER PEOPLE NOT ME.

> so i don't wanna hear it ok?

> Just for fun, how many of these lines can you identify?(singer and song!)

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:34:28 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: first thought and revision

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

Maya Gorton wrote:

>

> In a message dated 97-06-23 14:43:24 EDT, you write:

>

> << "watch which weeds you pull up

>  in the same vein! ">>

>

> I just edited you, race.  It makes a strange kind of sense this way, don't

> you think

> --------maya.

 

that particular arrangement is definitely one that consciously in my

mind but layers and layers of others through the foggy mist and bog of

my morning daze.  i recommend the previous wording.

 

imagine the old gardener and let me know what he looks like down to his

veins.  you are much better at such imagination than I.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 17:35:33 -0400

Reply-To:     Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>

Subject:      Re: forlorn rags of growing old

Comments: To: "Timothy K. Gallaher" <gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>

In-Reply-To:  <199706232109.OAA16732@hsc.usc.edu>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Timothy K. Gallaher wrote:

 

> It's from Visions of Cody and is part of the reading he did on the Steve

> Allen Show (funny how Jay leno doesn't have any authors reading nowadays).

>

> "I wrote the book cause we're all gonna die"

 

Ah -- yes -- also quoteed on back cover of Penguin VOC amid collage of

Neal/Jack/etc pics...

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 17:48:58 -0400

Reply-To:     Sisyphus <sisyphus@POLARIS.MINDPORT.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Sisyphus <sisyphus@POLARIS.MINDPORT.NET>

Subject:      Re: who was around in the 60's?

Comments: To: Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

In-Reply-To:  <970623083601_-792219484@emout19.mail.aol.com>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Maya Gorton wrote:

 

> gangsta chick in 1940's Chicago in my previous life helps.  I didn't miss a

 

"moll" honey.  Gangsta chick is today.  "Moll" is 1940.

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 15:06:03 -0700

Reply-To:     "Lisa M. Rabey" <lisar@NET-LINK.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "Lisa M. Rabey" <lisar@NET-LINK.NET>

Subject:      Charles Bukowski discussion List

Comments: To: chaingang@samurai.com

Comments: cc: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

Please excuse the following information. I don't normally like doing cross

postings to various groups nor do I like shameless promotion, but........

<i don't this doesn't excuse me, but what the hey!>

 

Anyways, several people have contacted me off these various lists about an

email list for the discussion of charles bukowski. I have done a web search

on him, and have not found a list that was currently up and running. A

friend of mine has donated his cpu time to creating a list for me for such

an event! ;)

 

So, if you are interested in the discussion of Charles Bukowski (his works,

et al), please send email

to:

    listproc@bigendian.com

In the body of the message, put:

 

   subscribe bukowski your name <your name being = your firstname your

lastname>

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via this address

OR at simunye@sekurity.org

 

thanks for your time :)

 

ttfn.

 

Lisa

--

 

        Lisa M. Rabey       Computer Consultant         UIN: 1231211

         ************************************************************

          words...1000's of words.. wrapped together like wire

                   how easy it would be to hate you

                 and yet that is all i can show you.

                      Nothing lasts forever. -me

 

                 http://the.art.of.sekurity.org/simunye

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 20:37:22 -0400

Reply-To:     CVEditions@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Pamela Beach Plymell <CVEditions@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Re: ketchup

 

In a message dated 97-06-23 07:49:38 EDT, you write:

 

<< Ginsberg's

 "in the morning were stanzas of gibberish." A Hallucination Dissertation

 Manifesto of Coca, Saturn, and Sun. >>

Could you tell me when this appeared and more about the context?

Charles Plymell

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 20:48:06 -0400

Reply-To:     Hpark4@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Howard Park <Hpark4@AOL.COM>

Subject:      Hunter Thompson 6/13 in DC

 

Since there have been a few inquiries of late about HST...

 

HST appeared at Olesson's Books near DuPont Circle in Washington on June 13.

 About 100 mostly GenX'ers were in line to await his not all that late

arrival.  HST did not sign the books, rather a bookstore employee gave out

supposedly signed (initials only) bookplates.

 

The line passed quickly as the amazingly awestruck crowd filed past HST,  a

little like catholic peasents meeting the Pope, drink and cigarette in his

hand (funny how the usual rules about no smaking or drinking don't apply to

celebrities, but I'm not complaining). He traveled with several aides,

probably from the publisher, who were there to ferry him around.  A boombox

played Donovan tunes, very softly, circa 1967 or so.  HST had little to say

and was kinda hard to hear, but he looks *fairly* well.

 

The funny thing was that after the crowd passed, about 25 people stayed just

to watch him sit there, doing very little.  The crowd seemed to view him from

a respectful distance, not at all unlike a rare animal in a zoo.  This was

really quite auckward as HST mumbled a few thoughts, rarely a sentence, to

his aides and bookstore employees as the crowd just stood there, no one

daring to get within about 10 feet of HST, who seemed bored.

 

Finally, one of the aides said "Dr. Thompson will only be here a few more

minutes, so if anyone wants to talk to him this is your chance."  That broke

the ice as the crowd approached him, much closer.  Thompson was VERY bored

with the usual "I love your books stuff" but he seemed a little interested

when I asked how Gary Hart was doing ("just fine...well

considering...fine...I saw him a few months ago...) and we talked about the

time I met him previously, 13 years ago, when I drove him around for a day

culminating in an episode when he, for no apparent reason, grabbed the

steering wheel of the car I was driving, disrupting the motorcade we were

in., and yelled at me to made a sudden turn as we kinda fought over the

steering wheel.  I can't tell if HST remembered that or not.  He said

something about he did it to protest that "negros" were not being allowed on

the campaign plane.  I said that I was talking about 1984 and that I did'nt

remember anything about racism in the Hart campaign (OK, Hart was not

perfect, but he certainly did not bar black folks from the plane!)   HST

muttered something like "must have been another campaign..."  While he did

listen he is not an easy guy to communicate with.  A very good looking woman

asked him if he wanted to have a drink later, which distracted him from me

(not surprisingly), but then an aide sort of muscled in to damper any notion

that HST would alter or change his schedule.  HST did not protest, but looked

just a little disappointed.  I was just a little disappointed that HST did

not acknowledge my Lowell Celebrates Kerouac" t-shirt that I had worn for

this special occasion.  A few more, barely intelligble musings sputtered

forth from HST, and then the aide announced it was time to go to the

Washington Post.

 

The book, "The Proud Highway" looks interesting.

 

Howard Park

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 20:00:52 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      About to Play Solitaire

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

Have finished the chores schedule for this day and am about to relax to

some evening solitaire on my computer Charlie (who is wearing a nice

black gangster hat right now) with this semi-beat poem in mind.

 

____________

 

"Well, ings die easy when nobody cares

and queens have smiled on the gallows

and dukes have vanished while saying their prayers

and heirs have drowned in the shallows

        and the lords have laughed while falling in flames

        and ladies have died of dishonor

        and counts have exploded while sunning in Spain

        and knights have stewed in their armor

 

but the jack, jack o'diamonds

jack o'diamonds is a hard card to play.

 

Now cowboys die in the arms of a friend

while the sun's conveniently setting

and Cherokees go to their feathery end

while everyone's home minuetting

        and generals fade very slowly away

        while golfing and drinking martinis

        and general's girlfriends have dropped in the grave

        while wearing highheels and bikinis

 

but the jack, the jack o'diamonds,

jack o'diamonds is a hard card to play.

 

Now presidents sink on schooners-of-state

and banks have failed from corruption

and congressman perish at open debate

and lawyers have choked on deductions

        and rich men die from sugary food

        and paupers die when they're reeling

        and wise men go out in a hungover mood

        and virgins die once, without feeling

 

but the jack, jack o'diamonds,

jack o'diamonds is a hard card to play."

 

                                == RICHARD FARINA, 1966

 

____________________________

 

solitaire and Jack

and going to Jill for a pale of water

and dreaming of

Lily and Rosemary

but -

that is a legend of hearts

not

diamonds or

rust.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 21:21:22 -0400

Reply-To:     Ted Harms <tmharms@library.uwaterloo.ca>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Ted Harms <tmharms@LIBRARY.UWATERLOO.CA>

Subject:      Beats and  Bacon

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

 

Having spent untold hours playing the Kevin Bacon game (for more info, go

to http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~bct7m/bacon.html), I thought I'd just pass

along to everybody that Jack's Bacon number is 3, Allen's is 2, and Old

Bill's number is also 2.

 

 

Ted Harms                         Library, Univ. of Waterloo

tmharms@library.uwaterloo.ca              519.888.4567 x3761

"...it's elephants all the way down." - from Hindu cosmology

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 22:20:09 -0400

Reply-To:     "R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@SCSN.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@SCSN.NET>

Organization: Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby

Subject:      Help the beaten

Comments: To: Tom Baylor <tbaylor@forbin.com>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

Can someone tell my good friend Tom Baylor (see email address above) how

to subscribe to the Beat list.  I would appreciate it very much.  Also,

if it is posted on the web please send it to me, I would like to put the

url on my link page.  Thanks,

 

--

Bentz

bocelts@scsn.net

 

http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 22:28:18 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      howling is expression of life

 

In a message dated 97-06-23 09:08:46 EDT, you write:

 

<<

 As for literature saving lives...I have never once thought it was the

 purpose.  I have never read literature, or chosen literature, on that

 basis.  My life has not needed saving...and I'm not sure a poet is the

 one for the job if it were the case.  I'm actually not even concerned

 about literature as therapy.  I am much more concerned with the

 expression of ideas and how well  ideas conveyed through

 devices/technique.  A good idea should be expressed in a way that is

 beyond compare...perfectly suited... an astounding  synthesis of sound

 and meaning . >>

 

I would be dead if it weren't for William S Burroughs.

 

Writing is not only about expressing ideas but also emotions.  In fact it is

a big myth that ideas and emotions are separate.  Writing is about finding

the right combination of words to express exactly what you feel/think.  If

you only feel/think happy thoughts, you are only writing about half of life.

 

 "shiny happy words" are so boring they make me want to die.

 Aesthetic Nihilism is so boring it makes me want to die.

 

I think Burroughs, for all his non-involvement in his friends' Buddhism

research, is the one who gets it better than anyone.  It's all about balance.

 

just thought of sumthing: Burroughs says he believes in the long shot.  when

you're down and been k.o.'d, you can still rise up and give one last

punch...and that's the most beautiful thing ever.  And that's the general

condition. To fight back.  That's the strength you need to be an artist.

 When no one thinks you can do it, you show them your creative biceps.  Flex

'em.  Say "yes, i HAVE been working out".  Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your

head in doo doo.

 

I believe in a more visceral definition of poetry.  not just writing pretty

words and feelings.  That's what I call "bad art". (that's what i'd be doing

if my mommy had been nice and stuff).

Putting it all down so that after you read it you say "there is such

sadness...but everything's gonna be OK.  Because even after the Apocalypse, a

little bitty flower can bloom"

It's a basic faith in life.  But to have it you need death too.

 

If you never howl, how can you appreciate laughter?

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 23:25:30 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Re: corso(was lies, againg, and all that existential angst)

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

Marie Countryman wrote:

>

> someone somewhere in the endless scrolled message on this topic of

> lies/aging etc

> said that he wanted to know more about this 'corso guy' who is a poet who

> at times dons the gonzo poet cap just as HST is gonzo journalism. i highly

> recommend _elegiac feelings american_ to you, also, my favorite poem about

> marriage

> and, in meantime here is a more reflective corso piece:

> HELLO

> it is disastrous to be a wounded deer.

> i'm the most wounded, wolves stalk,

> and i have my failures, too.

> my flesh is caught on the inevitable hook!

> as i child i saw many things i did not want to be.

> Am i the person i did not want to be?

> that talks-to-himself person?

> that - neighbours make-fun-of person?

> am i he who, on museum steps, sleeps on his side?

> do i wear the cloth of a man who has failed?

> am i the looney man?

> in the great serenade of things,

>         am i the most cancelled passage?

> _______

God, that's a great line!--am I the most cancelled passage?

DC

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 23:53:16 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

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> Derek A. Beaulieu wrote:

>

>

>  dc (diane) and co.

>  by no means am i argueing that marie's way of composing is wrong or

> flawed

>  (flod) in any way. she & i been discussing poetry, etc for quite a

> while &

>  simply approach composition of poetry in different ways. several

>things

>at

> play - what are you working at getting FROM yr poetry, what are you

>doing,

> etc. for instance marie referred to herself as a "confessional" poet at

> one point (dont remember where) and while that works for her & what she

> needs to explore in poetry / words, it aint my bag. not that i cant

> appreciate her poetry (exactly the opposite - in fact i'm frequently

> humbled by her works)personally - at the moment ive been pushing around

> words on page - words themselves - the way they *look*, feel, *act*,

>move

> on the page almost sculpture of form not necessarily meaning. & what

>works

> best for me is immediate interaction w/ page let the synapses fire

>where

> they may & half (or more) falls flat - fine with me. i'll learn for

> nexttime. the ACT, to me, is more important that the product (in my

>word

>w(a)(o)nderings).

> different ways of approaching wrds.

> same core tho.

> its all communication from a creator.

> derek

>  It's all in the process and everyone's process is different.  I would

say that I write in the tradition of Ginsberg, people sometimes comment

they see Blakean and Joycean themes.  I don't think I would call it

confessional but try to address my own personal experience in the

framework of greater human experience.  But yes, there are a lot of I's

there and a lot of trauma. If I was to model someone in expressing my own

voice, it would be Ginsberg.  I work toward the emotional expression of

an idea, and not at all ever concerned about how the words look on the

page or how they got there, no sculpture of form, only meaning. I'm much

more concerned with the product as opposed to the act of creating. I just

trust that the voice of the creator will be there when I need it.

DC

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:31:50 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Kerouac's sadness

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The following passages discuss what I find to be an interesting

comparison--as to why Kerouac seemed to embrace hopelessness more than

Ginsberg ever did.

 

>From Ginsberg Verbatim: (GB=Gordon Ball)

 

AG:  I keep thinking that Kerouac proposed--like Whitman--a sort of noble

ideal American open-minded sensibility, open road, open energy, with some

flaws in it, and some contradictions, but nothing unresolvable with

common sense; the direction America took was toward a military

hardheartedness and mass murder that even he disapproved of, so the

openhearted sensibility, the sensibility of 'the happy nut,' that Kerouac

was praising, the openhearted sensibility that he proposed, was rejected

by the nation, so his soul and his sense of soul was rejected, and his

art was also rejected for that reason--not only by the hardhearted

people, but also by, say, literate people who doubted the reality of

soul, finally, seeing around them the great mechanical robot monster of

the nation, thinking that force has to be met by force.  So the radical

left rejected Kerouac's open heart, the middle-class hippie book

reviewers of The Times rejected Kerouac's open heart, the

pseudo-bohemians wanted sumpin' smarter and more degenerate and terrible;

the weekly news magazines thought it was naive in the face of the giant

holocaust the military mind created and perpetuated; so Kerouac's art was

never really appreciated or understood or accepted, though it was the

right medicine for the nation.  So his whole sensibility was rejected,

and I think that crushed him in the sense of making him pessimistic,

making him realize how really unrelievably awful American destiny was,

and I think he just took the hint and retired from the scene, in a sense,

seeing that the condition of American was hopeless.  It's like what

Gregory says in his elegy for Kerouac: if Kerouac was the nation's

singer, or prophet, or the man who sings for the nation, and if the

nation itself dies, how can the singer live?  He gave himself to the

nation as its singer, and the nation rejected him.

 

GB:  The nation as a whole does not seemed to have followed your

prescriptions either, but your reaction has been different from

Kerouac's.

 

AG:  Well, I know, but my development was much slower, my maturity was

much slower than Jack's.  Jack was already mature around 1950, '51, and

had a complete visionary conception by '53, not only visionary but

complete metaphysical and visionary and Buddhist conception of the open

road, being on the road, and ghosts on the road and everything, and

already had produced like his great art work; it took me till years later

to slowly learn from him.  He went into the chaos ahead of other people

and saw ahead of other people and was perhaps more lonely, and was

wounded.

 

GB:  Do you think the longer time you spent before assuming something

like a nation singer role might have made the difference?

 

AG:  Except that the time has in a sense perhaps inured me to the social

lie and made be a part of the larger social lie of hope.  Kerouac was

essentially hopeless, finally, saw no hope.  And having accepted that he

could, you know, like drink himself to death. I still maintain this

perhaps false hope.  Don't wanna be moved out of my comforts, out of my

comfortable body, I don't know.  I think it's unanswerable.  But the very

simple, tiny point I wanna make is, as Gregory said, as the nation fell,

so did its singer, to the extent that he was the original singer of the

open heart open road for that generation, of the fifties, so it must make

him most raw and vulnerable to the poisoning of the body politic.

        It's his own role so what can he do, and in a nation which is

itself so messed up, what is he going to be--a happy singer?  Happy,

healthy singer of a dying, decadent, destructive world?  Happy joker?

        And I keep thinking I'm too comfortable in this chamber of

horrors, so my own future I think will be more mediative and ascetic.

 

DC

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:48:29 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Re: forlorn rags of growing old

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Marie Countryman wrote:

>

> (apologies in advance if this had already been posted to list, sometimes

> this list feels like i'm playing jeopardy, to hit the send button (buzzer)

> before the next member)

>

>  I grow old...I grow old...

> I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled,

>

> Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

>

> I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the

>         beach

> I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

>

> I do not think they will sing to me.

 

 

Did you write that from memory?  I think I must have been absent the day

everyone else in the universe memorized Eliot.  I just read an interview

on Mongo's Bearwulf's site www.ginzy.com, where Ginsberg had a nightmare

about Eliot reading his poems.

DC

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:19:17 -0400

Reply-To:     Marioka7@AOL.COM

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Maya Gorton <Marioka7@AOL.COM>

Subject:      dear abby...MARRIAGE! (HELP!)

 

THIS RANT is on a more personal note than usual so feel free to delete right

now.

 

my not-so-fresh brain slurps and sloshes inside my skull as i shake my head

"no".

I'm too tired tonight for any damn boyfriend.

 

That Corso poem about marriage somehow stuck in my head all day today.  I

don't know which one scares the shit out of me more, Marriage or Aloneness.

 I know some happily married people---can't be all bad.  But i would miss...

 

  The thrill of talking to someone quietly alone and the tension before you

confess your affection in a kiss.  God sometimes i think that's what i live

for.

 

Then again, it all goes down-hill after that.  And i'm shaking my head to

avoid the fear of inevitably having to break his (tender young) heart after

the initial thrill is gone.  Am I the emotional vampire i never wanted to

become?

 

So many nights of rumpled sheets and i don't even remember all the names...

 

pale rail-thin boys

muscly backs,

visible ribs

tattooed skin

soft dark skin

scarred arms

smooth, unmarked skin

strong arms

green eyes

warm brown eyes

cold grey eyes (sometimes blue)

long hair short hair blue hair grey hair

shaved head

mmmm....skaters.

Punkers, hippies, intellectuals, rock stars.

Mostly disenchanted artists.

Pretending not to love me.

Hah!

Warm hands with long bony fingers

callusses on the tips from playing bass/welding/typing

paint under fingernails:

"Wash yer damn hands before you touch me!"

good gracious, even pierced nipples.

 

Could it possibly be time to settle down with only 1?

I have a friend, he's a writer...a real sweetheart.....

Jeesus, wha's wrong with me. SNAP OUT OF IT!!!

My solution: go live in ascetic seclusion in Thailand and think real hard

about something other than this.

 

They should invent "anti-sex" pills so that when you feel an inconvenient and

distracting urge you can just pop a pill and the mere thought of sex makes

you nauseous.  now THAT would be useful.

 

Until then i'll just feel like some kind of weird vampire-woman who needs

human closeness and affection (read: sex) to survive....to keep me strong and

rejuvenated. Without it I shrivel and wilt.

 

don't get me wrong: i love my boyfriend.  But I don't want to marry him.  Do

i really love him? And if so, why do i want to kiss every boy i meet?

 According to the books, i should be long past adolescence.  Someone please

tell me what the hell is going on.

---------maya

"Confusion is...sex"---Sonic Youth

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 23:28:47 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: howling is expression of life

MIME-Version: 1.0

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Maya Gorton wrote:

>

> I would be dead if it weren't for William S Burroughs.

>

 

i would have to say that i am probably on the same ship here.  as i

ended Colt-45 i recounted how after i 'accidentally'(?) drank some

gasoline on an unknown balcony in an Illinois winter i heard the voice

of william burroughs quack "you can only call the doctor once".  my mind

screamed out doctor, doctor (just to test his singular theory).  i

lived.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 23:51:28 -0500

Reply-To:     =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

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from a jesuit priest on the island

 

Remember that the ubiquitous, everlasting and infinite power of the Lord is

a double-edged sword.**

 

-leo

 

** whack whack, let it bleed.

 

 

 

 

"Zeus, most glorious and great, and you other immortal gods; may the brains

of whichever party beraks this treaty be poured out on the ground as that

wine is poured, and not only theirs but their childrens too; and may

foriegners possess their wives." -- war prayer from Homer's Iliad

 

 

"You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream." --Lou Reed, "Egg Cream"

 

 

"The air is dark, the night is sad

I lie sleepless and I groan

Nobody cares when a man goes mad.

He is sorry, God is glad.

Shadow changes into bone,

shadow changes into bone."

 

--Allen Ginsberg, from "Interlude"

 

"God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son.' Abe said 'Man, you must be puttin'

me on' God said 'No.' Abe said, 'What?' God said 'You can do what you want

Abe but, next time you see me comin', man you better run.' Well, Abe said

'Where you want this killin' done?' God said 'Out on Highway 61.'" --Bob

Dylan

=========================================================================

Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 22:06:43 -0700

Reply-To:     stauffer@pacbell.net

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         James Stauffer <stauffer@PACBELL.NET>

Subject:      Blah, Blah, Blah

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Strange juxtapositions this pm.  Down at Kepler's in Menlo Park (the new

store, not the old one where Neal used to stalk the astrology section

for impressionable coeds).  Tried to listen for awhile to Naomi Woolfe

(sp? Wolf, Wolfe), self proclaimed 3rd Wave Feminist reading from her

new book "promescutities".  Could stand about five minutes thinking that

if one reversed the sexes on any of her remarks you could get sued on

any college campus.  Walked out feeling like Rodney King, "Can't we all

just get along."

 

Home watching Hopper and Jodie Foster in "Backtrack" where Hopper is a

sax playing hipster hit man and Foster a kidnapped computer artist.

Silly in parts, but a nice bit when Hopper tells Foster that what she

does isn't art. "Art is Charlie Parker and Hieronymous Bach or whoever

he was."  Some wonderful flirting.  Realized maybe sex isn't dead yet.

Only dying slowly.

 

J. Stauffer

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:14:31 -0500

Reply-To:     =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sinverg=FCenza?= <ljilk@GUINAN.MPS.ORG>

Subject:      Re: dear abby...MARRIAGE! (HELP!)

In-Reply-To:  <970624001916_-1562490373@emout19.mail.aol.com>

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>THIS RANT is on a more personal note than usual so feel free to delete righ=

t

>now.

>

>my not-so-fresh brain slurps and sloshes inside my skull as i shake my head

>"no".

>I'm too tired tonight for any damn boyfriend.

>

>That Corso poem about marriage somehow stuck in my head all day today.  I

>don't know which one scares the shit out of me more, Marriage or Aloneness.

> I know some happily married people---can't be all bad.  But i would miss..=

=2E

>

>  The thrill of talking to someone quietly alone and the tension before you

>confess your affection in a kiss.  God sometimes i think that's what i live

>for.

>

>Then again, it all goes down-hill after that.  And i'm shaking my head to

>avoid the fear of inevitably having to break his (tender young) heart after

>the initial thrill is gone.  Am I the emotional vampire i never wanted to

>become?

>

>So many nights of rumpled sheets and i don't even remember all the names...

>

>pale rail-thin boys

>muscly backs,

>visible ribs

>tattooed skin

>soft dark skin

>scarred arms

>smooth, unmarked skin

>strong arms

>green eyes

>warm brown eyes

>cold grey eyes (sometimes blue)

>long hair short hair blue hair grey hair

>shaved head

>mmmm....skaters.

>Punkers, hippies, intellectuals, rock stars.

>Mostly disenchanted artists.

>Pretending not to love me.

>Hah!

>Warm hands with long bony fingers

>callusses on the tips from playing bass/welding/typing

>paint under fingernails:

>"Wash yer damn hands before you touch me!"

>good gracious, even pierced nipples.

>

>Could it possibly be time to settle down with only 1?

>I have a friend, he's a writer...a real sweetheart.....

>Jeesus, wha's wrong with me. SNAP OUT OF IT!!!

>My solution: go live in ascetic seclusion in Thailand and think real hard

>about something other than this.

>

>They should invent "anti-sex" pills so that when you feel an inconvenient a=

nd

>distracting urge you can just pop a pill and the mere thought of sex makes

>you nauseous.  now THAT would be useful.

>

>Until then i'll just feel like some kind of weird vampire-woman who needs

>human closeness and affection (read: sex) to survive....to keep me strong a=

nd

>rejuvenated. Without it I shrivel and wilt.

>

>don't get me wrong: i love my boyfriend.  But I don't want to marry him.  D=

o

>i really love him? And if so, why do i want to kiss every boy i meet?

> According to the books, i should be long past adolescence.  Someone please

>tell me what the hell is going on.

>---------maya

>"Confusion is...sex"---Sonic Youth

 

many possible suggestions here: virgin birth, the beautiful permanent

longing, intoxication,then melancholy. i wonder sometimes whether this poem

has a meaning.

 

The Vestal Lady on Brattle --G. Corso

 

Within a delicate grey ruin

the vestal lady on Brattle

is up at dawn, as is her custom,

with the raise of a shade.

 

Swan-boned slippers revamp her aging feet;

she glides within an outer room...

pours old milk for an old cat.

 

=46ull-bodied and randomly young she clings,

peers down; hovers over a wine filled vat,

and outstretched arms like wings,

revels in the image of child below.

 

Despaired, she ripples a sunless finger

across the liquid eyes; in darkness

the child spirals down; drowns.

Pain leans her forward--face absorbing all--

mouth upon broken mouth, she drinks...

 

Within a delicate grey ruin

the vestal lady on Brattle

is up and about, as is her custom,

drunk with child.

 

-leo

 

 

 

 

"Zeus, most glorious and great, and you other immortal gods; may the brains

of whichever party beraks this treaty be poured out on the ground as that

wine is poured, and not only theirs but their childrens too; and may

foriegners possess their wives." -- war prayer from Homer's Iliad

 

 

"You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream." --Lou Reed, "Egg Cream"

 

 

"The air is dark, the night is sad

I lie sleepless and I groan

Nobody cares when a man goes mad.

He is sorry, God is glad.

Shadow changes into bone,

shadow changes into bone."

 

--Allen Ginsberg, from "Interlude"

 

"God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son.' Abe said 'Man, you must be puttin'

me on' God said 'No.' Abe said, 'What?' God said 'You can do what you want

Abe but, next time you see me comin', man you better run.' Well, Abe said

'Where you want this killin' done?' God said 'Out on Highway 61.'" --Bob

Dylan

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:42:01 +0000

Reply-To:     "neudorf@discovland.net" <neudorf@DISCOVLAND.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         "neudorf@discovland.net" <neudorf@DISCOVLAND.NET>

Subject:      The Role of the Poet

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Matthew W Barton wrote:

 

> . . . having ignored the world for a spell, i hope i'm not saying

> anything that has been said a dozen times already or ignores previous

> explanitory statements -- however...  each writer has their own style as

> well as method.  one should not attempt to duplicate either.  because one

> author feels drugs inversely effect their craftmanship, what leaves you to

> assume it will adversely affect all.  such blanket statements have led

> more scholars to dismiss the beats, new york's downtown writers and

> countless other genres of art created in connection to drugs.

 

        The purpose of highlighting diverse poetics is to be able to pick and

choose and mesh it into your own, so we are in basic agreement - even if

we don't agree with the poetics.

        The final criteria for art is if it is *genius* - no matter what the

baggage it came from.

 

Barb wrote:

 

> As for literature saving lives...I have never once thought it was the

> purpose.  I have never read literature, or chosen literature, on that

> basis.  My life has not needed saving...and I'm not sure a poet is the

> one for the job if it were the case.

 

The Chilean poet, Nicanor Parra, (simple, humourous, working class -

overshadowed by Pablo Neruda), writes:

 

        "The poet is there to see to it the tree does not grow crooked"

                [i forget the line structure]

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes ("The Poet" - essay):

 

        "Poets are thus liberating gods"

 

Why not? The poet documents experience, and is a master of experience.

If he is socially / politically inclined - and is balanced - he should

live the life of the boddhisatva, with his writings as his teachings.

        I know this is much to ask from the Poet, but then again, to be Poet is

to live difficult, and this difficulty is his reward.

 

        On another level, the Poet creates art for art's sake - beauty. A well

written howl is beautiful - regardless of subject matter.

 

Joseph Neudorfer

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 02:17:06 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: The Role of the Poet

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

neudorf@discovland.net wrote:

>

> Matthew W Barton wrote:

>

> > . . . having ignored the world for a spell, i hope i'm not saying

> > anything that has been said a dozen times already or ignores previous

> > explanitory statements -- however...  each writer has their own style as

> > well as method.  one should not attempt to duplicate either.  because one

> > author feels drugs inversely effect their craftmanship, what leaves you to

> > assume it will adversely affect all.  such blanket statements have led

> > more scholars to dismiss the beats, new york's downtown writers and

> > countless other genres of art created in connection to drugs.

>

>         The purpose of highlighting diverse poetics is to be able to pick and

> choose and mesh it into your own, so we are in basic agreement - even if

> we don't agree with the poetics.

>         The final criteria for art is if it is *genius* - no matter what the

> baggage it came from.

>

> Barb wrote:

>

> > As for literature saving lives...I have never once thought it was the

> > purpose.  I have never read literature, or chosen literature, on that

> > basis.  My life has not needed saving...and I'm not sure a poet is the

> > one for the job if it were the case.

>

> The Chilean poet, Nicanor Parra, (simple, humourous, working class -

> overshadowed by Pablo Neruda), writes:

>

>         "The poet is there to see to it the tree does not grow crooked"

>                 [i forget the line structure]

>

> Ralph Waldo Emerson writes ("The Poet" - essay):

>

>         "Poets are thus liberating gods"

>

> Why not? The poet documents experience, and is a master of experience.

> If he is socially / politically inclined - and is balanced - he should

> live the life of the boddhisatva, with his writings as his teachings.

>         I know this is much to ask from the Poet, but then again, to be Poet

 is

> to live difficult, and this difficulty is his reward.

>

>         On another level, the Poet creates art for art's sake - beauty. A well

> written howl is beautiful - regardless of subject matter.

>

> Joseph Neudorfer

 

Colin Wilson writes in the Occult

 

The Poet is a man(sic) whom faculty X is naturally more developed than

in most people.  While most of us are ruthlessly "cutting out" whole

areas of perception, thus impoverishing our mental lives, the poet

retains the faculty to be suddenly delighted by the sheer REALITY of the

world "out there."

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:52:32 -0700

Reply-To:     runner911 <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         runner911 <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>

Subject:      Re: The Role of the Poet

In-Reply-To:  <33AF7472.56DB@midusa.net>

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 

At 12:17 AM -0700 6/24/97, RACE --- wrote:

 

> The Poet is a man(sic) whom faculty X is naturally more developed than

> in most people.  While most of us are ruthlessly "cutting out" whole

> areas of perception, thus impoverishing our mental lives, the poet

> retains the faculty to be suddenly delighted by the sheer REALITY of the

> world "out there."

 

you're describing a middle aged man, fat with glasses, insomniac, drug

dependant, all around asshole.  don't forget these kind of fucking poets!

every word is loud and obscene.  vulger, foul, distorted.  a last breath

before a vowel...aaaaaaah.  that was it.  <<hehehe>>

 

oh, my inner child is screaming, "oh, my hair has been cut too short, I

must drive to Cleveland and pick up beer hall chicks...."  At this level,

everybody is poetic.  trains of thought, which you site as being hauled off

en masse by some anti-x faculty.  I think I went to school there.  fluent

in that yada yada way of talk.  yadya yada daya dyadya.  UClA

 

and no attention span.  That's the kind of poet you're describing.  Is that

what you meant??

 

cheers, Douglas

 

http://www.electriciti.com/babu/                summer

save it, just keep it off my wave               is

  -- ("my wave," soundgarden)                   here

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 00:55:51 -0700

Reply-To:     runner911 <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         runner911 <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>

Subject:      Re: Blah, Blah, Blah

In-Reply-To:  <33AF55E3.1F3@pacbell.net>

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At 10:06 PM -0700 6/23/97, James Stauffer wrote:

 

> Strange juxtapositions this pm.  <.....>

 

> Realized maybe sex isn't dead yet.

> Only dying slowly.

 

I get tired sometimes, but find the effort worth it.  dying slowly, I mean.

Queen Victoria, where are you?

 

 

>

> J. Stauffer

 

cheers, Douglas

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 03:53:37 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: The Role of the Poet

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runner911 wrote:

>

> At 12:17 AM -0700 6/24/97, RACE --- wrote:

>

> > The Poet is a man(sic) whom faculty X is naturally more developed than

> > in most people.  While most of us are ruthlessly "cutting out" whole

> > areas of perception, thus impoverishing our mental lives, the poet

> > retains the faculty to be suddenly delighted by the sheer REALITY of the

> > world "out there."

>

> you're describing a middle aged man, fat with glasses, insomniac, drug

> dependant, all around asshole.  don't forget these kind of fucking poets!

> every word is loud and obscene.  vulger, foul, distorted.  a last breath

> before a vowel...aaaaaaah.  that was it.  <<hehehe>>

>

> oh, my inner child is screaming, "oh, my hair has been cut too short, I

> must drive to Cleveland and pick up beer hall chicks...."  At this level,

> everybody is poetic.  trains of thought, which you site as being hauled off

> en masse by some anti-x faculty.  I think I went to school there.  fluent

> in that yada yada way of talk.  yadya yada daya dyadya.  UClA

>

> and no attention span.  That's the kind of poet you're describing.  Is that

> what you meant??

>

> cheers, Douglas

>

> http://www.electriciti.com/babu/                summer

> save it, just keep it off my wave               is

>   -- ("my wave," soundgarden)                   here

 

 

actually, the answer  would be an EMPHATIC no.  The kind of poet being

described in that quotation is the poet as magician and most easily

understood as a word alchemist.  if one accepts the power of symbols in

shaping reality, the poet's ability to Perceive and then stir the

symbolic soup is a Real form of contemporary alchemy.  What you were

referring to is probably a real creature but my hunch is that the

alchemist can with some effort overcome the population of these middle

aged gentlement in terms of pure magic.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 03:55:06 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      Re: Blah, Blah, Blah

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runner911 wrote:

>

> At 10:06 PM -0700 6/23/97, James Stauffer wrote:

>

> > Strange juxtapositions this pm.  <.....>

>

> > Realized maybe sex isn't dead yet.

> > Only dying slowly.

>

> I get tired sometimes, but find the effort worth it.  dying slowly, I mean.

> Queen Victoria, where are you?

>

> >

> > J. Stauffer

>

> cheers, Douglas

 

i believe that Queen Victoria is permanently trapped in a Leonard Cohen

lyrical tune.

 

david rhaesa

salina, Kansas

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 06:09:11 -0500

Reply-To:     RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>

Subject:      FireWalk flash back to the beginning....

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I'm pretty certain that i haven't let y'all in on the first two pieces

of FireWalk.  that's kind of like stepping in after the first act.=20

Here's the epigrams and title piece.  Colt-45 will be coming later this

evening or tomorrow.  I really appreciate the backchannel comments and

discussions i've been having over this material.  i'm now having serious

thoughts about doing an exploding text of the original firewalk

collection by myself as a form of 5 year retrospective on those events.=20

thanks again for all the constructive, destructive, deconstructive,

reconstructive and just damn friendly criticisms.

 

david rhaesa=20

salina, Kansas

>=20

> Firewalk Thru Madness Collection ... by David Rhaesa

> Copyright, December 1992

>=20

> =93He was insane.  And when you look directly an an insane man all you =

see

> is a reflection of your own knowledge that he=92s insane, which is not =

to

> see him at all.  To see him you must see what he saw ahd when you are

> trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only

> way to come at it.=94

> -- Robert Pirsig

>=20

> =93One must harbor chaos within to give birth to a dancing star=94

> -- Nietzsche

>=20

> =93I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the

> medieval period.  If you go too far beyond it you=92re presumed to fall

> off, into insanity.  And people are very much afraid of that.  I think

> fear of insanity if comparable to the fear people once had of falling

> off the edge of the world.=94

> - Robert Pirsig

>=20

> =93Firewalk Thru Madness=94

>=20

> Fire - essential eleemnt/ Holy Spirit and Cigarette Ember connecting

> wind and death rain and life.  Lightning strikes my soul as I see the

> spark of a new idea.  strike another match start anew Dylan says and I

> ask him if he=92s seen her lately?  He just smiles and says Look what I=

=92ve

> done for you lately.

>=20

> I lost your pick and the insulin madman who gave it to me died last

> Winter.  I couldn=92t go to the funeral.  I was confined - mentally -

> physically....besides I=92d only met him once.  He was playing with fir=

e.

> ... Playing in the dark.

>=20

> Jim Morrison turns into Smokey Beat and his breath burns a National Par=

k

> in outer Mongolia somewhere between 18th Century princesses in phone

> booths striking the secret code of the rapture like it=92s something wo=

rth

> waiting for.

>=20

> Burn down the house.  Burn down the neighborhood.  Universal Implosion

> and my Mom appears on a Fire Truck, the Fire Lady she=92s called and sh=

e

> tells me not to play with matches but is she afraid of fire because of

> her Southern Baptist Hell-fire and damnation upbringing.  Fire is not

> evil.  Fire is essential.  It is the spark of life The burning candle

> that turns body into ashes so that it can return to dust.

>=20

> To Firewalk.

>=20

> Can you imagine Firewalking?  I have friends who have done it.  They

> have physically firewalked - not a scar on them.  But we tend to only

> see the physiological as literal and I must look deep into your soul an=

d

> ask

>=20

> have you ever Firewalked metaphysically?

>=20

> The FireWalk through the mind.  The FireWalk through the soul.  I have

> and there are scars but I can=92t say I regret the journey.  From the e=

nd

> of the journey one sees Chaos and Order meet for  tea over a white

> picket fence; Time evaporates like so much spilt milk in Tulsa at Oral

> Roberts University;  Reason and Insanity push and shove / fight and kic=

k

> / one dischordant tone for another until the pure sound - the sirens of

> beauty and truth hits my ear drum -- thump, thump, thump....Om, Om,

> Om... and the child in me looks up at the giant and asks if the Circle

> Will Be Unbroken? and the giant smiles a reassuring smile as he kicks m=

e

> back down the beanstalk.

>=20

> Landing at the bottom I see the whole world anew and I smile and kick

> myself for climbing the beanstalk in search of something when I found

> the answers by landing on a patch of clover in my own backyard - just

> like Dorothy.  They say seek and you shall find

>=20

> but I find that more comes when I want not and seek not when I am at

> peace with myself I am at peace with it all.

>=20

>                                 The bumper sticker

>                 on my mind                              during my

>                                 FireWalk reads:

>=20

>                         =93Think Universally - Act Intrapersonally=94.

>=20

> It is a saying I heard one day.  It came from the Mississippi River wit=

h

> Jim and Huck rafting by the Casino Rock Island and I tried to wave and

> tell them that they should stop here rather than going downstream to

> slave country and ....

>=20

> Huck looked at me, stared me in the eye, puffed on a corncob pipe and

> spoke:

>=20

> =93You=92ve got to face your worst fears to overcome them.  Are you afr=

aid

> of insanity?=94

>=20

> I said no and stepped through the door .... now the doorway has vanishe=

d

> and the divide between Reason and Madness is bridged.  I hope you enjoy

> some images of the FireWalk through Madness.

>

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 13:36:02 +0200

Reply-To:     Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Subject:      Beats' pseudonyms.

In-Reply-To:  <Pine.A32.3.93.970623082238.47066A-100000@srv1.freenet.calg

              ary.ab.ca>

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Derek A. Beaulieu writes:

>

>as to the identity of poor carlo marx lost in the weeds:

>well our own allen ginsberg.

>the secrets out

>there gonna be trouble.

>keep yr trenchcoat on  yr fedora down low

>derek

>

& jack kerouac changed the pseudonyms in each book,

a comedy seen thru the eyes of Ti Jean, (big sur),

btw only Lorenz Monsanto (Ferlinghetti) was the same,

other changedcuz'book trade matter

---

yrs

Rinaldo.        * be beet *

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 13:37:41 +0200

Reply-To:     Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>

Subject:      Re: Help the beaten

In-Reply-To:  <33AF2ED9.91275D8A@scsn.net>

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Tom,

u can see almost everything 'bout yr questions at web site

(Electronic Poetry Center)

http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/connects/lists.htm

hope this help,

---

yrs

Rinaldo * a not competent beat *

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:10:09 -0400

Reply-To:     Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>

Subject:      Re: Drugs & Spontaneity

In-Reply-To:  <Pine.A32.3.93.970623114237.2276A-100000@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca>

Mime-Version: 1.0

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>> Derek A. Beaulieu wrote:

>nexttime. the ACT, to me, is more important that the product (in my word

>w(a)(o)nderings).

>different ways of approaching wrds.

>same core tho.

_______

revision or tightening up structure is as much an ACT as first thought

first word splatter/shower out of head. and sculpture is what i see as the

final part of my works when i put them in their place on the page.

mc

who really would like to be gonzo poet rather than 'confessional' have

decided to kick that damn catholic girl outta my head. so auto bio is

probably more accurate 'label' i dont write about ideas i write about my

life and all its little adventures....

mc

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:41:32 -0400

Reply-To:     Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>

Subject:      The Proud Highway

In-Reply-To:  <970623204745_-327538483@emout14.mail.aol.com>

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On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Howard Park wrote:

 

> The book, "The Proud Highway" looks interesting.

 

Over on the bohemian-l they're having a summer reading group talk on Pound,

and someone (Marie C) had expressed on talking about this one as an

alternate. It seems maybe that this list is the better place for such a

discussion (and Marie's on it too) so I'll repost here my thoughts after

reading the first chapter (year 1955):

 

I've recently become completely immersed in this book. These letters are as

good as many of Hunter's fine prose works, and reading them chronologically

serves to illuminate the years just before and during the time he "makes

it." A valuable document indeed.

 

I haven't read all of the Hunter bios that are out there, but the

introduction to this book is the first time I've seen it spelled out in

print that Hunter's shenanigans are almost completely fictitious. Not that

most would believe some of it, but I've always had trouble discerning where

the line between his fiction and reality is drawn -- well, yeah, as if there

_were_ any "objective reality" anyway.

 

m

=========================================================================

Date:         Tue, 24 Jun 1997 11:47:12 -0700

Reply-To:     Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Sender:       "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

From:         Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>

Subject:      Re: The Role of the Poet

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RACE --- wrote:

>

> runner911 wrote:

> >

> > At 12:17 AM -0700 6/24/97, RACE --- wrote:

> >

> > > The Poet is a man(sic) whom faculty X is naturally more developed than

> > > in most people.  While most of us are ruthlessly "cutting out" whole

> > > areas of perception, thus impoverishing our mental lives, the poet

> > > retains the faculty to be suddenly delighted by the sheer REALITY of the

> > > world "out there."

> >

> > you're describing a middle aged man, fat with glasses, insomniac, drug

> > dependant, all around asshole.  don't forget these kind of fucking poets!

> > every word is loud and obscene.  vulger, foul, distorted.  a last breath

> > before a vowel...aaaaaaah.  that was it.  <<hehehe>>

> >

> > oh, my inner child is screaming, "oh, my hair has been cut too short, I

> > must drive to Cleveland and pick up beer hall chicks...."  At this level,

> > everybody is poetic.  trains of thought, which you site as being hauled off

> > en masse by some anti-x faculty.  I think I went to school there.  fluent

> > in that yada yada way of talk.  yadya yada daya dyadya.  UClA

> >

> > and no attention span.  That's the kind of poet you're describing.  Is that

> > what you meant??

> >

> > cheers, Douglas

> >

> > http://www.electriciti.com/babu/                summer

> > save it, just keep it off my wave               is

> >   -- ("my wave," soundgarden)                   here

>

> actually, the answer  would be an EMPHATIC no.  The kind of poet being

> described in that quotation is the poet as magician and most easily

> understood as a word alchemist.  if one accepts the power of symbols in

> shaping reality, the poet's ability to Perceive and then stir the

> symbolic soup is a Real form of contemporary alchemy.  What you were

> referring to is probably a real creature but my hunch is that the

> alchemist can with some effort overcome the population of these middle

> aged gentlement in terms of pure magic.

>

> david rhaesa

> salina, Kansas

 

I agree with David's alchemist concept, and the idea that "the poet

retains the faculty to be suddenly delighted by the sheer REALITY of the

world 'out there.'  It actually leads to an awesome attention span,

because one is suddenly attentive to the smallest aspect of daily life as

a part of the greater whole of the universe.  Sometimes that leads to

screaming but only when encountering those who have limited their

perception of the poet.  Essentially the poet is god, creating out of the

unknown, speaking truth that transforms the daily experience.

DC

 



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