Allen Ginsberg : Name Your Reasons Why He Is So Bad & Hated.

Also I say this because I had a brief period where I was obsessed with America and listened to the recording of it on my headphones everyday while walking to town.

Before answering can I ask what types of people are expressing to you that Ginsberg is totally embarrassing and bad? I think the reasons might be very different between casual readers and general folks vs. people who are more involved in poetry.

See, I would be casual reader/general folk on this, but anything I read/anyone I listen to who knows or at least pretends to know what they're talking about are so casually dismissive, which has rightly or wrongly implied to me a consensus dismissal

i think he's rated just exactly right -- the famous stuff (or at least the stuff from the 'famous' era) is the only good stuff, but he was nice to have around for a few decades. i can think of tons of poets more embarrassing than ginsberg and only a few from the last 50 years who wrote anything as good as "america."

he was a great champion of other writers--that should not be overlooked. as for his poems, i don't engage/click with them at all. they read to me as super dull, totally uninteresting. but, like i said, i'm still on his side, because he was such a champion for others. he had his moments, though.

my guess is, people who are dismissive of him quickly--either haven't read him or they have and they've moved on. . .but are super embarrassed that they used to like him. but i'm not much on poetry, i'm much more interested in fiction.

Saul Bellow pays unexpected and touching tribute to him in the short story 'Him With His Foot In His Mouth' - 'Under all this self-revealing candor is purity of heart. And the only authentic living representative of American Transcendentalism is that fat-breasted, bald, bearded homosexual in smeared goggles, innocent in his uncleanness.'

Once saw him perform a free open-air recital in Covent Garden, singing Blake and playing his harmonium, that was very moving and pure. I think his recordings are generally a gd way in to his work.

hated cuz from New Jersey

saul bellow OTM

jeez doc dont pull any punches!!

lotta good new jersey poets btw

i like ginsberg tho and frankly complete and total dismissiveness of any author is basically a dud attitude

J.D. OTM (as usual). Like Thomas Hardy, he wrote such a mountain of well-turned crap that not even the most scrupulous of anthologizers will find the patience to dust something you don't see in the usual collections. No way is he funnier, more surprising, and wiser than Elizabeth Bishop or James Merrill, but I'm glad he was around.

And, by all accounts, he was a prince of a fellow -- which is rare enough in a writer.

He joined NAMBLA

he was a great champion of other writers--that should not be overlooked. as for his poems, i don't engage/click with them at all. they read to me as super dull, totally uninteresting. but, like i said, i'm still on his side, because he was such a champion for others. he had his moments, though.

Spot-on. Really don't like his poetry, and 'Howl' is SO over-rated, but I can see why he floats some boats.

See, but why is it so overrated

"He joined NAMBLA"

Definitely not a mark in his favor.

I guess it's over-rated because it's constantly quoted as a great poem but I think it's not very good. So _I_ think it's over-rated.

The boy-liking is a bad thing.

The spelling of 'your' I adopted ('yr') is a good thing.

But do these things balance out?

The Night-Apple

Last night I dreamed
of one I loved
for seven long years,
but I saw no face,
only the familiar
presence of the body;
sweat skin eyes
feces urine sperm
saliva all one
odor and mortal taste.

– A.G.

I like his poems like this: delicate/raunchy and brief.

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary
indian angels who were visionary indian angels,
– from "Howl" (A.G. of course)

Another bonus: Idaho shoutout. All 43 people in Idaho cream their jeans when anyone mentions Idaho in a published work of art.

That's gross -- in a formal sense, firstly.

(xpost)

not to be that guy but if we start tossing poets out for being into little kids were going to end up tossing out poets a lot better than ginsberg

"Howl" was my first introduction to the "Beat Generation", and it eventually led me to read some really good stuff. For that reason, I still have a soft spot for it. "America" is far and away the best thing he ever did though. The version he recorded with Tom Waits has nearly made me cry on more than one occasion.

I get the feeling he'd be a fun, funny guy to hang out with if you were the kind of person to whom he was not sexually attracted (wld be awkward, otherwise).

also i believe his stated reason for joining nambla was to support their right to free speech

not to be that guy but if we start tossing poets out for being into little kids were going to end up tossing out poets a lot better than ginsberg

This sure is true but I still think it's fair to point out that a boy-liker is a boy-liker.

I get the feeling he'd be a fun, funny guy to hang out with if you were the kind of person to whom he was not sexually attracted (wld be awkward, otherwise).

Some things I've read seem to suggest this. But then the thinly disguised version of him in John McLellon Holmes' 'Go' is a pain in the arse.

When my best galpal & I first roomed together @ age 19, we decorated the kitchen w/this framed postcard of A.G., all beaded necklaces, big goofy smile, putting his hands together. It became this big tradition that, every time you saw it, you said, "LOOK guyth, I'm meeeddditatttinnng." That is one main thing I associate him w/bcz people frequently enter and exit a kitchen. I heard & said it at least 10x daily.

But then the thinly disguised version of him in John McLellon Holmes' 'Go' is a pain in the arse.

Don't linger too long on this sentence.

ginsberg is okay for his time but i jim carroll's ginsberg/vibrator story scarred me so greatly as a young teen I swore I would never ever be in a room with either

Ginsberg OR the vibrator?

Ginsberg OR the vibrator?

A Short Story by Frank Stockton.

i remember reading one of his poems that was mostly a rant against western man, like "you're eating shitty fatty foods and animals and you're all gonna die of heart attacks" and then he died from a heart attack.

oops!

I have a friend who is a poet and from Idaho (he's in Portland now) and he basically rewrote this famous poet's work so it would be about Idaho.

The poet people seem to like some of his journals, and say he was very good with descriptions in them.

one i really like is 'a supermarket in california' -- very quiet, gently melancholy, comic.

AG's 'embarrassing' qualities are part of what makes him good and interesting (when he is). just think of the other beats and the ppl they influenced - they're mostly a bunch of staid, macho types. whether on the page or in person, AG is so gushy, showoffy, and borderline-obnoxious that he just seems in a completely different realm than the mailer/bukowski/kerouac crowd.

that's the other one i like

I also like Bukowski

that's one i never got -- i've read 30-word ilx posts i found more engaging and interesting than any bukowski.

Bukowski seems to be about a certain type of surface.

when I wake up tomorrow I want that expanded into something brilliant

youre fucking insane. bukowski is everything.

I haven't read enough to really expand it. It always seemed like he had a few rhetorical moves and a specific tone to hit, and that was that. But I might be wrong, I am not the best person to do a sympathetic reading of him, so you might not want to consult me.

I have a friend who is a poet and from Idaho (he's in Portland now) and he basically rewrote this famous poet's work so it would be about Idaho.

!??!!! zomg Casuistry could you point me to this?

AG's 'embarrassing' qualities are part of what makes him good and interesting (when he is).

¡Si, si!

Abbott, my review of his book.

That looks PRETTY groovy, but I am sad he's not from Idaho. I need to steal his idea, but subtly alter it.

He moved to Oregon for college, which is where Joseph Bradshaw lives, though he is from Idaho.

Wait. Nevermind. Sorry.

Now I can say that looks excellent and intriguing!

He = J. Bradshaw here, yes?

Yes, that's my friend. He grew up in Boise.

Oh man I am wearing my BOISE HIGH hoodie right now.

I don't think I could even play his game, let alone try and beat him at it.

Still you could read it and then write to him and say hi. You could collaborate with him. He is a pretty friendly guy.

I guess you don't know him already, though? I forget how old you are. He's, I dunno, late 20s. I don't think he's 30 yet. But maybe.

I promise I don't know him. I like your plan, though: read, say hi, talk about Ada County. We seem to have v v different writing styles so I have no idea how a collab would work. If he wanted to do a comic maybe.

just thing out loud here

i think there are things in bukowski as a novelist, but he wrote poetry like other people write to-do lists

ginsberg, ehh.

here is a thread on his music, which makes the case for his appealing goofiness:

Has anyone heard the songs Allen Ginsberg recorded?

this is awesome btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWxl-HvwjJs

"sweet vaselines"

See, I would be casual reader/general folk on this, but anything I read/anyone I listen to who knows or at least pretends to know what they're talking about are so casually dismissive, which has rightly or wrongly implied to me a consensus dismissal

― I know, right?, Thursday, August 28, 2008 4:13 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

See, my experience has always been the opposite: everything I read and hear (mostly from English majors, undergrad and grad) is pure adoration.

I first read Howl when I was about 17 and I HATED it immediately, in much the same way I hated Whitman. Since then I've tried to figure out just what it is I hate so much about them both - I think it's the overflowing, gushing wordiness. In Ginsberg's case it is also the overwrought grittiness.

That said, I have reached peace with Ginsberg and Howl. I respect Howl for being its historical importance as a rebellious reaction to poetry's norms of the time. I've learned more about Ginsberg and read more of his poems, and he seems like an interesting and grounded guy. His explanation of why he joined NAMBLA is pretty convincing (I can't remember exactly, but something about how infantilizing teenagers is bad).

If anything, Ginsberg is a much more self-absorbed version of Walt Whitman, with far less ability to self-edit.

Ginsberg had a bad habit of dashing off a lengthy and spontaneous piece of offgassing on his way to a reading and then presenting it to the audience while it was still a steaming heap, while being delighted with himself as he did so. Often, he would end up carrying the audience by the sheer force of his delight. So, basically, he mistook performance for poetry.

As for his personality, I understand he could be both charming and boorish, by turns, in the classic way of bright people who are deeply self-absorbed and who love to perform. His well-attested naivety was a function of the limitations of his character, not his personal experience.

I ran across Ginsberg a couple of times in St. Marks Books (NYC) in the early 90's and he was very likeable and genuine when approached. We chatted about our mutual hometown of Paterson, NJ. AG: "I remember how clear the Passaic River was. We used to all swim in it." And when asked advice on proper ways to learn meditating "The firs thing you have to do is learn how to sit. Can you sit still?" I also love much of his poetry and his Indian Journals are a great read.

Re: the dismissal

I was in a poetry seminar in the Iowa Writers Workshop where we studied poets born in 1927-28 (this is a whole bunch of people: Ashbery, O'Hara, James Wright, James Merrill, Bly & Ginsberg). Our teacher basically read Howl as a big joke, and kind of bullied the students into agreeing with him that Ginsberg's poetry was laughable. Me & one other dude defended him, to the sneers of the mousy black-clad Brown alums.

http://www.stomptokyo.com/pia/img/hairspray3.jpg

I first read Howl when I was about 17 and I HATED it immediately, in much the same way I hated Whitman.

does not compute

But then I hate Howl, love Whitman, and prefer the Supermarket ginsberg

I'm not sure Ginsberg was ever "into little kids" -- teenage boys, yes. We can get into age-of-consent debates, but this was a different thing than being a molestor of pre-adolescents.

Anyway, tonight I'm seeing the 'Beat murder case' movie where Harry Potter plays him.

AG made way better records than Walt Whitman

no, AG was not into kids -- he said this a bunch of places, but his nambla thing was strictly a free-speech thing. iirc samuel delaney supported them for similar reasons.