Remembering Allen Ginsberg

 

Allen Ginsberg (left) with Jack Kerouac

Poet and core Beat Generation member, Allen Ginsberg, died on this date -- April 5 -- in 1997. Ginsberg needs no introduction to understand the Kerouac connection. He appeared in too many Kerouac works, under aliases of course, to mention here, but you can determine what those were by visiting the excellent Character Key to Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend. I will point out that in the two Kerouac novels -- On The Road and The Dharma Bums -- that inspired my book, The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions, Ginsberg appeared as Carlo Marx and Alvah Goldbrook, respectively.

Allen would be honored if you read -- or listen to him read -- some of his poetry today. You can find it in several places on-line. Here are a couple of links to get you started:

Poetry Foundation

Ginsberg reading "Howl"

It is an instructive exercise to read along while listening to Ginsberg read "Howl."

Despite his living until 1997, when I was 41, I never saw Ginsberg in person. I came into the Kerouac fold late in life, around 2002, 5 years after Allen passed.

Here's a snippet from a letter Jack wrote to Ginsberg on August 26, 1947, seeking to smooth over tensions between several in their circle. Note both the Christian and Buddhist concepts in just this short paragraph:

"In this unworldly state wherein I move/ my father and hope are hellish currency."

So you find from the Hal* experience, and Temko's* condescension, White's* aloofness. Your kingdom is not of this world, therefore you're found to be hellish--but mistakenly of course, of that I'm sore convinced. They don't understand you, that's true. You say it very well. It's only that they are not seeking love as you are--that you must understand. You must doubt your disappointment in them, that is, you must doubt whatever irks you about them, doubt their valuelessness: for they have value, and they have hope, on their levels, they will be reached by you. Form no ideas about them. Forgive everything! (Jack Kerouac Selected Letters 1940-1956, 1995, Penguin Books, p. 121

RIP, Mr. Ginsberg. I'm sorry I never got to meet you.

*Hal Chase, Allan Temko, and Chad White