Book Review
The Poetry And Life Of Allen Ginsberg: A Narrative Poem, Edward Sanders, The Overlook Press, 2000
…he came out of the womb, came out roaring, came out roaring maybe already with those life-long tinkle bells already welded to his fingers, asking ten thousand questions (and only getting about eight thousand, give or take a few, answers), life questions, death questions, hi how are you what makes you tick questions, hi how are you, why this, why that, in a world he had not created, and had not, no way, been asked about creating, a common malady of the young, of those fresh from the womb. He came out of the Jersey night, the already crowded William Appleton Williams-Louis Ginsberg Jersey night, all jet black against the red brick factory rivers, against the short breeze floating in from brave Atlantic seas, and against up-shore big river cities. He came out of the hard brick world to sing that queer shoulder to the wheel plainsong after escaping hard toil Paterson, all used up (since about 1912 or 1913) and headed to the bright lights of New Jack City (jack literally please, Jack Kerouac, Jack of the dark-haired night, jack of the beat, the sullen heart beat), the 1940s middle of war New Jack City night, hard-pressed to conquer million words, not prose words, but beat words, words that would flow together in that juiced-up be-bop jazz infused world.
But there was more, that plainsong was a dime a dozen, maybe cheaper, as every literary flash hitched his or her star to some cooled out Birdland blast, some Monkish madness, some Dizzy swagger, and so he , restless, 1930s generation restless, hobo nation restless, back from Pacific atolls and Saar valley hide-outs restless, ready to take that first Packard and head west, head to the frontier, the closed frontier and sing his plainsong there, and he did, and the world turned on his dime for just that minute. And no rest, no rest for those who chant howl, howl, howl to a candid world, kindred, brethren, and so he was able to world-historic flourish, to work, despite the mad devil’s workers around him (who, if you can believe this, called him mad, called him fag, called him obscene, called him, Christ-killer as if that would do any good among the felon youth ready to listen).
And then the music faded, the music of his be-bop youth (pictures still fresh in the mind’s eye of hard-edged Jack, golden all-American East boy, cigarette in his hand, golden west boy, all-American West boy, Neal, and Allen, the prophet, although not in prophet garb then, pulling the air out of the tires out of the New York City night) long gone to seed, long gone to souvenirs shops and literary hustles. The music of his manhood faded too (picture of Dylan and Allen up in Jack’s grave land a scene putting paid to two generations who tried to ride the curve, tried make that jail break before the deal went down, as the greed heads, the suit boys, the fruit salad boys, the spin doctors, the language thieves, pulled down the hammer on the last best hope). Pulled it down hard, hard enough to stick. He cried in the wilderness night, cried picking his spots, a cause here, an individual case there, and cried out over eleven hundred, count them, pages of collected non-stolen word s before doctor death who stalked him fiercely flitted the flame.
…and hence this song, this life song, the only real way the max daddy wordsmith of the beats, the max daddy wordsmith of the hippies could be remembered, remembered by one who lived the air of the break-out times, and they were the times.
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