Collected Poems 1947–1997Here, for the first time, is a volume that gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half century of brilliant work from one of America's great poets. The chief figure among the Beats, Ginsberg changed the course of American poetry, liberating it from closed academic forms with the creation of open, vocal, spontaneous, and energetic postmodern verse in the tradition of Walt Whitman, Guillaume Apollinaire, Hart Crane, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams. Ginsberg's classics Howl, Reality Sandwiches, Kaddish, Planet News, and The Fall of America led American (and international) poetry toward uncensored vernacular, explicit candor, the ecstatic, the rhapsodic, and the sincere—all leavened by an attractive and pervasive streak of common sense. Ginsberg's raw tones and attitudes of spiritual liberation also helped catalyze a psychological revolution that has become a permanent part of our cultural heritage, profoundly influencing not only poetry and popular song and speech, but also our view of the world. The uninterrupted energy of Ginsberg's remarkable career is clearly revealed in this collection. Seen in order of composition, the poems reflect on one another; they are not only works but also a work. Included here are all the poems from the earlier volume Collected Poems 1947-1980, and from Ginsberg's subsequent and final three books of new poetry: White Shroud, Cosmopolitan Greetings, and Death & Fame. Enriching this book are illustrations by Ginsberg's artist friends; unusual and illuminating notes to the poems, inimitably prepared by the poet himself; extensive indexes; as well as prefaces and various other materials that accompanied the original publications. |
Contents
THE GREEN AUTOMOBILE 19531954 | 89 |
san francisco bay area 19551956 | 129 |
europe europe 19571959 | 169 |
kaddish and related poems 19591960 | 215 |
to europe and asia 19611963 | 271 |
AMERICA TO EUROPE 19631965 | 339 |
Drowse Murmurs | 365 |
Studying the Signs | 371 |
Notes | 929 |
You Dont Know It | 943 |
Velocity of Money | 949 |
Fifth Internationale | 957 |
When the Light Appears | 966 |
To Jacob Rabinowitz | 972 |
May Days 1988 | 979 |
Elephant in the Meditation Hall | 985 |
Zigzag Back Thru These States 19661967 | 435 |
Elegies for Neal Cassady 1968 | 495 |
Ecologues of These States 19691971 | 519 |
Bixby Canyon to Jessore Road 1971 | 567 |
MIND BREATHS ALL OVER THE PLACE 19721977 | 585 |
PlutonIAN ODE 19771980 | 695 |
Appendix for Collected Poems 19471980 | 757 |
POEMS 19801985 | 837 |
Homage Vajracarya | 850 |
Old Love Story | 856 |
Do the Meditation Rock | 863 |
A Public Poetry | 869 |
Going to the World of the Dead | 875 |
Am Not | 881 |
Brown Rice Quatrains | 887 |
Empire Air | 893 |
Its All So Brief | 899 |
Reading Bai JuyiI II III IV V China Bronchitis VI VII | 905 |
Black Shroud | 911 |
Moral Majority | 917 |
Mistaken Introductions | 995 |
Hum Bom | 1004 |
Big Eats | 1011 |
Lunchtime | 1017 |
Get It? | 1024 |
Violent Collaborations | 1033 |
Everyday | 1042 |
American Sentences | 1048 |
POEMS 19931997 | 1057 |
New Democracy Wish List | 1063 |
After Olav H Hauge | 1069 |
Cmon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease | 1071 |
Nazi Capish | 1087 |
Five a m | 1100 |
Bad Poem | 1115 |
Richard III | 1129 |
Half Asleep | 1136 |
My Team Is Red Hot | 1149 |
Afterword | 1163 |