An Influential Neurotic Bodhisattva Bard
A few months after Mev died, I read all of Allen Ginsberg‘s poetry and several volumes of essays and journals. Somehow, his spirit cheered me. Recently, I’ve read several books about Ginsberg and what follows are a few excerpts from and about this influential neurotic bodhisattva bard.
Journalist Jane Kramer: “Once Allen Ginsberg actually came into your life, he settled there–intimate, indispensable, and so familiar that you could not imagine your life before him.” From “Howl” Fifty Years Later: The Poem That Changed America, edited by Jason Shinder, page 148.
Allen Ginsberg: “Cultivate the habit of noticing your mind and registering your own mind, too. Don’t wait to be discovered. Discover yourself. Publish your own work and circulate your work.” Quoted in American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation, by Jonas Raskin, xvi. Read the rest of this entry »