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Copacetic
The Third Page:A Journal of Ongrowing Natures
| Gregory Corso
Gregory Corso passed away on January 19, 2001 at the age of 70. He had been quite ill for some time.
Gregory Corso was one of the major figures of the Beat Generation. He was a poet, painter, traveler, and occasional lecturer. His vibrant, vital, authentic poetry celebrates the mystery of life and death through everyday detail and mystic visions. Though he never gained the truly widespread fame that his fellow Beats Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs enjoyed, his work had an impact on contemporary poetics that continues to this day. His poetry has earned praise from many. Jack Kerouac is quoted as saying (on the back cover of Corso's "Gasoline") "I think that Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg are the two best poets in America and that they can't be compared to each other. Gregory was a tough young kid from the Lower East Side who rose like an angel over the rooftops and sang Italian songs as sweet as Caruso and Sinatra, but in words. 'Sweet Milanese hills' brood in his Renaissance soul, evening is coming on the hills. Amazing and beautiful Gregory Corso, the one & only Gregory the Herald. Read slowly and see." Bob Dylan has spoken about how the early Beat writing, and particularly Ginsberg's "Howl," Ferlinghetti's "Coney Island of the Mind," and Corso's "Gasoline" awakened him to new possibilities of the written word. Corso was born in Greenwich Village, New York, on March 26, 1930. He had a turbulent childhood, his mother abandoning the family to return to Italy, and his father unable to offer much support. Gregory was a chronic runaway, and was in and out of jail during his adolescence. He began reading & writing poetry while serving time in prison for theft. Shortly after his release, he met Allen Ginsberg in a Greenwich Village bar, and, after showing Ginsberg some of his poems, the two became close friends. Allen Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac, Burroughs, and his other literary friends. Thus was the beginning of a great literary career. Some of Gregory Corso's major publications are:
"The Vestal Lady on Brattle & Other Poems" 1955 Here are some links to pages concerning Gregory Corso: General:
DESTINY
They deliver the edicts of God in human flesh is assigned a dependable, self-reliant, versatile, thoroughly poet existence upon its sojourn in life It does not knock or ring the bell or telephone When the Messenger-Spirit comes to your door though locked It'll enter like an electric midwife and deliver the message There is no tell throughout the ages that a Messenger-Spirit ever stumbled into darkness Before I was born Before I was heredity Before I was life Before I was - owls appeared and trains departed
Death is not a photograph Nor a burning mark on the eyes Everything I see is Death Not Grim Reaper scythed and hourglassed Scratch nor skullcrossbones Nor bull butterfly
Call Death not a lesser name Dead men I've known called Death less A stubborn roar is a sad error Nor valor once resuscitated be valor again
Owls hoot and the train's toot deflate I beg for the breath that keeps me alive Pitch I spew and pitch I wait -- A departed train is a train to arrive
The bitter travel is done Take me Death into your care I wait in the terminal Exultant to breathe your avalanche air My body's quilt hath spilt I raise my feet And the porter sweeps What once was my meat
Death comes zoomed-hands like a storm Whoa the tailcoats of old men! Whoa aching futures!
O when I close my eyes the black I see is blacker still and when I sleep the sleep I sleep is not at will and when I dream I dream children waving goodbye Desperate clinky tumult merging cank Midnight dense slumber thaw Gold murmurous silk pullman Double townsmen Polluted boot witchmaker bootmaker shoemaker Dust crime Dull budge Stale lace Irrigated casket Purple lips flap message that breath is now alien Death's laughing nose Black week Is dead side by side with cobbled hour is dead of building whirlwind shy centurions is dead windless mortal dry is dead uncomprehending harsh divorce from life to life to death and linger blacker week to succombed year terrific obscurity a bitter trek O this White War This snowskull This immaculate thaw
Hang all kinds of ailments cramps and shrieks away Outflush allegoric atoms Summon flexile agonies transfusions bloats and shrinks Rekindle fire in a Browny cafe
There be a palace in Deathland Deathchildren sapping in sunny porticos Deathhorses nibbling deathgrass Death king and death queen heralding a tournament of Death There be the Deathslayer breathing cold fire There be the knighly Death Deathmaiden Sound clarions! combat And all the dead be avenged
Let's all die Let's practice a little Let's play dead for a couple of hours Let's everybody weave elegant everlasting cerements build fantastic tombs carve lifelong coffins and devise great ways to die lets! Let's walk under ladders, cross the paths of black cats, break mirrors, burn rabbit feet, snip the 4th petal, Yes! let's draw the ACE OF SPADES -- Let's sleep with our doors unlocked
Hark witchen! Envy the make of Death Crank the earth Jake the moss Give weep for the right of tend Filtrate the fierce soul Hello the sook of night Give should for need Chance be it many sures are in the making Merry lack! Full-lept impervious jack! Ox-flushings, scour'd malady, suffused sulphur, Sepulchral ebb --
On to explore Death I go Bragging old snowballs to Osnag Tragaro dumping Esufer Wolb in the snow Trumpet in a satchel of Deaf I go Soon on Death's bandstand I'll blizzard the ashed blow
Witch pickles dilled in broomsweat Werewolf hair from Transylvanian bathtubs Ho! the rosebee from its skeptical let eyes me as being unscientific -- O tail of Indian workhorse! O abandoned farms! Hear my formulae! I have the way to bring back the dead I have I have and love me for it O I the KNOW of Death! I dark mad ah solace dreams grace miracle quack awful O!
Drsxqo! Pitchfork Blook fires chickens down a perilous road Drsxqo! have you a dead beast for me?
And the owl sobs The vizer Croat is scratched a tally Hear the owl rally
from the book The Happy Birthday of Death by Gregory Corso, ©1960.
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