Spotlight today is a vintage 1991 reading at New York University, recorded and edited by Thin Air poet and videographer, Mitch Corber – “Corso by Corber”. The tape begins somewhat confusingly, in media res and repeating a section that will appear later on in the tape
….And afterwards, I don’t know if I was sleeping and then I woke up, if it were a dream? I never, to this day, I swear, to anything I hold sacred, say, poesy, what happened that afternoon? 1950 on MacDougal Street – That was the heaviest weight I think I’ve had in life with an experience. It had nothing to do with dream, vision. What was it? Why would I have black hat, black coat but blank face. I probably brought it in. If the door is locked, I said “Come in” – Huh? If the door is locked who brought it in but me? – “Come in” – and you catch yourself right away knowing the door’s locked….
The transcription begins, still in media res, but at least with some context and some clarity. Gregory on William Shakespeare:
‘Oh boy, everybody’s afraid of Mr Shakey Willie. I think he just had a virgin language, you know. It’s true, he did have a virgin language. Yeah, I can’t find (it) – (the poem he’s looking for)). It’s too bad, guys, but that’s it. It’s one of the …Okay back to the other ones..
The first poem that Gregory reads is from his earliest collection – The Vestal Lady on Brattle
Ok. “The Wreck of the Nordling” – This is what the Catholic nuns liked. I read in Rome at a place where children.. oh, I guess from nine to fifteen, go. And the nuns liked it. It’s called “The Wreck of the Nordling” –“One night fifty men swam away from God/ And drowned/ In the morning the abandoned God/ Dipped His fingers into the sea,/ Came up with fifty souls,/ And pointed towards eternity” – (A very Catholic poem and a forgiving God – “One night fifty men swam away from God and drowned” – The poetry, the play on imagery there was more important to me than His saving grace of these souls towards eternity. Anyway, the nun that liked this poem gave me a very raunchy joke. She said to me, “Did you know the difference between a snowman and a snow-woman?” – I said “No? what? She says “Snowballs!” – (She wanted to show that at least she was as wild as I was in my poems, that she could say something, you know, a little naughty, cute and naughty. She was alright, she was ok)
Here’s one (where) I tried to copy Senor Yeats (not exactly, although I fell in love with Ancient Egypt but..nonetheless, I think it’s got a Yeatsian sound to it. [Gregory begins reading his poem “Amnesia in Memphis”] – “Who am I, flat beneath the shades of Isis,/ This clay-skinned body, made study/ by the physicians of Memphis?/ Was it always my leaving the North/ Snug on the back of the crocodile?/Do I remember this whorl of mummy cloth/ As I stood fuming by the Nile?/O life abandoned half-embalmed, I beat the soil/ For what I am; who I am I cannot regain,/ Nor sponge my life back with the charm of Ibis oil/ Still-omen of the dribbling Scarab!/Fate that leads me into the chamber of blue perfumes!/ Is there no other worthy of prophecy/ Than that Decker who decks my spine with ostrich plumes?/. No more will the scurvy Sphinx/ With beggy prophets their prophecies relate -/Still….. the falcon’s head has seen..” [he breaks off]- you see? – they eliminated the two last great lines in this print.. in this book (Mindfield)! and, as I recall.. if anybody has Gasoline on them I’ll know the last two lines. – “The Falcon’s head has fallen onto the Jackal’s plate”, that’s it. No more will the scurvy Sphinx/ With beggy prophets their prophecies relate ..the Falcon… how did I say it before? – “The Falcon has seen the Falcon’s head fall unto the Jackal’s plate” ? – Nobody has Gasoline here? My book, Gasoline?
Audience member (handing Gregory a book): Here you go.
GC: Ah, what an angel, there you go, I might get it right.
Audience member: You’re the angel.
GC: Thank you. Now (to the filmmakers) you can use all the light you want (on me) – Okay, Let me get this one. I just wanna prove.. But, you know, it’s sad that they would knock out those two last line, man, that”s not right! Oh, and another terrible thing they did in a poem about a dream. It’s called… I’ll read it.. It’s called “30th Year Dream”, and they published it in a famous poetry newspaper on a back page where everybody would read it, and the word was supposed to be “dreams”, and they knocked out the “d”, so it’s “reams” I’m “reaming” this, you know, sexually. It’s awful. I mean it’s… And you can’t change something like that. You know, how can you do it? How can you tell them, “Hey man, you made a mistake there” – “Oh, sorry!”
Okay lets see where was that poem…come on Gregory… “Amnesia in Memphis”- Well did it sound like Yeats a little bit? – huh? Eh? – I thought it was a great poem (when I wrote it)… You know, sometimes when you write a poem you can really feel wonderful, you really think you hit the ball-game, you know, a home-run. Here it is – “Amnesia in Memphis”, yeah – “No more will the scurvy Sphinx/ With beggy prophets their prophecies relate -?/ The papyrus readers have seen the Falcon’s head/Fall unto the Jackels plate” Yeah that’s it. ok. thank you very much
Audience member: Can you read “Homage to Bird Parker”? (“Requiem for “Bird” Parker, Musician”)
GC: Oh no, too long
Audience member: Ok
GC: Oh no no no no no no, the long ones, please! No this is..
Audience member: (Allen Ginsberg): (Can you (turn the) mic down.)._
GC: Now what does Allen say? It never fails. Does anybody have a Kleenex my nose is running, I’m going like this (sic -sniffing) – great – there you go
You know if anybody wants me to read a poem that they like, that they know, that’s a short one, I’ll do it, but these long ones.. Come on, guys..
Audience member: (Allen Ginsberg): Can you turn the mic down?
GC (to audience member handing him a kleenex): You used it man!
Look ..that’d be good in a movie. right? – this chick is crying, right, and the lover, the guy trying to love her, hands over his dirty snotty handkerchief!
[Corber edits the tape here and he moves next to Gregory reading “Puma in Chapultepec Zoo”]
Anyway I’ll show you why I put it right there. It has to be a great ballerina – “Puma in Chapultepec Zoo” – (“Long smooth slow swift soft cat/ What score, whose choreography did you dance to/ when they pulled the final curtain down?/ Can such ponderous grace remain / here, all alone, on this 9 x 10 stage?/Will they give you another chance/ perhaps to dance the Sierras?/ How sad you seem; looking at you/ I think of Ulanova/ locked in some small furnished room/ in New York, on East 17th Street/ in the Puerto Rican section.”) – Okay, well you’ve been (to) the.. It’s really depressing downtown there, man. So I said “on East 17thStreet..the Puerto Rican section”, this great ballerina – Why did I put it that way? – So, silly me – it’s because this puma was in a Mexican zoo, so I put Mexicans and Puerto Ricans together as, as a silly, you know, kid – nothing to do with racism, or anything like that, you know, (but it could almost strike one as that, so..).
Ok here’s one what I had fun with. In the Renaissance I know the time of Duccio, I know the time of the Quattrocento, I know the time of twelve century, thirteenth century, paintings but I wanted to put them all together at one time – “Botticelli’s “Spring” (Primavera) right? – “No sign of Spring!/Florentine sentinels/from icy campanile/watch for a sign/ Lorenzo dreams to awaken the bluebirds/Ariosto sucks his thumb/Michelangelo sits forward on his bed/…is awakened by no new change./Dante pulls back his velvet hood,/ his eyes are deep and sad./His Great Dane weeps./No sign of Spring!/Leonardo paces his unbearable room/…holds an arrogant eye on die-hard snow/Raffaello steps into a warm bath/…his long silken hair is dry/because of lack of sun/Aretino remembers Spring in Milan; his mother/who now, on sweet Milanese hills, sleeps./ No sign of Spring! No sign!/ Ah, Botticelli opens the door of his studio” – (Now that’s a childish kind of poem, it’s cutesy. But he does the Primavera, he paints Spring, right?, then Spring came – but I didn’t know shit about anything going on – Milan does not have hills, Milanese hills?, it’s all plain, pure plain, there are no hills in Milan. When I said that Aretino remembers his mother in the Milan hills there are no hills, and I don’t understand why somebody’s hair should be dry “because of lack of sun”, you know?. And what else did I screw up here? – but I had fun with it, I had fun. Paintings were a great source for me to revel in poetry.
Anybody know Uccello here? the painter Uccello? – Alright, Uccello…. [Gregory looks to the audience] (It’s always Ginzy’s hand is up! Allen, I’m beginning to… ) I should have brought that poem. But I.… that’s something’s happened, that the great spiritus has died somewhere, that people really do not know their beauty that was/is on this planet before they drop dead – I looked at my father once and said, “If you don’t know Mozart you ain’t worth shit – I’m sorry!”. And he ain’t, he’s gonna die, he’s gonna be out. There’s a waste, something is wrong – And there’s not that much to know. I once took the.. you know, I once took the arrogant statement – because there were three.. two guys before me who said it. one said – Socrates, right?, the big guy, “Know thyself”, he said “All I know is I know nothing” – Ok? – Villon comes along and says, “I know everything but myself”. I come along, I say, “I know all there is to know because there isn’t that much to know” – right? – and there really isn’t that much to know – and it’s not an arrogance (arrogance would be saying, “I know all there is to know”, and leave it at that..huh?) There’s really not that much to know – To know Uccello? My god almighty, how many paintings did he do?, like Vermeer, how many paintings? – thirty? forty? paintings – and these beauties are in the world. See, and that’s why that poem, where I said to the Gods [Gregory’s referring here to the poem, “”I Gave Away…” which he will read towards the end of the reading] give up these gods, (desert) them and miss them – your Devil, your Yahweh, your Jesus – all of them. – Because they’ve failed somehow, their beauty’s gone. It’s the horror of people . People are horrible. People do horrible things to people. You’ve got enough that nature fucks you up, enough that storms and earthquakes do you in, that you’ve got to have people also hurt you?! That is the real heavyweight. So then ‘ drop the gods”, they’re not helping you, (you don’t need to..) In fact that’s a desperation holding onto these gods – hey, you know, and without a God.. Having God, it’s a real sad thing in life. I mean, one of the greatest cries ever gave is “Oh God” to No God, you know. When you think about it, you need somebody… they need that, it’s needed.. People!, oy! , my god! – who could trust people! Who called the hell “hell is other people”? Who said that? Sartre?
Audience Member: Oscar Wilde
GC: No, (Jean Paul) Sartre. Oscar Wilde had a lot of goodies tho’. I loved the man so. Boy the English, let me tell you they could’ve really blown it, like they did with Christ in Jerusalem. England could’ve done it. They did it with Shelley, they did it with Byron, they did it with Chatterton, they almost did it with William Blake, the saint. One day a drunken soldier, King George’s drunken soldier, goes into the garden of Mr Blake and curses Blake’s beautiful simple sweet wife, and Blake is pissed off and picks up an umbrella and curses the man, attacks him, and curses the King. Now in those days cursing the King is like treason, you had to go to trial, and they put poor Mr Blake on trial. Now can you imagine if they would have found that man guilty and put him to prison for that? How could they have lived it down? The English, man. they suck where their poets are concerned. They’ve got great poets. With themselves they suck.
Let me see. Here more short ones. Did somebody ask me something before?
Audience member: (More religious experiences?)
GC: Oh my religious experiences, read those?
Audience member: (Yeah, read those)
GC: Read those?
Audience member: ( Were they useful?)
GC: Yeah, they were useful experiences. So, the big-time ones that were… I’ll tell you one experience that I had, and I don’t know to this day whatever really happened. I was about… well, one year out of prison then, (I must have been about twenty years old), living on MacDougal Street, and it was 12 o’clock, I know it was in the afternoon. So, and I don’t sleep in the afternoon. and I wasn’t taking drugs, and so I say it wasn’t nodding, I wasn’t a heavy drinker then, so I wasn’t in a stupor. ButI was facing a wall. The door was there (sic) and the wall was here (sic), and I had a table with a typewriter on it, and I know I was sitting at the typewriter. Alright, now this is what scared the hell out of me. I always locked the door, (had something about leaving a door unlocked), Okay, “Knock, knock” – and, before I realized it, I said, “Come in” – Uh-oh! – the door opens, and I know I locked that door. I know I locked the door. It opens. I turn and I get a very cold chill, right? Somebody’s at the door with a black hat, black coat, white gloves, blank white face glowing, and pointing – and I don’t know if (it’s) pointing at me, the wall, the typewriter, or what, but – I felt a very cold chill. and that was (him). And afterwards, I don’t know if I was sleeping and I’d woke up?, if it were a dream? – I’ve never, to this day, I swear, to anything I hold sacred, say, poesy, (understood) what happened that afternoon, 1950 on MacDougal Street – That was the heaviest weight I think I ever had in life, of an experience that had nothing to do with dream? vision? What was it? Why would it have black hat, black coat but blank face? I probably brought it in. If the door is locked, I said “Come in” – If the door is locked, who brought it in but me? – huh? – “Come in” (and you catch yourself, right away, knowing the door’s locked..)
No those useful.. I’ll read them but, no, anybody know that poem? anybody know this poem? I had these three experiences as a kid. Wanna hear them?
Audience: Yeah
GC: Okay – let’s see – but they’re very Catholic bullshit, you know, but (you wanna?) – let’s see see see, [Gregory looks through his poems] they grow.. these are hard.. they grow out of the Catholic thing, but let’s see, Gregory, where is it? – Deeda da da da da da da da – So how you people doing? Alright?
Then follows a currently (2020) haunting riff
So Is Spring here yet? Yes Spring is here, right? Did anybody get the flu this year? I got… oh, I don’t ever want that again, I don’t like it. I don’t like it (but you can’t do nothing about it)… Oh I found it..
AG: I got flu shots
GC: Huh?
AG: I got flu shots. I didn’t get the flu.
GC: That’s it, they say next year’s gonna be worse. You know what scared me tho’, see? Rome, I was in Rome last year and Ava Gardner was maybe about four, five, years older than me. She got the flu and she died and that’s what spooked me. And I know that my body, I don’t take care of it too well, so I said, “Gregory, you know, this thing could knock you out, man”, because, look at Ava Gardner, she has the best fuckin’ doctors, you know that, right? – she’s got all the money, everything, they’re taking care of that one, and she conks off, right?
I’ve found the poem that’s about the “reams”, the ream? The reams?… Well, this is one of the most extraordinary dreams I ever had and it‘s like getting.. it shows the impulse, my impulsiveness, what I found out in dreams, people are like they are in life. I once dreamt William Burroughs and he acted the same way he was in life, I dreamt of Allen and he was the same way he was in life – okay..
..Here’s a heavy one, here’s a heavy one – John Wayne died by it and he took many young soldiers with him to die by it. He said ‘hey boys, lets go see an atomic blast, boys, big ol’ John Wayne taking them there . This is what happened –[Gregory reads “Many Have Fallen“] – “In 1958 I took the prophecy,/ the heaviest kind: Doomsday./ It was announced In a frolicy poem called “Bomb”/ and it concluded like this: “Know that in the hearts of men to come/ more bombs will be born/…yea, into our lives a bomb shall fall/ Well, 20 years later/, not one but 86 bombs, A-bombs, have fallen.// We bombed our Utah, Nevada, New Mexico. and all survived/… until two decades later/ when the dead finally died.” – ( It took them that long – Twenty fuckin’ years. Twenty years for them to.. you know.. take off Who can they sue? What? – Twenty years – hey? – What an awful mess!…)
I wondered, you know. ( I was in that sick bed, but I was thinking even before the sick bed, I always wondered), do you think that this life will ever be ok? – I mean, do you think that there’ll be one day when it’s really ok (I mean, because we’re all going to die, so you figure, ok, then life would be ok and the only thing that we got to have to figure out is when we die, and that’s it. But, no, we got to live this life and knock ourselves out about how to eat, how to take care, how to be gentle, how not to get hurt, how not to hurt, what is it? what is it? and it some test? I don’t know. Are we going through some kind of trial? What is it? Can anybody can tell me? Nobody tells me anything. I got to tell myself. And I read books. I read. I try to get some from books…
Here’s a cutesy poem – “When a boy/ I monitored the stairs..” – (That was an awful.. that was the first time I was going to be given some authority. I was raised as an orphan, I never had an authority, but the teacher made me monitor so that I could stand at the stairs and see that the kids would climb the stairs right to go to the classroom. What happens is, stepmother at lunchtime hands me a cup of coffee and it falls on my chest! (Ow!) And I’m blistered, like that, and I should’ve stayed home, but, no, I wanted to be the monitor that afternoon, and I went.. ok?) – “When a boy/ I monitored the stairs/altar’d the mass/flew the birds of New York City” – (Okay, “altar’d the mass”, could mean changing, you see, but, no, I was an altar boy) – “flew the birds of New York City” – (I had birds on the rooftop, flying them in the sky. If you catch a bird, you get fifty cents back, if you lose, you gotta pay fifty cents to get it. Some mean bastards would have a catch-kill (if they didn’t like you, they’d kill the bird). And then you had on the Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan Bridge, and Wlliamsburg Bridge, the chickenhawks, and they’d come after your birds – zoom! – and get ‘em, you see, by the neck (they’d eat the feed sack). And if you get the bird right you can take it down the pet shop and they’d sew it up..)
Okay.. – Anyway, let me just do the whole poem and no more comment on it. (because of) the last line – “When a boy/ I monitored the stairs/altar’d the mass/flew the birds of New York City/ And in summer camp/ I kissed the moon/ in a barrel of rain”– (Okay now – I thought, Gregory, that’s a little too sweet, but it really happened. Because, you know when the water comes from one of these country houses, the drain, and it goes into a barrel? And the water’s very still? And the moon reflected in it was so beautifully pure. A new moon right there, and I kissed it and it rippled, right? So “Summer camp I kissed the moon in a barrel of rain”) – Well that can show that a poet aint always a shit, you see? They can probably say, “Okay, there’s some good in all of this..”
Right..this one is called “Getting To The Poem” – I might have given too much thanks to those that really..(I..) maybe overboard thanking them – (“I have lived by the grace of Jews and girls/ and am not wanting…” – (Well I wrote it young, now I’d say “women”, right? ,not “girls”) – “I have lived by the grace of Jews and girls/I have nothing/and am not wanting…”… I will live/ and never know my death” – (Yeah, that last line got me in a little trouble because, ok, Gregory, explain that one –“ you will live and never know your death” – it’s true, I don’t think anybody knows their death or ever will know their death – that’s a fact – others will, but you won’t)
Let me see, Gregorio, here –” Spirit” (Spirit/is Life/It flows thru/the death of me/endlessly/like a river/unafraid/of becoming/the sea”)
Oh, arrogant poem.. Here, I’ve got two arrogant poems, and then I think I’m going to call it quits, guys – (“I gave away the sky,/ along with all the stars planets moons”… “…And so I gave the gods away”) – I got to thank Allen for that last line. He helped me out of that poem. That was a hard one to get out of. Well, he said, give the gods already away” – “Alright”
Lets see the other arrogant one, Gregorio, is “The Whole Mess Almost” – I’ll tell you the mistakes I made in this one. This one, you know… Usually I don’t like saying, “Uh-oh, I did that, I made a mistake”, but I think you can see that it’s a very… one that can be easily fixed up – Okay, “The Whole Mess Almost” – (“I ran up six flights… out the window with the window, already) – Yeah – I think I got… The mistake was “Love”, the one on love, by putting her in a sexual context, “her fat ass out the window”, and all that. I think I screwed it up with “Love” on it, but the others, no, I don’t think I screwed up with “God” and all the rest of the fuckers, and “money”, my money is the only lower case in the poem, (all the rest have capitals but money was a lower case). That wasn’t really an important number anyway, but I thought it was funny to say.
So,thank you guys for a nice night huh? Ciao.
{Audience applause]
[Corber keeps the camera rolling and captures a brief moment of Gregory after the reading] – I’ve been an hour right? One hour?” “..Well you know I usually talk so I want to ask you something?… oh yeah…that’s fine…”
[and one excerpt from, presumably a quick last snatch of conversation]
So, when the guy… I was (utterly.. I don’t speak French, man, taking these tourists in, but when the guy did take the tourists into that room, I locked it! Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Well you know, good, well, these were my wild hood days, you know, seeding my oats, (whatever it’s called), in the “Fifties, in beautiful France and Greece. Oh they were beautiful, beautiful times, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, see, that’s something now. You brought some nice thing (up), because I should not forget, that I did have a wonderful life. and I should not be in these latter days be looking at it in such a way and saying “where has the great old gone?”, and all that, perhaps, huh?. Okay, guys, ciao
[and one final overheard snippet]
..These are stories I hear from people in the past the really awful things, oh boy! – and I usually get them by saying, “hey why didn’t you tell me then? why are you telling me now?”