RR: “1986 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of the poet Allen Ginsberg and it was thirty years ago, in what Ginsberg called then “Hebraic Melvillean bardic breath”, that the poem “Howl” cut across the nation, drowning out forever the dominance of nineteenth-century verse forms. Ginsberg spoke out to America in a brave new voice and that voice still echoes in America’s coffee houses.
AG recorded, (reading from “America)” – I’m addressing you/Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?/ I’m obsessed by Time Magazine./I read it every week./Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. / I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library./It’s always telling me about responsibility..”
Although Ginsberg has one been associated with the voice of dissent in the organized movements of radical Leftist politics, his heart follows the rhythms of an anarchist.
AG: I never felt any social obligation, none at all, ever. I think that’s thy poison of poetry and I think that’s the poison of political activity. As soon as you’ve got an obligation, you’re a prisoner of an obligation, you’re no longer actually reacting openly to what you see in front of you as reality.
Ginsberg denies that his poetry has broken from tradition but instead insists that he has returned to an ancient tradition of poetry that follows the characteristics of common speech.
AG: And it’s a suggestion that Ezra Pound had for poets – to follow the tone-leading of the vowels, to write according to the musical phrase, so involving the vocal tone, pitch, or accent (as the Greeks called it in Greek prosody). They had an “up”, “down” and “a bit down” – like.. Peleus.. say – the opening line of the Iliad – “Sing Muse of the wrath of Achilles, Peleus’ son” – because the vocalization in poetry generally has failed to include all the possibilities of.. of ordinary conversational voice, and just as Pound said “poetry should be at least as well written as prose” [Editorial note – 30 September, 1914 in a, letter to Harriet Monroe), so poetry should be at least as variably spoken as speech.
With this idea of poetic expression in mind it is natural to find Ginsberg choosing to play a musical form that is also derived from common speech.
(AG reading/reciting from “Little Fish Devours The Big Fish”) – When the troops/get their poop at Fort Bragg/how to frag/Sandinistas/Leftist Nicas/or go bomb/Guatamalan/Indians/Make a tomb/for men & boys/ending joys/of villages/and pillage/or burn down/to the ground/little huts/where pigs rut/This costs much/tax money as such for an error/of red terror/ Hypocrisy/is the key/to self defeating/prophecy
In 1968 Ginsberg sang on a record with The Fugs, a New York-based music group whose outrageous music seldom got air-play. Ginsberg also recorded an unreleased music album with singer Bob Dylan (Editorial note – not exactly but Dylan appears on the early 1971 sessions) – and in fact he casually says it was Dylan who taught him the three-chord blues progression, but as much as the American folk tradition influenced his style, it was transcendentalism that gave Ginsberg’s music its soul.
AG: Well I wouldn’t be singing blues if I hadn’t started singing mantra. But I began singing with the… (the) first time I heard any mantra or whatever.. (this is not really music, the mantra, just singing) was (Jack) Kerouac singing “Buddha Saranam Gacchâmi/Dhammam Saranam Gacchâmi/ Sangham Saranam Gacchâmi” – like Frank Sinatra.. it sounded.. three refuges, that was the Buddhist three refuges – (“In Buddha I take my refuge/in Dharma I take my refuge/ in Sangha I take my refuge)” – but, 1968, coming from Chicago, I got interested in sacred song, putting (William) Blake to music.
(AG reading/reciting from William Blake’s “The Nurse’s Song” (from “Songs of Innocence”)) – ‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,/And then go home to bed’/The little ones leapèd, and shoutèd, and laugh’/d And all the hills echo-ed.”
As for the future, Allen Ginsberg says of his music:
AG: I’m afraid I’m sort of stuck and stupid because I don’t really take music lessons. My voice is getting better, I’m singing better blues, and recently I’ve done some songs for… with string quartet and with symphony orchestra, just finished recording that about two weeks ago, and then, been listening a lot to The Fugs.
The program concludes with a recording of Allen performing “Do The Meditation Rock” (“If you want to learn to meditate/I’ll tell you now ’cause it’s never too late”…”..I fought the dharma and the dharma won“).
I continue to be astonished at the quality of the resources provided by the AGP. Keep up the good work!