Allen Ginsberg on Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues continues from here
He’s still looking around for a subject, sort of. He’s doodling around with some Buddhist ideas and whatever’s in the newspaper and saying … the 3rd Chorus describes the fire at the riverbottom, and that led on to the Roosevelt thing in the 4th Chorus – and the 5th Chorus, what is he going to say? So he’s still thinking about how he’s going to write. What’s his next writing? So he says:
I am not Gregory Corso
The Italian Minnesinger –
Of the song of Corsica –
Subioso Gregorio Corso –
The haunted Versemaker
King
Of Brattle Street.
In streets of snow
He wove the show
And worried in tunnels
And mad dog barked
KIND KING MIND
Allen Ginsberg called me
William Burroughs
Is William Lee
Samuel Johnson
Is Under the sea
Rothridge Cole parter
Of Peppers
Is Numbro
Elabora
If you know what I
p a l a b r a
‘I am not Gregory Corso/ The Italian Minnesinger -/Of the Song of Corsica-/Subioso Gregorio Corso-” – (So he’s just thinking about poetry, thinking how Gregory writes, compared to the way Jack writes, and he says, “I’m not Gregory. I don’t write like him, the Italian Minnesinger” – Editorial note – the Minnesingers were, of course, German not Italian poets and Kerouac is referring to Gregory’s Italian ancestory here) – “The Haunted Versemaker/King/Of Brattle Street” – (So there’s a little description of Gregory, because Gregory wrote a (book) around a little before that called The Vestal Lady on Brattle Street , a street in Cambridge – “The Haunted Versemaker.” – “King” – “The Haunted Versemaker/King/Of Brattle Street/ In streets of snow/ He wove the show/ And worried in tunnels/ And mad dog barked” – (So these are little quotes and references to Gregory’s poem, in the tunnel bone at Cambridge)
What I’d like to point out is that although much of it don’t seem like it makes much sense, actually, if you know the references, it’s very funny and makes a lot of sense and it’s just little cadenzas on things he knows about, and it’s just written for himself. They weren’t….
Student: Yeah, it doesn’t… I was going to say, it doesn’t seem like it was an audience, it’s just…
AG: No.
Student: …what you pick up unless you knew him personally, so.
AG: Except, of course, the audience was me and Gregory and (William) Burroughs and Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his friends, because you’ve got to remember, he was writing … he’d written On The Road and Visions of Cody and all the books I’ve mentioned. Actually, up to this point Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Visions of Gerard, and not one of them was published. And he’d given up on being published long ago. He was just writing for his own heart’s delight and amusement and his own ear and his friends. So that’s why it’s so interesting because he’s no longer looking out to impress anybody, except maybe his best friends in his own heart, in his own ear. It’s absolutely pure that way. And that’s why this book, I think, is so great, because it was written for God or written for his own delight.
Student: (For nobody)
AG: Nobody. Nobody published it till …
Student: ..now, I mean..
AG: … years later, finally, Malcolm Cowley, combining with recommendations by Kenneth Rexroth, pushed Viking Press, which hated the book, the editor and chief, Thomas Guinzberg, thought that Kerouac was some horrible anti-Semitic hoodlum. Malcolm Cowley, who’s a very great literary critic and man of letters and had been around in the ‘Twenties and was a friend of (Ernest) Hemingway and Hart Crane and (F. Scott) Fitzgerald and had all that background and was considered one of the major American literary personages insisted to Viking that it was a great book and that it should be published. And they delayed two years and finally published it in ’57, several years after this.
But long before this, that is for, let us say five years before this, Kerouac was writing in the void, so to speak, for nobody but himself. Actually, On The Road and Visions of Cody were finally totally rejected by….
“I am not Gregory Corso/ The Italian Minnesinger – /Of the Song of Corsica -/ Subioso Gregorio Corso-/ The Haunted Versemaker/ King/ Of Brattle Street/In streets of snow/ He wove the show/ And worried in tunnels/And mad dog barked” – (He didn’t say “And the mad dog” – he said “And mad dog barked”- that’s enough)
“KIND KING MIND/ Allen Ginsberg called me/ William Burroughs/ Is William Lee/ Samuel Johnson/ Is Under the sea/ Rothridge Cole parter/Of Peppers/Is Numbro/Elabora/ If you know what I/ p a l a b r a” – (Just talking about.. “KIND KING MIND” was at the end of “Howl”, was a phrase in “Howl,” and I was referring actually to Kerouac’s kind, kingly mind of prose.” (Editorial note – Actually it’s quite near the beginning of the poem – The complete line reads – “Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind”) – “William Burroughs/Is William Lee” – (“William Lee” was Burroughs’s pseudonym for his first book, Junkie) – “Samuel Johnson/Is Under the sea” – (Samuel Johnson is long ago gone).
Then “Rothridge Cole parter” – that’s P-A-R-T-E-R with a small “p”- (he’s talking about Cole Porter, the songwriter. He’s talking about music. The whole poem is about poetry music or pretty poetry – pretty poetries – and after all going back to the classics, he wound up with “Rothridge” – what is Rothridge?, I don’t know. “Cole parter” is Cole Porter, obviously. Porter “Of Peppers.” Did Cole Porter write anything about peppers? Who knows? Probably some reference to some Cole Porter song that Frank Sinatra sang. [Editorial note – Art Pepper did record Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To“]
Well, “Is Numbro” – (he would have probably said “Numero Uno.” ) Is Numbro/Elabora” – (is an elaborate number, is the most elaborate number, rather than numero uno) – [Editorial note – “Elabora” is “to make” in Spanish, “number” is “Numero”]
Then, “If you know what I/p a l a b r a” — “If you can follow what I’m saying.” “Palabra” — you know the Spanish? [Editoral note – “Palabra” is “word” in Spanish – to say is “decir”)
Audio for the above can be heard here beginning at approximately forty-two-and-a-quarter minutes in and continuing until the end of the tape – see also here (beginning at five-and-a-quarter minutes and concluding at approximately seven minutes in)