Collected Poems 1947-80

By Allen Ginsberg

Book Overview

Gathered here for the first time is the verse of three decades of one of America's greatest poets. Collected Poems 1947-1980 includes all writings in the groundbreaking paperback volumes published by City Lights Books, the contents of many rare pamphlets issued by small presses, and, finally, some notable texts hitherto unpublished--one, "Many Loves," withheld "for reasons of prudence and modesty," is an erotic rhapsody dating from the historic "San Francisco Renaissance" era.

Allen Ginsberg is, of course, a chief figure in the group of writers (among them Kerouac, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Creeley, Duncan, snyder, and O'Hara) who, in the Bay Area and in New York in the 1950s, began to change the course of American poetry, liberating it from closed academic forms by the creation of open, vocal, spontaneous, and energetic postmodern verse in the tradition of Whitman, Apollinaire, Hart, Crance, Pound, and William Carlos Williams. Within a decade, Ginsberg's classics "Howl," "Kaddish," and "The Change" would become central in leading American (and international) poetry toward uncensored vernacular, raw candor, the ecstatic, the rhapsodic, and the sincere--al leavened, in Ginsberg's work, by an attractive and pervasive streak of common sense.

These raw tones and attitudes of spiritual liberation helped catalyze a psychological revolution that has become a permanent part of our cultural heritage, profoundly influencing not only poetry and popular song and speech but also a generation's view of the world. Even the literary establishment, hostile at first toward the revolutionary new spirit, has recognized Allen Ginsberg's achievement by honoring him with a National Book Award and membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

The uninterrupted energy of Ginsberg's remarkable career--embodying political activism as well as Buddhist spiritual practice--is clearly revealed in this volume. Seen in the order of composition, the poems reflect on one another; they are not only works but also a work. Here are the familiar anthology staples "Sunflower Sutra" and "To Aunt Rose"; the great antiwar poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra"; "Wales Visitation" (an extraordinary nature ode inspired by psychedelic experiments); the much-translated elegy "September on Jessore Road" and the meditative fantasy "Mind Breaths," followed by the haunting "Father Death Blues" and a later heroic, full-voiced "Plutonian Ode," addressed to "you, Congress and American people." Among the recent poems are the delicate familiar anecdotes in "Don't Grow Old"; "Birdbrain ," a savage political burlesque; and the new-wave lyric "Capitol Air."

Adding to the splendid richness of this book are illustrations by Ginsberg's artist friends; unusual and illuminating notes to the poems, inimitably prepared by the author; extensive indexes; and prefaces and other materials that accompanied the original publications.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060914947
• ISBN13: 9780060914943
• Release Date: June 1988
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 864 Pages
• Weight: 2.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

this is actualy a review of the book, not ginsberg

pros: This compilation is amazing. It covers almost all of his work, includes artwork found in the compilations, and has an awsome refrence section that explains era specific phrases/notes about the poems and an alphabetical directory of proper names. Con: Its not a very preaty book tho, and is quite intimidating to hold in the hand at times if you wanted to read to people or something.

Ginsy's Big Red Book

I just finished reading Ginsberg's complete poems, 1947-1997 -- Collected Poems, White Shroud, Cosmopolitan Greetings, and Death and Fame -- fifty years and over a thousand pages of poetry. My overall impression is that he was probably the kindest, most moral member of the beat generation. When the other beats were penniless & borrowing money, Ginsberg was the one they borrowed money from. Corso would steal Ginsberg's manuscripts and sell them to used book dealers to score heroin, and each time Ginsberg would walk down to the book dealer and buy back his priceless words. Where Kerouac preached his own version of buddhism and gave it up a few years later for catholic alcoholism, Ginsberg remained a dedicated student of buddhist compassion to the end of his days. And that's what shines thru in many of these poems -- compassion, attention to the present, and the courage to be so honest about his life and his feelings. Many of these poems are raw, experimental, informal, and spontaneous, almost like journal entries. This book contains numerous classics -- Pull My Daisy (written with Kerouac & Cassady in 1949), Howl, America, Kaddish, Mescaline, Lysergic Acid, Wichita Vortex Sutra, Wales Visitation, Elegy for Neal Cassady, Memory Gardens (elegy for Jack Kerouac), and Ode to Failure, among others. Some of the most common themes are world travel, nature, daily events, progressive politics, the US invasion of Vietnam, the peace movement, road trips, drug use, the beats, gay sex, hinduism, buddhism, death, and love. In other words, Ginsberg wrote about his life. He talks about his friends dying, his father dying, his mother's insanity and death, his loves, his joys, and whatever is pressing and interesting to him at the moment. Some of the poems are better than others, but I can't imagine there's a more honest poet out there. Casual readers of the beats will likely want to skip around and read a poem here, a poem there, just checking out the highlights. But even for casual readers, there's no sense in buying Ginsberg's small City Lights books -- just buy this big red book so you can have it all. And don't stop here. Ginsberg's later books -- White Shroud, Cosmopolitan Greetings, and Death and Fame -- prove that Ginsy just got better with age, confronting man's inevitable decline into disease and death.

An Electric Wave In An Ocean Of Complacency.

Hello, Good Lookers. This collection of Allen Ginsberg's poetry is indeed quite electric. He was the art-form's left to the complacent's right. His writing is at times grudgingly painful, and at others, descriptively beautiful. He was a soul with a connection to his art. Ginsberg set the course of change for a whole movement (Beat) as well as for an entire society. He was a voice when many had none. He took chances, and paid for them. In this book one can truly see him bearing his soul, his humanity. His writing is so profound at times, that the beauty lies, not in the words, but in the life and lifestyle he led. Ginsberg was so proficient at transcending the human condition and finding something almost prophetic about it, that his poetry is a must-read for any serious student of poetry. While some may be turned-off by Ginsberg's stuff, his art lies, again, not so much in the words, but, in himself; for Ginsberg was the art-form, and he lived a life to prove it! Thanks for thaking the time to read my review. Rock On, Kids, Dr. Of Style

Comprehensive coverage of the enfant terrible.

A bizarre mixture of Blake, Whitman and Williams, Allen Ginsbergs poetry has at the same time lampooned as the scribings of a mentally unstable homosexual and praised as the musings of an American genius. Whatever the take, Ginsberg is certainly enagaging. Chronicling everything from his own psycholgical frailty to the evils of capitalism, the trials of Judaism to buddhist meditation, "sprawling" hardly begins to describe the breadth of Ginsbergs work. Indeed, he represents such a wide sphere of American consciousness and American society, that it is impossible not to be impressed by something in this volume that covers 33 years of his work. At the very least he is erratic.Most of the time, he's just down right crazy.And that's a big part of the charm.

brilliant

Ginsberg's startling, erratic genius is on display in this alternately inspiring and exasperating volume. I give it 5 stars because Ginsberg MUST be read and appreciated; the man changed the face of poetry, as well as pop culture, holding enormous influence over Bob Dylan, who would reinvent rock and roll and help inspire a cultural revolution. Why Ginsberg was not awarded a Nobel is astonishing to me.