More Corso at NAROPA 1975 - 4

[Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822]

Student: Can you read some Shelley?

Gregory Corso: Let me see. What do I know of Shelley? What's his top-class poem? His top-class poem is "Ode To The West Wind". Yeah, that's a very great poem. Yeah, that's a great one because it's a lyric, and he puts the "I" with the lyric, it means you put yourself in it, he put himself right at the end, and he connected himself with the wind all the way - he transformed himself into the wind. Yeah, let me find that one.

Student: I've got it here.

GC: You've got it there. Well, why should I read it through? It's a long poem too. Oh Gregory. Do you people know it? You read it? All of you must have read "Ode to the West Wind". Okay, let's see. How many have read "Ode to the West Wind"?

AG: How many have not?

GC: How many have not? Oh, then great. They get the great poem. Alright, I'll find it.

AG: [to class] - How come?

GC: How many (have) read "Annabel Lee"? Oh, I asked that first in the class, Al, I forgot to tell you. First time I came onto the stage here, you know, the desk and all that, I called 'em "dumb fuckers", and all that. I said they fucked around in the '60's, and now they want to learn, right? There's lots that they don't know.

AG: "The Ode to the West Wind' - when I was going to high school that was standard.

GC: Standard

AG: Everybody would get that in the '40's. They didn't teach that in high school? What are they teaching?

Student: Your stuff.

AG: In high school?

Student: Sure, in high school, that's what they're teaching.

AG: That's a degeneration.

GC: You gotta get your sources.

AG: You add it on, not replace.

GC: Don't let them con you that way. Good God, get your sources. Okay, let's see, Percy Bysshe.. "Ode to the West Wind" (page) 243.. [tape ends..then continues] - ..Alright, it's an ode, alright, and it's to the West Wind, and it's done from the Italian terza rima. Pure versification it would be anyway. Here you go. [Gregory begins reading, reads the entire "Ode to the West Wind"] - "O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being...".."If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind" - That's a goodie poem. He put himself at the end of it. He put himself right at the end with, "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is." - And today I was up in the forest with (Wlliam) Burroughs and some other people, and the wind came through the trees. So I thought, "What's the onomatopoeic sound of that in English?". What they have in the dictionary is "murmur", "breeze" ("breeze" is an onomatopoeic word), and Carlyle's "brool" - B-R-O-O-L - Brool - Carlyle - Thomas Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle made that sound out of the sound of the wind going through the trees. But William and I hit the other word - "sow" [whispering], sow (and we realized that the word "sow" has always had a bad connotation in life, somehow. People put it down somehow, right?. But euphoniously, it has a nice sound.

AG: S-O-U-G-H.

GC: It could be that - or S-O-W.

AG: So the wind S-O-W-I-N-G through the leaves.

GC: Or S-O-U-G-H. Alright, so anyway, that poem, well, that's alright, that's a goodie. Let me see, what else? More poetry to be read. What else did I have in my head to give to you guys? Oh yeah, this is what I wanted to give you - but Allen's here, he might have given it to you, he told me he'd give it to you - was.. so bring your Mexico City Blues, poems of Kerouac, (on) Monday..

AG: Or else maybe we'll continue with Shelley.

GC: Or you can continue with Shelley. What's the line you like in Shelley? - "Die if thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek". Do you believe that?

AG: I did when I quoted it.

GC: It sounds good but I don't believe that shit, man. See, he's another one laying on you (that) you gotta die.

Student: Can you give us that line again, please?

GC: "Die if thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek".

AG: From "Adonais". How many here have read "Adonais"? From beginning to end..? How many have read in it? Read in it?. And how many have never read (in) "Adonais" by Shelley?

GC: Well, check it out.

AG: Well, you've got an open field.

GC: Yeah, I'll give you the best of "Adonais", man. Let me get it then. Oh wow.

Anne Waldman [also present]: "(To A) Skylark"

AG: Yeah, "Skylark"

GC: Yeah, anybody know "Skylark"?

AG: Save "Adonais" for me.

GC: Only one. Alright, three only know it, four, five, six, seven, eight. How many more? Well, alright, I'll give you ten. Okay, recite it to me.

AG: Who's familiar with it?

GC: Who's familiar with it? That's the hands I want to see up. Who's familiar? Alright, give it to me. Recite it. I can. I won't look at the book.

Student: Really?

GC: Really.

Student: That's amazing.

GC: What I know over you people. Aren't you embarrassed?

Student(s): No.

GC: You raised your hand there. Give me just the first stanza?

Student: I'm familiar with it (but) I don't know it.

GC: The first stanza is the top shot in the "Skylark". Am I supposed to do it?

Student(s): Yeah.

GC: I knew it [he proceeds to recite the first stanza of Shelley's"Ode To A Skylark"] - "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!/ Bird thou never wert, /Far from Heaven, or near it..

AG: That from Heaven, or near it..

GC: "You pour out a full heart/ In profuse strains of unpremeditated art" - And that's the first stanza..

AG [ & joined by others in the class]: Pourest out.. pourest out..

GC: Wait a minute, wait a minute, alright, "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!/ Bird thou never wert, /Far from Heaven.."

AG: "That from Heaven, or near it, pourest..."

GC: That far from heaven?

AG: No, no, "bird, that from heaven, or near it, pours.."

GC: Bird that never were..

AG: Bird that never wert that

GC: Alright, put that down, that word they're going to get ya here, alright - "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!/ Bird thou never wert, /That from Heaven.."

AG: "Heaven,

GC: "That from Heaven, or near it"

AG: or near it.."

GC: "Pourest thy full heart/ In profuse strains of unpremeditated art"

Student(s): Thy full heart

GC: "thy full heart/ In profuse strains .."

W.S.Merwin [who is also present]: It may even be "who", not "that".

GC: You guys! Excuse me fellas, I don't even know, I thought I knew him well.

AG: Well, let's find out now.

GC: Okay, "Skylark".

Student: He's embarrassed.

GC: I'm not embarrassed. There's not that many poems I know by heart - C'mon.

AG: We aren't afraid to re-write Shelley!

GC: [turning to the book] - Alright, "To a Skylark". "Hail to thee.." (Page) 246, let's see where the fucker's at. Do you think the book'll lie? - Here we go.."Mutability"....it's funny, they don't got it?..No, they have to have it..Alright..here we go..yeah..It's 246, they have 241 for it. Alright.. [Gregory begins reading (again) the opening stanza of "To a Skylark"] - "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!..."

AG: P-O-U-R..

GC: "Pourest"

AG: ...E-S-T.

GC: P-O-U-R, no apostrophe E-S-T. What is "wert"?

AG: Were.

GC: Were not.

AG:Yeah.

GC: It's a contraction without the apostrophe there, "wert" - W-E-R-T - "Bird, thou never wert" - Bird thou never was't.

AG: Wert.

GC: Bird thou never were not.

AG: Were.

GC: Bird thou was not.

Student(s): Were.

AG: Yeah, but he's already got a "never"..

GC: You would never...

AG: It's an archaic form of "were", I guess.

Student: Unless he invented it.

GC: Well, it's a funny word. It is. Well, let me finish the poem for you. Let's see how good this poem is.

AG: It's important to get hung up on that detail. All of a sudden you realize how weird the poem is. Pardon me?

Student: It's so it rhymes with "heart".

GC: "Wert/heart", yeah - E-R-T/ E-A-R-T, with "art", the I-T, with "spirit", yeah, all the "T"'s at the end of it, and two, three, four, five "R"'s. There are five "R"'s, but two "R"'s have an "I" after it. - "near it"/"Spirit" - "Wert", "art", "heart" - yeah, he's so good, man. Let's get the second stanza and see [Gregory continues reading from Shelley] - "Higher still and higher/ From the earth thou springest/ Like a cloud of fire;/ The blue deep thou wingest/ And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest". - "Singest"/"wingest"/"springest". "Fire"/"higher". See, he don't play really right with it. He's good. Yeah, "fire" and "higher" are not the same, but it is the same. [Gregory continues] - "In the golden lightning/ Of the sunken sun...".."Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun" - Yeah, he's so good. What the fuck is that now? - "Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun". Birth of joy? Big birth. It's all new. Yeah. [Gregory reads further] - "The pale purple even/ melts around thy flight..."..."By warm winds deflowered,/ Till the scent it gives/ Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves" - "Those heavy-winged thieves" - Here's a line that used to catch me as a kid [Gregory returns to the poem] - "Chorus Hymenal/ Or triumphal chant,/ Matched with thine would be all. But an empty vaunt" - What's a "vaunt"?

AG: (A) boast.

GC: Vaunt would be boasting?

AG: Yeah, "your vaunted Shelley"

GC: Right right [returning to the poem] - "A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want"..

[breaks off] - It's a long poem. I don't want to read the whole thing.

AG: Who is Shelley and why do you like him?

GC: I like him because of his first five lines. I like him because of a few things in "Adonais" and the whole of the "West Wind". I like "The Cloud" very much. Does anyone know "The Cloud"? [ Gregory begins reciting Shelley's "The Cloud'] - "I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers..." [reads the entire poem, pausing only once - "I gotta finish this because this one's a goodie"].."Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb/ I arise and unbuild it again" - That's a nice cloud talking. That's not too long. He had a very high-pitched voice, Shelley. He had a high-pitched voice but (Lord) Byron loved him so. Every time they'd rap, they had these conversations with Trelawny and Hunt, Byron and Shelley, and Shelley topped the shot all the time. Keats (John Keats) would never come into the conversation. He would never come into the house. Shelley dug him and wanted him (to), but Keats said, "I want(ed) nobody fucking up my brain. Let a man teach you something and he owns a part of you". That's what Keats believed, so he didn't bother with those poets of his time, who were great fuckin' poets. Keats was - but he stayed clear of them. Shelley was the only one who really made sense, who cared about social things. This man had money and everything like that but he gave blankets. He went into a rowboat to (the) islands, in a ridiculous rowboat. To the..islands. from England. They laughed at him - he comes in a rowboat! the great revolutionary!, but he did, with the money he got from his father, Timothy, who was in the House(s) of Parliament, he did buy blankets and things for the people who didn't have them. I think he's a fine poet, but he does go on a little bit!

AG: You know what? - it would be interesting... have you ever got inside the "Ode to the West Wind"? I wonder what Bill (Merwin) would sound like reading that?

W.S. Merwin: (Why don't you read it) yourself.

AG: Yeah, well I will, after you, or before you. I'd like (us) to all read it

GC: (to W.S.Merwin): Will you do it for me? Alright.

AG: Since not many of you know it, to hear it sounded a couple of times would be good.

GC: Bill always gave the class. I never introduced him to the class. I think they knew anyway. Robert 's [sic] coming on with Bill. I didn't have to introduce him. Alright. But here's a fine young American poet, Mr Merwin..

Anne Waldman: [gesturing to W.S.Merwin] Stand a little closer. Down a little.

AG: When did you first get into that?

W.S.Merwin [ begins reading - and proceeds to read, in its entirety - "Ode to the West Wind"] - "O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being.."..."Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay.."..."The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind/ If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

GC: Allen - "in Baiae's bay"?

AG: "Bay-eye", I think.

GC: That's a name, right?

W.S.Merwin: Yeah

AG: In Naples, I think. Bay-eye

GC: His color - azure all the time for blue. He hit on azure.

AG: (to Anne Waldman): Did you ever get onto this? Did you ever get into it? Want to try to read? What time is it?

Student(s): 7.25

AG: So we have some time,

Anne Waldman; "O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being..." [begins a reading/vocalization of the poem - reads the whole poem] - [tape ends here, re-starts again]

GC: Very nice, Anne. Okay, class, (so) what do you get out of that? You get it's an emotional poem. Alright, that's what you get out of that shot. What it is is that Shelley was very emotional, but he hid, in the last four lines, a very good hit to make the change. He brought it really nicely about. He got very high class in that poem. First, because he draws (you in) with the wind, he made himself like a leaf or a cloud...

AG: In a way, it's like a...

GC: ..a wave, right? Three - he has the leaf, cloud..

Now his falling on "the thorns of life" is very hard for me to take at times. I mean, good God, "I'm thrown on the thorns of life, I die", I couldn't take (that).

Anne Waldman: "I bleed"

AG: "I bleed"

GC: "I bleed", yeah - He didn't die, he bleeds. Oh, that's high class. Oh good, I'm glad.

AG: But we all do, we all do, actually. It's very literal, actually.

GC: We do bleed, yeah. It's literal. Fuck it. It's a good one.

AG: A lot of people made fun of it for a long time.

GC: I know they made fun of him on that condition.

AG: Because they didn't know the First Noble Truth of suffering.

GC: Right. They made fun of Shelley on that one a lot. Alright. Okay.

AG: I learned it from my father when I was fourteen or so, or twelve, because he taught it in high school, and he used to recite it around the house with a big full voice, so I learned how to..I learned it in his style, which is, like, bravura style.

GC: Well, so let's hear it, Al.

AG: Okay [Allen himself then proceeds to give his rendition of the poem - again, the poem is read in its entirety] "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind"

GC: So what you got there are variables. Variables and emotional. The other one [Anne Waldman's reading] was emotional, this was powerful. So Shelley..(they say..) that it's Romanticism, that the rose is dying, and they weep over the rose. (But) Shelley, when he said. "O woe is me", didn't say "Oh woe is me", he said, "Oh woe is me". They took all of Shelley very light (and) airy, which he..I guess he was (airy). Looks airy. What a heavy person indeed! - Al, thank you very much. That's the Shelley shot, the way to read it. I'm sure he would have done that, but he had a high-pitched voice.

AG: Yeah

GC: [in a screeching tone] - "Where are you?" ..go like that.. Embarrassing. He did actually

AG: Who says?

GC: Byron said it, Trelawny said it, Hunt said it, they all said it. They knew him.

AG: I think you said last week that he took laudanum

GC: Yeah, he took laudanum. I saw a painting, a watercolor done by, not Severn ,who was a friend of Keats, but by somebody else..Richards? Richards? [Roberts, perhaps?] Anyway, the picture has him with his eyes very expanded and dilated and like he was on laudanum. It says it underneath the picture, when Shelley experimented with it

AG: A drawing?

GC: Yeah, it's a watercolor. He experimented with laudanum. All the Lake Poets were doing it. I'm sure Shelley took opium at the time, but I don't think it was constant. Not as constant as, say, De Quincey was, or Coleridge. So he's good, but, see, when you read the "Adonais", it's going to be boring for a while. He has great stanzas in there - wowie! - I mean (he) really comes into the goodies. I should have done it. Penguin Books asked me to do a thing on Shelley, you know, to get it condensed down. (His) "Epipsychidion", yeah. [Allen corrects his pronunciation] Such a good poem. His "Mutability" poem is good - "Like the winds through a rude cell/ the sound of a dead seaman's knell." [Gregory is actually quoting from "When the Lamp is Shattered" - "Like the wind through a ruined cell,/ or the mournful surges/ That ring the dead seaman's knell"]...alright, so, Shelley, I would suggest then, is... or, we can give you some of the shots in our heads, what sounds so good about Shelley, or.. just check him out. But he was a revolutionary at his time, definitely that. He got in trouble with it. He wasn't just airy-fairy all through it..

GC: So..Thomas Hood, why I brought Thomas Hood out the other day, this guy laid it down that Thomas Hood was really at the time getting on with the workers, with the "Shirt" poem - "stitch, stitch, stitch..".. sounds humorous...

AG: Could you read that for us?

GC: I'll read "stitch, stitch, stitch". See, it sounds humorous, but I don't think it's humorous. But I bet it is! - That's it - you get screwed with Hood! - because he really embarrassed me before with the "clammily lips" - remember? when he's kissing the girl and the "clammily" thing - I mean, good God! I try to make him serious, and then he got silly on me!

AG: How many here read Hood in high school? Can you raise your hands? Or college? Has anybody ever read any Thomas Hood? So, three, four, people. That was pretty standard, also, as part of the.. I guess, well, that book.

GC: Social ills, yeah, he took care of social ills, but social ills..

AG: That was my text. I had it in Columbia in 1945, that was my text. My brother hand it before me at Montclair State Teachers' College in 1938.

GC: [prepares to read Hood] - Alright, now, here you go. "Song of the Shirt" - this is a humanitarian poem. Dig. [reading from the introduction] - "This humanitarian poem was inspired by the sordid condition of workers in London. One widow was trying to support herself and family by making trousers at seven shillings a week" - Good God. They're not interested in our condition. I'm not. Why are you laying this down on me for?'' - Wait - [resumes reading] - "One widow was trying to support herself and family by making trousers at seven shillings a week. "A good living", her employer called it. Hood's monument bears the inscription - "He sang the song of the shirt" - [Gregory begins reading from "Song of the Shirt"] - "With fingers weary and worn..."..."Oh to be a slave, along with the barbarous Turk/Where woman has never had a soul to save if this is Christian work" - I should check that one out better. Let's see. It's "Oh to be a slave, along with the barbarous Turk/Where woman has never had a soul to save if this is Christian work/Work, work, work, till the brain begins to swim/ Work, work, work, till the hours are heavy and dim/ Seam, and gusset, and band,/ Band, and gusse, and seam" - Well, that's beautiful.

AG: That's good. If you read it slower. If you read it slower, it's...

GC: I'll tell you to fuck around. I'll do it. Look what he did with the two lines - "Seam, and gusset, and band,/ Band, and gusse, and seam". He did a nicely in two lines. Yeah, he's tops, man. Alright. So [Gregory continues reading] - "Over the buttons, I fall asleep and sew them n in a dream...".."Stitch, stitch, stitch, and poverty, hunger and dirt".."a wall so blank my shadow I think for sometimes falling there" - Oh, wait, ."and a wall so blank my shadow I thank for sometimes falling there". Yeah, that's nice - ."and a wall so blank my shadow I thank for sometimes falling there". [Gregory continues] - "Work, work, work, from weary chime to chime...".."with fingers weary and worn/ with eyelids heavy and red/ a woman sat in her womanly rags/plying her needle and thread/ Stitch, stitch, stitch, and poverty, hunger and dirt/ and still with a voice of dolorous pitch, would that it's tone could reach the rich, she sang this song of the shirt".

AG: To "work, work, work".

GC: He went back to what he began with, Al. He began with "fingers weary and worn", so it's a real circle - "with fingers weary and worn/ with eyelids heavy and red/ a woman sat in her womanly rags/plying her needle and thread."

AG: I kept thinking this would be "work...work...work", you know - slow - instead of "work, work, work".

GC: Yeah, Al, I don't write poetry to be read aloud. I'm not that man, you are, so you're an oral poet. Me, I write it out of my head, man, I get that fucker down there. I don't bother how it's all written down. See, they don't read Thomas Hood now, nobody reads Thomas Hood here.

AG: (Bob) Dylan, a little. There's a little Dylan, there's a little bit of Dylan in Thomas Hood (or a little bit of Thomas Hood in Dylan).

GC: Well, I would like to think so - that everything's connected.

AG: Yeah.

GC: But I ain't Tom Hood. I'm just saying, revive the fucker. Now you know that he's musical in that. How would you read his music? You would read it differently than I would.

AG: I'd probably sing it.

GC: You could sing? well, sing it

AG: Well, I don't have the instruments. It's "The Song of the Shirt". I bet, at the time, there was music.

GC: It's a song

AG: I'll bet, at the time, there was music. You could probably look it up.

GC: Alright, so that thing should be sung.

AG: Do you know anything about this? Do you know if there was any music available for "The Song of the Shirt" (at the time)?

GC: Fuck! I'm not a singer here! I'll do the best I can with the numbers. I'll lay it on people to check it out.

AG: Right.

GC: I can sing ya, I can sing one song.

AG: Okay.

GC: I can sing the song that Nero sang when Rome burned. Does anybody know the song? Let me see the hands up. Alright, what's the song?

Student (O'Brien (sic) ): (indecipherable)

GC: I love you O'Brien, but that ain't it. Fuck you, O'Brien, that ain't the song. Your hair is so red. What did you do? get in the sun? Okay. Here we go..

Student(s): Sing.

GC [singing]: "Oh-ho omnipotent power, oh-ho, oh joy divine, oh ho, oh lambent flame, oh-ho" - I like that "lambent flame" in that. You know what Nero did? People put Nero down, but I'll tell you what he did. When he was, you know, the Emperor and all that, he ripped off supermarkets at night, and the food that he stole, he'd sell it, for double price, in the palace the next day. This is a fact of life. You read your Herodotus, you'll find out..

AG: 7.40

GC: It's time to go

AG: Yes

GC: Good deal. Goodbye folks.

AG: I have one brief announcement. Chogyam (Trungpa Rinpoche) will be lecturing in ten minutes or so...

Audio for this (including renditions of Shelley by Corso, W.S.Merwin, Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg, and reading from Thomas Hood by Corso) can be found at

http://www.archive.org/details/Allen_Ginsberg_class_The_history_of_poetry_part_3_June_1975_75P004

beginning approximately twenty-six-and-a-half minutes in and continuing to the end.

More Corso at NAROPA 1975 - 3

[Thomas Hood 1799-1845]

GC: Okay, now I'd like to revive a poet. Remember I gave you Tom Hood, the other day, right? Tom Hood - why I think he should be looked at in a kind of way where you might look at other poets that you've never checked out. Here we go. (Page) 282. Nobody has this book? You don't have this book? Alright. He's under the title of "Minor Romantic Poets", and, dig how this dude who put this book together puts Hood down. [Gregory begins quoting from the anthology] - "Two writers who have distinguished themselves in the creation of light humorous verse and parodies are Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Hood".. both 18th Century and early 19th, late 18th.."Peacock was by profession a businessman for a long time in the service of the East India Company, but he had (a) pronounced talent for burlesque romances, particularly illustrated by "Headlong Hall' (1816), "Nightmare Abbey".."..which is alright, there's (some Percy Bysshe) Shelley in that.. "..and "Crochet Castle". In these romances, he occasionally..." [Gregory breaks off] - I don't wanna read about him..wait till I get to Hood..oh yeah.."Hood is a less subtle type of humorist. I fact, he depends for greater part of his humorous effect upon the play on words. His odes and addresses and his other verse composed while he had connection with The London Magazine show however a considerable variety of subject-matter. There is contained in them fanciful verse, humorous verse and humanitarian verse.." - See, that's the clue, how this guy hit it on "humanitarian" by saying he was (a) "minor" - "Indeed, it is preferable to think of him as a poet who is more interested in the social ills of his time than in mere clowning.." - I think that's why you've got to check out Hood - "..He is actually a kind of transition figure to the Victorian period. His "Bridge of Sighs" and "Song of the Shirt" are to be considered social documents rather than great or even good poetry" - Now this is this dude saying it - "social documents, rather than great or good poetry". Alright, I'll give you a hit of his "Bridge of Sighs" and his "Song of the Shirt". (First, "Bridge of Sighs"), page 293 [Gregory begins reading the first stanza of Hood's poem] - "One more Unfortunate/ Weary of breath/ Rashly importunate/ Gone to her death!" - Now, this is on suicide, he was writing that. That's not clowning around, but it does sound funny. It does, yeah. It does sound funny, Allen. Well, yeah.

Allen Ginsberg: Well, not suicide, but isn't he going to be killed over the Bridge of Sighs?

GC: The Bridge of Sighs is where they jump off

Allen Ginsberg: It's where they take 'em..

GC: Drown, drown, Hamlet, right?

Allen Ginsberg: I thought that was where they took 'em from the Court..

GC: No way. Yeah, that's where the Court was, the Bridge of Sighs, but they jumped from it. That's in Venice, where Casanova walked over. But it's a very funny poem - "One more Unfortunate/ Weary of breath/ Rashly importunate/ Gone to her death.." [Gregory continues reading the poem] - "...Still, for all slips of hers/ One of Eve's family - /Wipe those poor lips of hers/ Oozing so clammily" - It's in here. That breaks that poem up for me. It really then makes it like a joking poem - "Oozing so clammily"? - Yuck! That's embarrassing. Wait a minute. [Gregory continues] - "Loop up her tresses..." [continues and reads the rest of the poem] - "..Owning her weakness/ Her evil behaviour,/And leaving, with meekness,/ Her sins to her Saviour." - It's a long poem and it sucks. It goes too far into it and that "clammily" kind of made me really suspect him. I think you should take Tom Hood off your list, (yeah, I can give you Poe, Poe..

Anne Waldman: Isn't Shelley in there? [in the book, in the anthology]

GC: Poe had "Helen, thy beauty is to me/ Like those Nicean barks of yore".."How to hold an agate lamp in the hand" ["How statue-like I see thee stand/The agate lamp within thy hand"]- "O light by that dome..".. I think "The Bells" is the most musical poem. I think "Annabel Lee" may be the top class American poem ever written, for music.

Audio for this (including Gregory (Corso)'s reading of Hood) can be heard at http://www.archive.org/details/Allen_Ginsberg_class_The_history_of_poetry_part_3_June_1975_75P004 beginning approximately nineteen minutes in and continuing until approximately twenty-six and-a-half minutes in

More Corso at NAROPA 1975 - 1

[Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, Boulder, Colorado, 1974. Photo c. Rachel Homer]

A follow-up class to the one we’ve previously been serializing. Allen returns, recuperated, but Gregory still manages to take over/dominate the class!

NAROPA in 1975 transcripts.

AG: (It's like I'm)...substituting for Gregory Corso! He may actually show up. He and (William) Burroughs went off with some friends up to the mountains and (he) actually said he’d be here, so he may come in, and I brought some of his teaching materials along.

So what did you think of his teaching?, I wonder(ed). I heard the first day’s tape, which I’d heard described, and it did sound outrageous as a style, as Chogyam (Trungpa Rinpoche)’s style of being outrageous too. Can you hear me in the back? The one thing I noticed was that the material he presented I was somewhat familiar with. I had heard over the years different presentations of some of that material, but I had never heard it developed, or put together, so exquisitely, and actually, so coherently, so that the tape makes a remarkable text (in terms of Loka, which was what I was thinking about, which was that magazine they had last year [1974] that compiled some of the discourses and tricks of the teachers here, and students. The main thing that I got out of that Monday lecture was the Wheel of Years, the Great Year, the length of the Great Year. Did everybody understand that? Did everybody remember..what was it?..24,000 years, for the Great Year? How many remember that? That it was actually 24,000. How many did not? Were you here? Okay, what he was explaining was the concept of "the Great Year", as you will find it in William Butler Yeats, and in any number of more archaic Gnostic poets, probably (Percy Bysshe) Shelley mentions it too. Gregory?

Gregory Corso [arrives in the classroom] Hi – I’m so happy you’re here. I just saw the great mountains, the vista up there!

AG: I brought Shelley and I brought Minutes To Go.

GC: So why don’t you take care of it. You’re here, do it..

AG: You got anything?

GC: It comes out of my head. I never bring notes. Now I thought of this one today to bring, Minutes To Go. (It's icy... No, there won’t be Isis – that’s all religion again) – how long have you been with these people, Al?

AG: Five minutes.

GC: Five minutes?

Student(s): Twenty.

GC: Twenty, alright, the students and people in the class, twenty. What did you lay on them in that five minutes, so I can know, (connect)?

AG: That I listened to the tape of your first class .

GC: And you saw I made an error on the first tape, when somebody said “reality”, and I said, “the way I answer reality is I’ll call it and leave”?

AG: I forgot to mention that.

GC: Mention it, what you thought about it.

AG: When somebody asked a question.. on tape, it sounded like, “I’ll call it and leave”.

GC: No, I said, “I’ll call it an eve”!

AG: How many understand? “I’ll call it an eve” – E-V-E..

GC: There you go

AG: How many understood it as “leave”?

GC: More “eve” and less “leave” . But, because I was leaving with the eve! – Ah, yuk yuk.

AG: But, ok, there’s an enormous difference, aesthetically, between reacting to the question by saying “I’ll call it and leave”, to show what reality was, or (and) saying “I’ll call it an eve”, which is much more poetic. So, in other words, if we can’t give an example of a certain amount of delicacy of language, then we’re not teaching..

GC: That means that my conversation is fucked-up? That’s what you’re saying, right?

AG: No, no, no, that the hearing of “leave” is fucked up, but also [turning to the class] he (Gregory) doesn’t have so many of his teeth!

GC: Right, It was so embarrassing when I lost the uppers and I tried to say the “f’’s. It was very hard to say the “f”’s, but I got the “f” – “Flamboyant”, flamboyant? yeah, what?

Student: Too much hockey.

GC: Too much what? Too much hockey? Oh no no, I lost this in the service.

Student: What kind of service?

GC: Yuk Yuk Yuk

Anne Waldman [also present in the class]: Culture service.

Student: I was disappointed that we didn’t get to talk more about the evolution of poetry, since the '50s, (that's what I'd like to hear).

GC: Ah, I can give you that. And by giving you that, that would probably make the whole class today, because that’s the shot of what you’re at now. I think in the ‘50’s, something was woken up that had been.. (it) wasn’t dormant, it wasn’t there. It wasn’t something that was asleep. We had the big word in the ‘50’s, we really did. Here’s the guy who laid it on them, this one here [points to Allen] – It wasn’t a cut-up.. This here book, Minutes to Go, has all the cut-ups. It’s Burroughs book and I checked it out. I worked with him on a poem and I had written a poem in there.

AG: What’s the provenance of that. They’ve never heard of that, probably.

GC: 1958, ‘59

AG: Paris

GC; Paris, yeah. Burroughs says, you had one Shakespeare book in your hand and you cut it up, you had many Shakespeares, because you’re using it as words. But then again I saw it worked out, and they did it, and it made no sense at all. So I saw it was the “I”. You can cut something up, but the way the “I” sees the cut-up and says, “Ah, that’s a good line”, bam, it takes it. It’s still the tailor. It’s still the poet picking it out, that it’s not just by chance, automatically cutting something up.

AG: So this book was, I think, the first presentation of Burroughs’ cut-ups (that he’s been talking about this week), with some works by Burroughs and some works by Brion Gysin, who suggested to Burroughs the cut-up idea (from painting), and some contributions by Gregory..

GC: It was a ball working with Bill on two of the poems of Rimbaud called “To A Reason”. He had this big bowl in the room, and he said, so you cut-up the Rimbaud and translate it, cut it up, put it in a bowl, and whatever you pick out, it’s still his words - but in English. Here's one of them - I’ll give you one – “Everywhere march your head”. Alright. A cut-up of Rimbaud’s “To A Reason”, "A Un Reason"..

W.S.Merwin: A Une Reason..?

GC: Ah, ok, give it to me in French, Bill.

Student: "A Une Raison"

GC: Yeah, A U.N.E.. “To A Reason”

..o.k. [Gregory reads then from this, from his Rimbaud cut-up] – “A rap of sound. A turn urns back O…”..”Everywhere march your head.” - It’s very difficult for this poem. Now, here’s a second cut-up of that and look at the different words you get (out) of the same poem, called “Sons of Your Inn” ( but all these words are the same, (are) from Rimbaud).

AG: Rimbaud? A little poem from Illuminations? – You know that?

GC: Alright [continues reading from Minutes To Go] – “Sons of your in TC rib tent in..”…”see the new change know the time tea” - (that is cut-up from the one I read, but two different numbers). So, yeah, you can go indefinitely, obviously, by cutting these things up. You get bored after a while with the same one. But you can get good numbers. So it’s all by chance, but the chance takes the “I”, and some chance sucks, and some chance is a gas, see? So the guy knows that it’s a gas, and takes it out, and uses it, for the poem...

[Audio for this can be heard at 
http://www.archive.org/details/Allen_Ginsberg_class_The_history_of_poetry_part_3_June_1975_75P004  Transcribed above is the first approximately nine-and-a-half minutes of t he recording.]

Gregory Corso continues (NAROPA 1975 Class - 7)

[Gregory Corso, Boulder Colorado, 1974. Photo c. Rachel Homer]

Gregory Corso's 1975 "Socratic" NAROPA class (sitting in for Allen) concludes.

Earlier segments can be read here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Student: Do you have another book coming out?

GC: If I want to. Yeah, I don't owe anybody anything, my dear. I don't have to bring another book out, see? - but that's a shot, tho', right? Who owes who what? - I figured I should get a me(d)al. I tell you, I.. A poet should get a token. At least, I demand that. I don't give a fuck anymore, I say, give the poet his token. They take the weight, they're like the Lamed Vavnik, poets are the Lamed Vavnik, they take the weight of the world and they shoulder it. There's only thirty-seven of them at a time, thirty-seven, yes, at one time, and they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, they don't know who they are, but I can say so, my name is Nunzio, I announce, "I'm a Lamed Vavnik, and I carry the weight on my shoulders". Some people say that's arrogant?, but, it's all I can do - I don't give a fuck, I'm forty-five years old, I don't have to care. Why does forty-five mean that suddenly I don't have to care? Well, who's in their '40's here?..There you go.. and aren't they great years?..top class.. just for the poet-man.. alive, yeah.. so it's something good that you're referring to..

Where's Mr O'Brien [sic]? He didn't come today. Oh, I'm glad you came Mr O'Brien. You're the man that taught me the lesson, that I should never look at a person's face and think what race they are or (what) religion - [looking at Sidney Goldfarb] - "You look like a Goldfarb to me, all the way to me" - and (then) you're not! That was a goodie. That woke me up.

So did ya learn anything, you think, today? I don't know. Remember I'm just.. wow, I can cop out so nice..I'm just (sitting) in for my friend..

Student: Do you want to read poetry or do you want to go home?

GC: What I want to do is eight o'clock, I got a shot with Mr Burroughs. What time is it now?

Student: Quarter to seven.

GC: Oh god, it's early. There's nothing here for me to drink. I'm very uncomfortable. There's nothing here that I like. I like you people, but there's nothing here. Why don't I have water? why don't I have (soap?), why don't they take care of you? you're a host? [pointing to Michael Brownstein perhaps?] why don't you take care of your guests.

Michael Brownstein: Water?

GC: Thank you.

Let's see, I'll give you another fast poem, probably out of this thing [his unpublished manuscript] which I won't read tonight, and let's see how this works. See, that one, that was typed up, I worked on (it). Let's give you a cold one and see how it (reads) [begins reading from another unpublished poem] - "(The) God is sick..".."hurry, burn the magic whip" - oh, of course, "the magic whip"! - you'll love this [goes to the blackboard to draw] - "the magic whip" - "..boil the mercurial blood/ the Old Religion's back in town/and Doctor Faustus once again rides his horse ass-backwards" - do you know that about Faustus? that how he enters the town, it's always the horse going ass-backwards into town? Anybody know that? Jeez, you must know that, good old Faustus goes ass-backwards.. [Gregory continues reading] - "The Calabrian...churns plaster of Paris.." - Yeah, I got my Italians right there, they make classic Paris saints. Right? All the saints in Italy are plaster-of-Paris.

and the first one to make a Frankenstein-ian shot was the Jew in Czechoslovakia, Rabbi Loew made the Golem. Know what the Golem is? Anybody? the Golem?

Student: It was the statue that came to life.

GC: Right, statue that came to life and written on its head was... "emet" - and if you wiped off the "e", the "-met" means "death" ...and so it dies)

so, Rabbi Loew built this Golem to protect the Jews at Passover, because the Christians, at that time, (and it's the 15th Century), would say that they need(ed) a Christian child to make their leavened bread . And lots of Jews were hurt by that.


[Illustration of a Golem, the syllables for 'emet' on it's forehead. via Golem/wiki]

Okay, so, three rabbis who fucked-up, tried to make their own Golem. They ripped off the clay (when the men came and the Golem died), they ripped off that clay, and the secretary of Rabbi Loew joined the three rabbis to build another Golem to get money for them (yuk yuk). Alright, so these three rabbis got the clay from the Old New synagogue (it's called the Old New synagogue, in Czechoslovakia, Prague). They go and they try to make this Golem, and they make him - but they don't know how to stop him. And he gets very big, and is growing and he's growing and he's growing . And you got the three rabbis going, "Oh god, oy vey iz mir! I'm not involved with it! Someone's gotta stop him". And the secretary (who was with them) said, "Look, what you do is take the "-e-" off and he'll die, get the "-e-" off, (which means Life and "-met" means Death), rub the "-e-" off his forehead.. Right, now the other way you can do it, a wise man said, is, "Mr Golem, would you bend down and tie your shoe", right? So the Golem goes down like that, and they rub the "-e-" off, and the fucker falls on the three rabbis, and they're gone! That's a true shot.

Student [(Michael Brownstein) offering water]: So is that.

GC: Thank you very much. Oh, that's even more beautiful than water, juicy-poo vitamins - oh its got sprite in it - oh wow, we gonna have water with sprite!

I'll take back the.. I wanna see if...I (can) handle this for my own head. The other day when I spoke to you people, I said "I know all there is to know because there ain't that much to know". Alright. I want someone to lay something on me that I don't know. Now, but, I'm gonna give you a warning, it's got to be essential..to me.. ((no)...bullshit baseball to a pitcher.. at one time or other..).. there you go

Student: Can bad philosophy induce good poetry?

GC: From bad philosophy can come good poetry? Anything bad becomes good - it's a Dostoeyvskian shot? and you all should.. what's good, what's bad, becomes the same. They never did it to make (Al)yosha bad tho', did he? (Al)yosha never became bad.. Je ne sais pas. I would say on that one, I don't know. Yeah? - okay, that's cool enough - if I could pick on.. I could say - anything that's bad ain't gonna be good (I could do some dumb-ass thing, so I won't). So, You're asking again..what?

Student: Can bad philosophy...

GC: Can bad philosophy..

Student: become good poetry..

GC: No way. Can bad poetry become good philosophy, that's the question! Philosophy makes.. Fuck philosophy! You know how Socrates fucked up? This is the beautiful Socrates, to me, who died the most beautiful death, better than anybody - I mean Buddha, by bad pork! - and Christ, that shot upon a cross - yuk! - but Socrates, top shot. He says "Know thyself", right?, but he ends up saying, "All I know is that I know nothing" - and that's a cop-out. See, I don't dig the philosophers. See, and he put down the poets of the time .. because philosophers suck, all you've got today is teachers of philosophy, you've not got philosophy, so..

Student: But didn't he also say something that you (say's interesting), that people came to him, saying they know something about something, and he finally proved to them that they knew nothing about..

GC: He's a gadfly. I love him for that. I love Socrates, he's my man. He's my man, the only time

he sucked was when he said on his deathbed, "All I know is I know nothing", and that was a big cop-out. I mean it was easier to say nice things (so they (could) say - how humble! - "I know nothing" - shit!

(tape drops, returns in media res) ....what might mean something? You ever ask your parents that? - You're meat, right? You're (all) hairy bags of water.

You know what happened to me in Provincetown.. about a month and a half ago, was it? ..I had this Italian dude..who (liked me.. dressed.. ) a real paisano, he had a pizza place in Provincetown, right? but (was) supposed to be intellectual, right?

so, one day I told him, "I'd like to suck your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandmother's dick!"

(and he goes) "don't talk about my family that way!"

- Fuck him - that's why I am (an ego, right, an ego).

Another shot was good that I played there in Provincetown (they all came at me at once these shots). I went up to a person in the street and said "Er.., I can disappear before your eyes?". So they say, "Go ahead!" - (and I want to) hit them over the head! - that's how I disappear! - by killing them!

Alright, I think you should ask me more questions, you know. I don't think I should have to exercise my head too heavy before this eve.

Student: Before, Gregory, you were talking, a while ago, about (Jack) Kerouac's trying to remember the first thing you remember before you die

GC: Right.

Student: What context is he talking about?

GC: Well, he said he wasn't talking (about) if you were hit by a car, I don't think (try to think when you're coming out of the car, man!) - actually, he was thinking of a very philosophical nice death, you know, Socratean. right?, with everyone around - "where are you going?"..you take hemlock, you can talk. The Buddha supposedly went that way. He bought bad pork and he died

Student: What's the heaviest thing (William) Burroughs taught you?

GC: The heaviest? He never taught.. he wanted to teach me, he couldn't - because that was the shot. You see, I'd just come out of prison (when) I met him..(wanted to) teach me prose. He recalled I didn't like prose, that way, (I liked) poesy. And I told him, "Everybody's a poet, that way, if they work in words". But he was the nicest (and good-est) man that I knew in life, yeah, never hurt nobody..

Student: It is recorded that the Germanic tribes...

GC: I love 'em. They're crazy. I know what they did.

Student: ...which..(they) would set up their people who are about to die, and they would say a mantra into their ears. Do you think it would help the person dying to remember things that he has never before remembered?

GC: Ok. You've brought up a good subject, which I know well about. You see.. Germanic tribes were very heavy people (they still maybe are), but they were heavy then. What they did was when they in war.. you know how they (fucked up) the tribes - what they did? - they did a spook-shot. They would dress themselves up in rags and black paint and hide behind bushes while clumpety-clump go the Tartars - they'd go "Yow!" and all of a sudden step on the road and "Chop-Chop". Did ya know that?...

Now what did these Germanic tribes do? they whistled into the ear of whom? and what?

Student: Of people about to die..

GC; Woton. Yeah, Alright.. That gives me just the length.. I don't know what the fuck that guy whispered in somebody's ears dying meant, but I know that it leads me to Woton, I can tell you about that. Woton was a guy, right? He wanted to find out what happens to the Gods, and he found out that the Gods died. There was one God called Thor, right? and they played a beautiful shot on him..witches?, yeah, I think it was three witches who played the shot on him - Thor. They gave him three chances and he failed all three. He was supposed to be destined to kill the World Serpent - (Thunear) (Thor) was supposed to go by Wotan (he was supposed to kill (Walse) the Great Wolf) .. I know that Thor was supposed to kill the Great World Serpent of the Yggdrasil tree - there's a tree, right? (on the bottom, is the World Serpent, on top is the Eagle, in between is the Squirrel, saying "hey, you know what the World Serpent said about you?, you know what the Eagle said about you?" - and the fuckin' tree's roaming all the time, in the middle of the people, right?, the fucking thing's always in action and wrong, (and) something's wrong). So Thor is given these three shots, and these are the shots. The first one is a pussy cat on the floor (and the tree says, "You're supposed to be so big and mighty, pick up the pussy cat", (so it's hard), so the pussy-cat, all it can raise is a paw, and the whole earth trembles because it's The World Serpent, (an) illusion, right? The second shot was, "Thor, can you drink this flagon of wine? (now flagon is about that big, it comes down to..) but they dip the end into the Atlantic Ocean, and Thor says, "Yeah, I can drink it", and the Atlantic Ocean goes down about three feet, I guess... The last shot they laid on him was that all the Gods killed the Giants and they said, "Thor, you're lying upon a Giant". He takes his mjolnir (which is his hammer). And that's how your mountains came, that's how your Rockies came, because it was (a) delusion, it was Earth, it was not Giants. Did you know that? Anybody know that in Scandinavian mythology?


[Yggdrasil - The Tree of Life via Norse Mythology]

The basic line is... the essential and non-essential. Why the knowledge can work for you people

with Scandinavian mythology is this - to know who you've got up here. See, the story was from Woton, that was Loki, and that was the human being, and he is what? he's half human-being, half-God. Loki brought poetry to the planet, and that's where you get the word "poetaster". Now how do you get poetry on this planet? (which they called Midgard(ia)) I'll tell you how they got it. Loki ripped off the Gods with their essence, stole it, took it away, and poured it into a cave of those three women. The guards grabbed.. Loki (and) said, "If you don't bring that fucker back, man, we're gonna torture you so awfully" - "Alright, I'll go get it back". He turned into a raven, had a sack in his mouth, and filled up the essence of the Gods that he ripped off, and, while flying over Midgardia, a little drop fell out, just a little bit, it's called "poetaster", that's the drop you got on this planet. According to Scandinavians, you're an inheritor of it from way back. Check out the sources. Check out the sources.


[Loki as depicted on an 18th century Icelandic manuscript. Creative Commons]

You know what they did to Loki when he died, when he went- Oh wow! - He didn't go. Yeah, Loki did not die (but his wife loved him) - what they had him do - he was stretched out and the bile of the World Serpent fell into his eye, so his wife had this big fuckin' canvas, (so) that the bile would be caught in the canvas, and, when she went to dump it out and it got filled up, one drop fell in the eye of Loki. It's all you need. (Did ya catch that shot?) how big the canvas can be..and dump it out and get it back there fast enough. Anybody here of Scandinavian heritage? Anybody?, right, Scandinavian heritage?...so then, check this shot out, do you know your shot? Check out Alberich, the dwarf , check out the..what are they? they're beautiful. Freyja (she was a great godess of cats.. but in Scandinavia, they had snow, right?, so she'd be riding a cart with cats, tumbling in the snow all the time, and very elegant for a goddess.

Student: What do you know about the Pyramids?

GC: What do I know about the Pyramids? Alright, I know that the Jews didn't build them, and I know that they were covered with black alabaster and that the Pyramid Texts in gold were written on them - Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, ripped it off, and built Carthage. That's what I know about the Pyramids. They didn't just build those rocks like you see them today, man. They covered those fuckers up beautifully, and the Pyramid Texts were right on them, with all the glyphs, all that gold, and it was ripped off by Hamilcar, and he built his Carthage. What do you know about the Pyramids?

Student: I can't say that I..

GC: (The) Sphinx is a better shot than the Pyramids, because the Sphinx is supposed to be a mystery. They found two solar ships under the legs of the Sphinx..19..59? [1954, in fact]

Student: What did they find?

GC: Solar ships, big ships - under each leg of the sphinx - these solar ships were also taken over (the Ka and Ba was there)... taken over..

Remember, I am not commissioned to give you fuckers a class, I am here taking care of a friend who's ill, and I'm letting my head go with you people. That's the shot you gotta remember behind your heads. Anything that comes out of me, nonetheless, will be truth as I know it. You guys can discredit it, say I'm crazy, then I'll learn..better. Because, I'll tell you one thing, I'm not learning anything today. See, when I.. (when you) can give something out, that I don't know, then I will learn, and therefore others will learn. If I lay out what I know and I don't learn, how the fuck are you gonna learn? You got it? You see, teachers suck, see, they're gonna give what they already know. If they give themselves what they don't know, then, maybe you'll get something? And that's why I think that the Socratic shot works. (Remember, how many people are here.. I'm not just talking to a group.. the whole group doesn't work out.. but a whole bunch of people are here).

Student: It seems now (that) there's a resurgence in poetry again, that it has become recognized by a good number of people...

GC: Really? That's good to hear. I've been out of it. I've been.. in New York... Are you telling me that? That's good to hear. A poet, see, is there, man, shit..

Student: The question I have is do you find the times now say (compared to) the times when you first started writing, say, during the '50s, as far as like, you know, where the consciousness is and what the needs are to be related to..

GC: Jeez, I tell ya. I think poets are so strong they're gonna have to handle the fucker themselves. I ain't gonna talk about (it)... when they come and take the relay from me...and..

(at that time, then, if it happens), ok, (and) if they don't, then fuck it - See, don't trust nobody, don't trust your poet, don't trust the poet, no way, because what the poetry gives you is probably an ignition. You can ignite something.. to go and check out things, for yourself to know. I think everyone in this class should get a poem. I mean poetry's in the human soul, it's there (all of you know that it is). That's my schtick. See, I don't have to be here and talk to you. All I have to do is read poetry, see - and - blam! I've got a big book before ya.

Student: At this point, I feel that the Beat years were like a kind of a visionary time, what the poets were involved in.. because it was a visionary ... they bring on (brought on) the psychedelic years, and now it seems it's going into a whole new other phase..

GC: You know what it's going into? You wanna know what it's going into? You asked me that, right?

Student: Yes.

GC: Alright.. The 50's, I'm sure, had Death on the shot, with the Atom bomb, the '6o's then came in with God and Love, they put the two together. These are big Daddies they're layng down - Death, God, Love. What are the '70's? - 70's? is Truth, see you've got Nixon now and he lied and all of that, but Truth is showing his face. But - don't trust Truth, because Truth can stop you. You go "oh, this is True" and you don't go further, right?. So you still keep on going. I know what comes after Truth - Humor. Humor is the great divine butcher. It's getting rid of all the shit, (It will) knock it all out - Ha!

Student: Do you mind talking about the book, The Vanity of Dulouz (or would you rather not?)

GC: Vanity of Dulouz?

Student: Yeah.

GC: Not Gaullois, that's the cigarettes! - Er..I don't read novels, (I don't read) fiction. I read mostly documentary shit, books on Hitler, books on the Wars, and all that kind of stuff, it's weird, I just don't like fiction. I don't want to be entertained. Alright? But the books of my good friend, who's morte right now, Kerouac, that was his shot. Yeah, I'll check it out. Maybe next time I see you, I'll let you know. I've read it, but.. then it went out

Student: What was your first memory?

GC: My first memory? My first memory was, in a bath-tub (I was two years old) with a woman, who was not my mother. I saw her cunt and I saw the water. I had a double-shot of birth - the contemporary poem of the cunt and the antique poem of water. That's a good hit that I had. And I was two years old. I remembered that when I was sixteen (on a subway-train, I almost fainted! - so there's your hiatus there, like I was saying earlier about your hiatus, your hiatus is that your first memory, you don't remember it, you don't even carry it through.. no way!..you remember your first memory .. at a given time. So, when you remember (your) dream, remember the time-lapse that went - there's a time-lapse - and then you remember it - time-gap - there you go - Now, if you don't remember your dream, it's like you haven't dreamt at all, but if you remember it, is that when you're dreaming? - Ah, yuk, yuk - Ya see? - when you have it in your head. So what is memory? Memory is past. What is present?, What is present? - It's immediacy, right? - Yeah - What is future? - Anticipation. And you guys can't get that..yet? - You gotta know..what is memory?..I wanna hear it..What is memory? - Past - What is present? - Immediacy. What is future? - Anticipation. There you go, you got it. I love ya - [turns to W.S. Merwin, also attending the class] - Do you love me, Bill? - So you and I, we finally got together, right? You and I were put on opposite poles in life in poesy - You're supposed to be the Academic man, drawn by New York, and all that shit, and I'm supposed to be" ol' Beatnik Corso", altho' I'm on the other side, right?

W.S.Merwin: We are.

GC: No - yuk, yuk, yuk..

Student: When did you write your first poem and when did you think of it.

GC: Oh, I like that. I wrote my first poem in prison and I was just turning seventeen and it's called "Sea Chanty" and I got that in my head (because I don't remember my poems, I can't recite them, but that one I know, the first one I know). Wanna hear the first poem I wrote? -

Student(s); Yes

GC: [Gregory reads "Sea Chanty" in it's entirety] - "My mother hates the sea.."..."Thy mother's feet" - Hey, that goes in the water, comes back on the shore. See, I never saw my mother, so she, she went back to Italy, she went back to Calabria and the mountains, she was a cave woman, there wasn't nothing to do in New York, no, no, no, she went back, I never saw her, she went off, across the ocean, so I thought, as a kid, I thought, yeah, anything that goes into the sea comes back. That's the first shot. And it rhymed - that "later" and "ate her" is pretty good fuckin' rhyme (for a sixteen year old!).

Er.. I think you people have had it with me. See, ain't I that nice?, I was about to say I've had it with you, but I think you people have had it with me, and, see, I'd like to go outside now, and walk around with my woman here, and maybe have a drink before that reading with that William (Burroughs). William Burroughs.. You guys gonna be here tonight?... raise all your hands if you're... let me see who's coming... oh.. ok.. [tape and class ends here].

The audio for this can be heard at:

http://www.archive.org/details/Gregory_Corso_The_history_of_poetry_June_1975_75P002

beginning at approximately sixty minutes in and concluding at the end of the tape