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In Reply to: RE: Alan Ginsberg Plays His Melodeon for a Bemused William F. Buckley Jr. posted by John Marks on April 18, 2021 at 07:23:23
Very interesting "interview." Ginsberg more than held his own, I thought--- and that's no mean feat versus Buckley, the consummate debater. Bill was an interesting fellow; political "mover and shaker," accomplished writer, yachtsman, and, rarest of all, wit. Thanks! (Now, of course, I'll have to revisit Bill vs Gore Vidal...).
Edits: 04/18/21Follow Ups:
Eckshewelly...
I think that Ginsberg's supposed magnum opus "Howl" owes a huge debt to Kenneth Rexroth's "Thou Shalt Not Kill," which is Rexroth's searing elegy on the death of Dylan Thomas.
DO NOT READ THAT POEM unless you have a very high tolerance level for extremely graphic descriptions of suicides, and other forms of violent death.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
jm
Never heard of Rexroth. Now, I'm hooked. I seldom read modern poetry, but this is astonishing. And he translated Chinese and Japanese poetry? What a completely different aesthetic; must have been a very interesting person, himself (will research). Thanks!
And here's a Rexroth poem that is NOT in the complete poems... so, JM is More Than Complete. NB, my copy had a high SN, so it was not signed. This one is up for sale, IIRC on ABEBOOKS.
Lovers who Feed the Goldfish
In the Fontaine de Medicis
Will Always Be True to One Another
Now the Starlit Moonless Spring
Night stands over the Fontaine
De Medicis, and the gold
Fish swim in the cold, starlit
Water. Yesterday, in the
New sunshine, lovers sat by
The water, and talked, and fed
The goldfish, and kissed each other.
I am in California
And evening is coming on.
Now it is morning in Paris
By the Fontaine de Medicis.
And the lovers will come today,
And talk and kiss, and feed the fish,
After they have had their coffee.
Kenneth Rexroth
# # #
d
If you want to hear the ending, skip to the 21-minute mark
There is an LP of Rexroth reading Thou Shalt Not Kill to a jazz accompaniment. I haven't heard it in decades, but I recall that it ended with Rexroth yelling, "You killed him, in your goddam Brooks Brothers suits!"
There's a story that some marketing dweeb at Brooks Brothers heard that some Beat poet had mentioned Brooks Brothers suits in a poem that there was a buzz about. So, they just sent Rexroth a suit, as a thank-you.
I'm kinda skeptical--how did they know his size?
And in any event, I'd prefer that the gesture had been knowingly and post-Modernly Ironical. As in, "OK, we ourselves think that you are a bastard, so here's the uniform!"
BTW, Abraham Lincoln was transported to Ford's Theater in a Studebaker (Carriage), and he died wearing a Brooks Brothers suit.
Truth.
jm
story in this week's New Yorker precisely about that subject. Your post got me into a very long WFB video review... thanks.
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