Allen Ginsberg: The Quintessential Cry

External Since: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 2

SUPREME REALITY AND ALLEN GINSBERG

The poems in this volume(1953-1960)...mostly lack the desperately
earnest cry for truth and the snug-tension accuracy of Ginsberg at his
best. -A.R. Ammons, “Ginsberg’s New Poems”(published
1964) in On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg, Lewis Hyde, editor,
University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1984, p.185.

Truth and justice are achieved, not questioned and described. -Maurice
Blanchot, The Siren Song: Selected Essays, Harvester Press, 1982,
Brighton, p.135.

Yours just may have been the
quintessential cry for truth
as it was uttered at the very beginning
of the Kingdom of God on earth.*
For your story really begins in 1953
which was quite a big year
for this mystic and messianic poet
of impossible visions
in the liveliest spot for poetry
in the USA: San Francisco,
after your eight months in
a mental hospital in 1949.

Your howl against everything
in our materialist world
in your new poetics of vision,
as you tried to catch
the texture of our age
and as you tried to catch
the Supreme Reality+
you caught the mystical
death wish, a desire to draw
near to that sense of cosmic awe.

The ninth stage of history
was opening up and the inception
of the Kingdom of God on earth:*
a mystical air of new beginnings
was caught by your poetic consciousness
which turned to Buddhism.
The step of search in the path
leading unto the knowledge
of the Ancient of Days
took you down some road
leading to illusions
of embodiments of satanic fancy.**

And so it was that the Beat Generation
and the New American Poetry
missed an eschatological centre
that was completed, at last,
in Chicago in 1953 with all
the trappings of millennial zeal
and the apocalyptic as it was
symbolized and enshrined
in Real manifestations of a New Age,
Whose Dust was now in Haifa.

Ron Price
4 October 1995

* Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p.351.
+ Allen Ginsberg had a profound interest in spiritual reality in the
late 1940s and early 1950s
and turned, in 1954, to Buddhism.
** Baha’u’llah, Gleanings, Tablet of the True Seeker.

External Since: May 28, 2004 Posts: 65

ronprice RemoveThis @ozemail.com.au (Ron Price) wrote in message news:<66f9bee6.0407250329.7e6940b4 RemoveThis @posting.google.com>...
> SUPREME REALITY AND ALLEN GINSBERG
>
> The poems in this volume(1953-1960)...mostly lack the desperately
> earnest cry for truth and the snug-tension accuracy of Ginsberg at his
> best. -A.R. Ammons, “Ginsberg’s New Poems”(published
> 1964) in On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg, Lewis Hyde, editor,
> University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1984, p.185.
>
> Truth and justice are achieved, not questioned and described. -Maurice
> Blanchot, The Siren Song: Selected Essays, Harvester Press, 1982,
> Brighton, p.135.
>
>
> Yours just may have been the
> quintessential cry for truth
> as it was uttered at the very beginning
> of the Kingdom of God on earth.*
> For your story really begins in 1953
> which was quite a big year
> for this mystic and messianic poet
> of impossible visions
> in the liveliest spot for poetry
> in the USA: San Francisco,
> after your eight months in
> a mental hospital in 1949.
>
> Your howl against everything
> in our materialist world
> in your new poetics of vision,
> as you tried to catch
> the texture of our age
> and as you tried to catch
> the Supreme Reality+
> you caught the mystical
> death wish, a desire to draw
> near to that sense of cosmic awe.
>
> The ninth stage of history
> was opening up and the inception
> of the Kingdom of God on earth:*
> a mystical air of new beginnings
> was caught by your poetic consciousness
> which turned to Buddhism.
> The step of search in the path
> leading unto the knowledge
> of the Ancient of Days
> took you down some road
> leading to illusions
> of embodiments of satanic fancy.**
>
> And so it was that the Beat Generation
> and the New American Poetry
> missed an eschatological centre
> that was completed, at last,
> in Chicago in 1953 with all
> the trappings of millennial zeal
> and the apocalyptic as it was
> symbolized and enshrined
> in Real manifestations of a New Age,
> Whose Dust was now in Haifa.
>
> Ron Price
> 4 October 1995
>
> * Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p.351.
> + Allen Ginsberg had a profound interest in spiritual reality in the
> late 1940s and early 1950s
> and turned, in 1954, to Buddhism.
> ** Baha’u’llah, Gleanings, Tablet of the True Seeker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!