Uncollected Poems

Allen Ginsberg, Wait until I’m Dead, uncollected poems.

Published by Grove Press, 2016.

Wandering, actually, I was searching for an old, originally in Latin, text about astrology. Big bookstore. On the off chance the Roman author was listed as poetry, I breezed to a meager collection and noticed a special book:

I pulled my reading glasses down and opened up the book. First poem? About a Repblican politician, with sentiment not much different from the current day. Poem was dated 1942.

Some things just never change.

I’m not one for modern poetry. Just not “my thing,” but I’ll make an exception for Ginsberg. This is the second collection of his poetry that I have, other than a pocket version of “Howl, and Other Poems.”

Sparse verse that makes my blood race. Good, good stuff.

Saw him once, on one of his last tours, 1996 or so, in Austin. Documented elsewhere, I’m sure. At Austin’s Book People, back when it used to be cool. “Cool” could also mean, “close to the trailer park.”

I won’t quote poems from the collection as the art involved, I’m totally unsure what I hear in my head when I read it — and what some other reader might interpret? Could be very different. Then, too, this was once considered lewd material, and one of the poems I would quote, out of this new collection? Rarther sexually graphic. Gay, sexually graphic. To me, it carries a very different message, but people will intrpret art as they all see fit. I read it as longing and love, both physical and emotional.

I have a number of passages marked for reading, re–reading, and possible inlcusion in some kind of work. I’m using pink–flamingo sticky–notes to mark pages. I’m sure the author would approve.

Howl, and Other Poems – Allen Ginsberg

#poetry