Collected Poems 1947-1980 by Allen Ginsberg

Authors Preface, Readers Manual<P>Arrangement of Text<P>Herein author has assembled all his poetry books published to date rearranged in straight chronological order to compose an autobiography. Collected Poems includes seven volumes published in City Lights Pocket Poets series: Howl, Kaddish, Reality Sandwiches, Planet News, The Fall of America, Mind Breaths, and Plutonian Ode, backbone of three decades writing. <P>Books circulated less widely by delicate small presses (excepting song experiments in First Blues) fill gaps in the sequence. Youthful poetries were printed in Empty Mirror and The Gates of Wrath. Three odd books, Angkor Wat, Iron Horse and Airplane Dreams, interleaf poems of the 1960s. Poems All Over the Place flash on spots of time from President Kennedys assassination day, through 1972 Presidentiad, to authors meditation practice in his fiftieth year. <P>Among half-dozen poems taken from prose journal and letter books, one singular rhapsody, The Names, falls into place, with motifs from Howl particularized in 1958. <P>Many Loves manuscript, detailing first erotic encounter with a lifelong friend, not printed till now for reasons of prudence and modesty, completes a sequence of writing that included Sunflower Sutra and America, Berkeley 1956. <P>Advantages of Chronological Order<P>The Gates of Wraths imperfect literary rhymes are interspersed with Empty Mirrors raw-sketch practice poems. Disparate simultaneous early styles juxtaposed aid recognition of a grounded mode of writing encouraged by Dr. Williams, No ideas but in things. <P>A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley precedes A Supermarket in California because it wascomposed on top of the same page, originally one poem in two parts, here rejoined. <P>Travel poems Calcutta-Saigon-Angkor Wat-Japan, 1963, mixed through three separate books, now cohere in sequence. <P>Cross-country Auto Poesy chro

Author: Allen Ginsberg

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

Pages: 864

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Publication Date: 1988-06-07