A Thousand Words on the Death of Gregory Corso

Bruce Isaacson

     Gregory Corso, one of the great poets of the Beat Era, died this year.
Last of the living NY core Beat poets, Gregory, along with Jack
Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman and others, burst out of the
cultural landscape to controversy and fame in the waning light of
Eisenhower America. Sometimes known as "pearl of the beats" for the
grace of his verse, Gregory could also be seen as a brilliant, childlike
soul who exemplified both the high devotion to craft and personal
shortcomings of a great Romantic movement. He was certainly a
genuine Rimbaudian spirit who lived much of his public life in the tone of
street theater artis-gratia-artis established by Rimbaud in the cafes
of Charlesville and Paris.

      The stories passed down about Gregory are a key part of his legend.
Among today’s career-minded literati, when poets routinely
fear even to criticize one another's work, Gregory could regularly be
heard from the back row of a reading, heckling loudly. Though some
were legitimately angered, we will no doubt miss that hilarious, nasal
New York honesty. Then there was his ability to travail dual worlds —
from his indiscretions with a former First Lady, his proximity to
heiresses of America’s most notable industrial families, to the time he
supposedly broke into a bookstore to spray-paint "Jack Micheline Lives"
on the walls. I don’t know if these stories are true, and it doesn’t
matter. They are part of the legend of an era of rebellion. Did he
actually live by stealing his own books and re-selling them? I don’t
know, but I do know that he lived with the assistance, affection and
kindness of many who loved poetry and made their contribution by
helping this wild child who might otherwise have fallen to obscurity or
homelessness. Perhaps the saddest thing to feel about Gregory’s
passing is the sense that such a poet simply wouldn’t be possible
today. You'll hear many laud Gregory's brilliant humor and good natured
early poems, such as The Mad Yak, Marriage, Bomb and others. Less
recognized are his later and greater serious works, such as Elegaic
Feelings American (1970), which can be seen as an endpoint for the
great creative spirit of the core Beat writers that began in the early
1950s and ended with the death of Jack Kerouac in 1968. The poem is
still powerful read aloud and well worth knowing for the historical,
literary and personal perspective of the group of writers whose name
may come to define our poetic era, much as we now think of a quarter
century of English poetry as the Romantic Era. Corso was also a lyric
poet of power and vision, and could use rhyme, meter and surrealism in
new combinations that extended the American form. A traditionalist
who loved English Romantics, particularly Shelley, Gregory's street
theater antics and heckling were in themselves a considerable art
form, as anyone who ever saw either would attest. He was our
American version of an artist-provocateur, on a personal level, yet
always good-humored. I recall his biting teasing until just at the point
where you’d become spitting angry, then he’d smile, muss your hair,
pat you on the shoulder, and say he’s just testing your mettle. He
managed to be both confrontational and lovable at the same time.

     An orphan, Gregory was raised in reform schools and prison-like
settings and retained his respect for the tough way up. He was self-
educated at a very high level in a number of subjects such as
Egyptology, art and poetics. He was constantly "in the face" of
privilege and small-mindedness, constitutionally incapable of anything
but direct and brutal honesty. He lived by his wiles and street-smarts
his entire life. Many have seen in this nature a more genuine ideal of
political independence and Beat rebelliousness than any other. As the
Beats became themselves a sort of establishment, Gregory remained
an outsider and genuine anarchist soul.

     Gregory has some poetry which is more accessible than others. His
poem Marriage, undoubtedly one of the great Beat poems, was a huge
hit in the NY cafes of the 1950s, and mixes humor, honesty,
surrealism, and classicism to represent an average person's
discomfort with the strict institutional codes of 1950s America. The
direction of this poem, in its rap-like form and reliance on humor to
draw the reader in, is a primary forebear of today's Slam poetry,
though it remains surprisingly unappreciated, it is perhaps unsurpassed
among today’s street poetry movements. Arguably, the direction
popular poetry has taken in America today follows Gregory's lead more
than any poet of his generation: the humor, the reliance on the
unexpected and immediate image or metaphor, the direct personal
address, the lyric willingness to bare the pits and boils of the writer’s
life and imagination. His poem The American Way is a funny, serious
and striking description of the usurpation of spiritual goals by empty
small-mindedness ("They are frankensteining Christ in america"). His
poems Power and Army are both great humorous and true meditations
on tough topics. The lyricism of his work, already mentioned on the
Kerouac elegy, can be seen elsewhere in fragmentary couplets
organized according to the beauty of the words themselves
(Mutability), much as Gregory organized his life. Along with others, his
poems The Whole Mess Almost or A Bed’s Lament or The Doubt of Lie
evidence Gregory's ability to express philosophical ideas in a way that
amuses, enlightens and delights.

His books include The Vestal Lady on Brattle, Gasoline (City Lights),
The Happy Birthday of Death, Elegaic Feelings American, Long Live Man,
Herald of the Autocthonic Spirit (New Directions), and Mindfield (Thunder's Mouth Press). Gregory, that beautiful, funny, wild intelligent voice,
lived a full life according to the demands of his own autocathonic spirit.
Many mourn his death much as we were delighted at his life.
He died of complications from prostate cancer. For craft, for
intelligence, for humor, may the world well remember his poems.


P.S. "His life was a fast life of fire and poetry. Allen Ginsberg was a
best friend, and now they are together in Heaven." — Contribution of Allen Isaacson, first grade

c.2001