614 The American Century: Literature since 1945vision, of the kind once sculpted by Whitman and Pound and now constituted by
this poem as a whole. Like the Cantos, in effect, “Wichita Vortex Sutra” situates moral
and political failure in words and proposes itself as “the right magic / Formula” for
recovering the good of body, spirit, and the body politic. “I lift up my voice aloud,”
announces Ginsberg, “ / Make mantra of American language now, / pronounce the
words beginning my own millennium, / I here declare the end of the War!” A new
language will promote a new vision and a new society: it is a noble aim and one that
has haunted American writing ever since what Ginsberg refers to as “the prophecy of
the Good Grey Poet.”
In his later years, as Death and Fame: Poems 1993–97 (1998) indicated, Ginsberg
gravitated closer to Buddhism. The idea of “an awakened emptiness” or “no Self ”
that was always lurking in his earlier work now assumed more importance,
promoting what the poet himself termed “a less attached, less apocalyptic view.”
He was trying hard, he said, to “Avoid that mountain of ego vision!”; “not even great
Whitman’s universal self,” he clamed, suited him any longer. One side result of this
was that the Blake epiphany interested him less than it had done. Another was that
many of his poems in later collections directed gentle mockery at his own egotism,
or surveyed the nightmares of contemporary history and his own story with a sense
of acceptance, even distance. His poem about the death of his father, “Don’t Grow
Old,” included in Collected Poems 1947–1985 (1986), charts the alteration: unlike
“Kaddish” it responds to loss, not with rage, but with a grave, melancholy quietude.
“What’s to be done about Death?” Ginsberg asks and then softly, with sad resignation,
answers his own question: “ / Nothing, nothing.” This is not to say that such poems
are unfeeling, but they place human emotion within the measureless scope of “a
relatively heavenly emptiness” and they aim to “set surpassing example of sanity as
measure for late generations.” Nor is it to ignore the continuities that underpin the
evident change. The long line remains in evidence; so do humor, fits of exuberance,
lust, or anger, and the impulse to transmute verse into vision. Behind the Buddhist
mask, in fact, the authentic American rebel was still at work; the voice of the prophet
was still there, demanding to be heard.
Among the other beat poets, the most memorable is probably Gregory Corso
(1930–2001). The writings of Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010) are too slight to constitute
a distinctive body of work; and, although Jack Kerouac wrote some interesting
poems, like his variations on black musical forms “Mexico City Blues” (1955), it was,
as Ginsberg suggested, in his “inspired prose” that he created “really a new poetry.”
Corso, on the other hand, evolved a distinct identity out of his poems – or perhaps
it would be more accurate to say, identities. “Should I get married? Should I be
good?” begins one of his most famous pieces, “Marriage” (1959), which then presents
him trying out possible marriages, inventing potential selves, only to discard each
one of them in turn. Jokey at times, at others wildly surreal, the poet is like Whitman’s
“essential Me:” standing apart from the game of life, and the roles and rules it
prescribes, refusing to commit himself to a fixed, definite status. The rapidity of
Corso’s verse line is, in this sense, part of his message, as are his subversive humor
and unpredictable alterations of pace and tone: the poet will not, it seems, be tiedGGray_c05.indd 614ray_c 05 .indd 614 8 8/1/2011 7:31:34 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 34 PM