within living memory, most legitimately resem-
bles Whitman. He, like Whitman, wrote an
emblematic American poem that became world
famous; was experienced preeminently as a poet
of the people, at home among the democratic
masses; developed a public persona to match
the one in his writing—hugely free-spirited and
self-promoting, an open-hearted exhibitionist.
And he, again like Whitman, is remembered
as a man in possession of an extraordinary
sweetness that, throughout his life, welled up
repeatedly to astonish the hearts of all who
encountered him.
I met Ginsberg only twice, the first time at
Jack Kerouac’s funeral in 1969. I was there for
The Village Voice.It was my very first assign-
ment as a working journalist. Here is the scene as
I remember it:
At the head of the viewing room stood the
casket with Kerouac, hideously made up, lying in
it. In the mourners’ seats sat Kerouac’s middle-
class French-Canadian relatives—eyes narrowed,
faces florid, arms crossed on their disapproving
breasts. Around the casket—dipping, weaving,
chantingOm—were Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlov-
sky, and Gregory Corso. Then there was Ker-
ouac’s final, caretaker wife, a woman old
enough to be his mother, weeping bitterly and
looking strangely isolated. I sat mesmerized, star-
ing in all directions. Suddenly Ginsberg was sit-
ting beside me. ‘‘And who are you?’’ he asked
quietly. I told him who I was. He nodded and
wondered if I was talking to people. Especially
the wife. I must be sure to talk to her. ‘‘Oh, no,’’ I
said quickly. ‘‘I couldn’t do that.’’ Ginsberg
nodded into space for a moment. ‘‘You must,’’
he murmured. Then he looked directly into my
eyes. ‘‘It’s your job,’’ he said softly. ‘‘You must do
your job.’’
The second time we met, nearly twenty years
later, was at an infamous meeting of the PEN
board called to debate a letter (drafted by Gins-
berg) that the Freedom-to-Write Committee had
sent to Israel’s premier, taking his government to
task for censoring Palestinian and Israeli jour-
nalists. I sat in my seat, listening to Ginsberg
read his letter aloud to a packed room. He was
now in his sixties, his head bald, his beard trim,
wearing an ill-fitting black suit, the voice as gen-
tle as I remembered it and twice as dignified.
Although the letter had been signed by Susan
Sontag, William Styron, and Grace Paley
among others, it was Ginsberg himself who
drew fire from the opposition. In a communi-
que ́that had been sent earlier to the committee,
Cynthia Ozick had practically accused him of
being an agent for the PLO; and now, the
essence of the charge coming from the floor
seemed to be ‘‘It’s people like you who are
destroying Israel.’’ I remember Ginsberg stand-
ing there, his glasses shining, nodding in all
directions, urging people toward compassion-
ate reason. He never raised his voice, never
spoke with heat or animosity, never stopped
sounding thoughtful and judicious while all
about him were losing their heads. When he
stepped from the microphone and was making
his way through the crowd, I pressed his hand as
he passed me and thanked him for the excel-
lence of the letter’s prose. He stopped, closed
his other hand over mine, and looking directly
into my eyes, said softly, ‘‘I know you. Don’t I
know you? Iknowyou.’’
Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New
Jersey, in 1926 to Louis and Naomi Ginsberg;
the father was a published poet, a high school
teacher, and a socialist; the mother, an enchant-
ing free spirit, a passionate communist, and a
woman who lost her mental stability in her thir-
ties (ultimately, she was placed in an institution
and lobotomized). Allen and his brother grew up
inside a chaotic mixture of striving respectabil-
ity, left-wing bohemianism, and certifiable mad-
ness in the living room. It all feltlargeto the
complicated, oversensitive boy who, discovering
that he lusted after boys, began to feel mad
himself and, like his paranoid parents, threat-
ened by, yet defiant of, the America beyond the
front door.
None of this accounts for Allen Ginsberg; it
only describes the raw material that, when the
time was right, would convert into a poetic vision
of mythic proportion that merged brilliantly with
its moment: the complicated aftermath of theLIKELEAVES OF GRASS,IT IS AN INGENIOUSEXPERIMENT WITH THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE THAT
DID WHAT EZRA POUND SAID A GREAT POEM SHOULD
DO: MAKE THE LANGUAGE NEW.’’
Howl