this here poetical verse, and the accompanying audio recording give voice to what the nyc is. hear now allen ginsberg:
My Sad Self
To Frank O'Hara
Sometimes when my eyes are red
I go up on top of the RCA Building
and gaze at my world, Manhattan--
my buildings, streets I've done feats in,
lofts, beds, coldwater flats
--on Fifth Ave below which I also bear in mind,
its ant cars, little yellow taxis, men
walking the size of specks of wool--
Panorama of the bridges, sunrise over Brooklyn machine,
sun go down over New Jersey where I was born
& Paterson where I played with ants--
my later loves on 15th Street,
my greater loves of Lower East Side,
my once fabulous amours in the Bronx
faraway--
paths crossing in these hidden streets,
my history summed up, my absences
and ecstasies in Harlem--
--sun shining down on all I own
in one eyeblink to the horizon
in my last eternity---
matter is water.
Sad,
I take the elevator and go
down, pondering,
and walk on the pavements staring into all man's
plateglass, faces,
questioning after who loves,
and stop, bemused
in front of an automobile shopwindow
standing lost in calm thought,
traffic moving up & down 5th Avenue blocks
behind me
waiting for a moment when...
Time to go home & cook supper & listen to
the romantic war news on the radio
...all movement stops
& I walk in the timeless sadness of existence,
tenderness flowing thru the buildings,
my fingertips touching reality's face,
my own face streaked with tears in the mirror
of some window--at dusk--
where I have no desire--
for bonbons--or to own the dresses or Japanese
lampshades of intellection--
Confused by the spectacle around me,
Man struggling up the street
with packages, newspapers,
ties, beautiful sits
toward his desire
Man, woman, streaming over the pavements
red lights clocking hurried watches &
movements at the curb--
And all these streets leading
so crosswise, honking, lengthily,
by avenues
stalked by high buildings or crusted into slums
thru such halting traffic
screaming cars and engines
so painfully to this
countryside, this graveyard
this stillness
on deathbed or mountain
once seen
never regained or desired
in the mind to come
where all Manhattan that I've seen must disappear.
New York, October 1958
42 comments:
allen, baby, why so jaded?
for once, i'm not stephey's biggest fan with the first comment!!
g.cham.
so nothing's over-rated.
does it feel like allen is saying very little with a lot of words..?
ghill: not jaded, my friend. reluctant.
petey: i will always be your biggest fan.
paul: no.
(please back up your accusations with proof and/or examples)
if you're jaded,
then nothing's over-rated,
granted your mind's gated,
but that's unrelated.
as long as you slate-it
and don't hate-it
or date-it
and never get baited,
you'll always be elated.
(se. f. cause you're a teacher,
can you grade-it?
cause i know you can't debate-it)
so don't wait-it
or you'll be late-it
and maybe even related...
peace, i'm gone... skated.
stephen.
backed up enough?
cause i got the stuff, to be tough
dropping rhymes, making dimes,
all the times, yo.
let's hug it out!
Maybe you should go on a search for the best bon bons in new york
paul: why don't you defend your earlier comments?
petey: i will grade it soon.
boring... I hope I'm not showing my intellectual ineptness...
okay stevie. ginsberg is singing an ode to new york. granted, a lot of people have lived and currently live there, but i have not. i don't care what allen thinks of new york. you could potentially generalize to other big cities, but few cities compare to new york in size and sheer humanity.
allen talks about his old girlfriends, no one enjoys hearing about someone's old girlfriends. in fact, you always feel like the speaker is compensating for his current lack of love interests when this happens. allen does not just do this once but at least three times. over compensation by a lonely man. talking about subject matter that is universally boring--old girlfriends.
the title itself (my sad self) further illustrates this man's need for validation. he is fishing for compliments. he wants people to feel sorry for him. the title invokes pity for someone who has a poor self image.
next, most of the poem is a discussion about what he did that day. it is widely recognized that the more selfish, egoistic and uninteresting people just talk about themselves all the time. i don't mean to be an uncharitable person, but a travelog of ginsberg's day in new york (even if he's famous) is not my idea of good reading.
a lot of words about very little.
let us go then you and i and find a better poem by a better poet.
paul. paul. paul.
you make such a courageous attempt to critique. and while your opinions may be logical, masked in your own confidence of their brilliance, your words carry no weight. while i think you believe what you write, you words unveil your ignorance. the moment you mentioned ginsberg's GIRLfriend is the moment that anything you have to say on the topic is mute, unrelated, stale, boring, lacking apropos, and delusional.
try again.
and if you still need some elementary poetry to rear you up in wisdom and light, i can pen a simplistic poem that you might get...
stephen: reluctant is a good description.
paul: i have a feeling you are trying to bait stephen. however, for the sake of conversation, i have the following comments on your comments:
i don't think the poem is about new york...although someone who has lived in new york is more likely to identify with ginsberg's nostalgic and tender attachment to the city. also, i am not bored by people talking about lost loves. girlfriends or boyfriends, it doesn't really matter (and you can get off your intellectual soapbox, peter) the point is that our life is made up of our loves---past, present, future. and finally, ginsberg may very well have been a selfish egotist, but uninteresting he is NOT.
am i baiting you stevie?
if ginsberg was gay then that makes his poetry better and petey's poetry garish. maybe the fact that i didn't judge him by his sexual orientation makes my comments all the more apropos. and petey's penchant for alliteration makes his musings all the more pedantic.
dd: thank you for bringing some sense to this thread. i like your idea that life is made up of our loves. that is certainly an idea i wouldn't mind thinking over for a while--it would certainly be a very powerful way to attach meaning to my life.
i'm not a poet and haven't spent enough time delving into it to have the patience to figure out what the author is trying to say--although maybe the point is that the poem says something to the reader regardless of the writer's intent.
perhaps i need to spend more time in introspection and i would then enjoy poetry more.
or perhaps poets spend so much time on form and accepted poetic dogma that it becomes unattainable to the lay public (me) and those not high on something (me again).
stevie: why does ginsberg's poem remind me of the pathetic rock star in Rent whose crowning life acheivement was a poorly written, melodramatic song about a woman. am i once again evidencing my ignorance..? petey, the rockstar was not gay by the way--and he had aids.
dd: so lost loves is a good subject. i agree with that. if peter spent your next date talking about all his old girlfriends--would that be palatable? you are a better person than i.
have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded?
paul and dd.
do not despair,
but rather forbear,
for indeed its rare...
let me my fun,
my day in the sun,
pt. v paul...
never have i won.
thank you.
by: peter frandsen
petey:
let's call it a draw.
your poems--although a bit raw--are without flaw.
they make me go 'ha ha'.
stevie: here is a good webpage to look at for examples of cheaper prices on frames with good component sets.
http://www.performancebike.com/shop/item_list.cfm?estore_ID=699&WT.ac=699
paul:
1 to 0!
nice try... a draw...?
here you go, stevie, my chinese loving buddy.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6951123
thank you for the kind birthday words stevie. we listened to weezer as a family. it was good.
Paul: let us be clear that new york is the artistic center of the world. So if ginsberg is singing an ode to the city, he is doing that which so many artisits do. So deal with it.
Second: your point that ginsberg is egoistic has no backing. From this poem, how do you infer that he is, in fact, egoistic? Did you listen to the recording. If so you would have realized that ginsberg wrote the poem in an attempt to mimic frank o’hara. He then sent to poem to o’hara as a gift. Seems pretty selfless to me.
Third: did you actually write “it is widely recognized that the more selfish, egoistic and uninteresting people just talk about themselves all the time”? that is a great premise to throw around. I mean, how can I argue with what is widely recognized? And it is perfect because you have so much to back up that comment.
Fourth: I like not the poem because of its content, per se; rather, I enjoy his language: “Brooklyn machine, fabulous amours, Japanese lampshades of intellection, the timeless sadness of existence, etc.” so you say he is saying not much with a lot of words. The words are what I like.
dd: perhaps your love comment is point on; however, I think ginsberg’s point may be that sometimes life is loveless, and we must deal with that.
p.t.: a plus.
Paul: you obviously baited me.
libby: listen to the recording and read more ginsberg.
paul: i agree that 'let us go then you and i' is much better; however, they are saying the same thing.
stephen: you misunderstood my point about life being made up of our loves...i was just saying that talking about ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends is not always boring because our loves give our life meaning. i did not mean that this was the main point of the poem.
i actually listened to the recording before i read the words. it made me realize that i prefer reading it to listening...i think i wouldn't mind listening to it as much if it weren't the poet's own voice. i've listened to other poet's recordings of their own poetry before and had the same reaction. i think this has to do with paul's earlier insight about whether we are trying to find out what the author is trying to say or trying to find our own meaning.
i'm not sure that the poem's message is that life is loveless and you have to deal with it. i think it's about death.
speaking of death, what was jack's total kill count for season 5?
amy is afraid the kill count is not her predicted 48.
happy birthday. thank you my present stephen.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSAA:US:11&Item=6881899694
i'm not the offical tally-man (or taliban for that matter), but the jack bauer kill count for season 5 turned out to 37. that's more than one an hour for an entire day.
good hustle jack. great jeans.
and if you wanna re-live any of those kills:
http://bauercount.com/
has pictures and video.
dd: yes it is about death--the death of love.
i think jack's kill count was at or around 37, but that may be six too many.
but, i'm going to have to disagree with you about hearing poets read their own poems. freshman year in college was paradise thanks only to t.s. eliot recordings. just ask skinny. can you back me up?
hey jack, now for the tricky part.
g.cham.
are you taunting jackbauer (no space)...?
dangerous move buddy
But the problem with T.S. Eliot reading his poems is that he sounds like he has a cold all the time. When he says TIME it sounds like DIME.
lolly: word.
skinny?
skinny.
stay away.
don't obey.
all will call,
make your own way!
(altho, i kinda miss you too...)
stevie: i listened to love's lost poem in all its glory.
when's the last time you were around someone who talked about himself constantly?
you've got to recognize.
one importatn center of the artistic world is greensboro, north carolina
was he trying to hook up with frank? that would give the motivations for the poem a different slant...a more selfish one.
how's this for words: insight biking. expansive lyrics. crying babies.
jonny: the nyc hipster prefers 'released in new york only' movies. don't let it get to you.
congrats on all your good luck in the D.C.
bike up the potomac for me--jared harwood has a bike.
Stevey: loved it. jealous about the new camera... good to see you on Saturday. love your guts.
lollygagger (laura summerhays, ya'll):
and indeed there will be dime...
dime for you and dime for me,
and dime yet for a hundred indecisions,
and for a hundred visions and revisions,
before the taking of a toast and tea.
however, i can't disagree with you more. to truly appreciate t.s. you must listen to him
paul: creating a loving relationship is anything but selfish.
nikki: good to see you back in the dominion.
jonny: x-men III on thursday nite (technically friday morning at 12:05 am). boo yes.
stevey.
tell us more about your loving relationship...
Hey, I never said hearing T.S. reading was a detriment to understanding his poetry! I just said he has some kind of ear, nose and throat problem.
stevie: how was the weekend? is hannah behaving?
stevie?
hannah is behaving. why are you commenting on this post, not the latest?
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