Gregory Corso

Gregory Corso (March 26th 1930 - January 17th 2001), is an American poet.

He was the fourth major member of the Beat Generation, at the sides of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Imprisoned in Dannemora for flight in 1947, Gregory Corso was plunged in the literature, to start to write Poésie. Once released in 1950, it turned over to New York where it met Ginsberg in Greenwich Village (in “Pony Stable”). Ginsberg introduced shortly after the Corso young person to the other members of the Beat scene. Its first collection of poetry was published in account of author in 1955 (with the assistance of friends of Harvard, where it had followed courses): The Vestal Lady one Brattle and other poems (new in French). This first publication took place one year before the first collection of poems of Ginsberg, and two years before the On the road of Jack Kerouac. In 1958, Corso had extended its poetic repertory, which was published under the reference number 8, of the poetic series “City Lights Pocket Poets” under the title Gasoline/Vestal Lady one Brattle .

It published thereafter:

The Happy birthday off Death (1960),
The American Express (1961) (its only novel),
Long Live Man (1962),
Elegaic Feelings American (1970) translated into French under the title American elegiac Feelings at Middle-class man, (1978).
Herald off the Autochthonic Spirit (1981)
Mindfield (1991).

Its first noticed poem was Bomb (formatted to give him the shape of a mushroom cloud), then Marriage , which one proposes the following extract:

Goal I should get married I should Be good

How Nice it' D Be to like home to her

and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen

aproned Young and lovely wanting my baby

and so happy butt me she burns the roast beef

and comes crying to me and I get up from my big dad flesh

saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!

God what has husband I' D make! Yes, I should get married!

So much to C! like sneaking into Mr. Jones' house late At night

and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books

Like hanging has off picture Rimbaud one the lawnmower

like pasting Tannu Tuva posting stamps all over the picket fence

like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest

grab her and Tel. her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!

And when the mayor comes to get my vote Tel. him

When are you going to stop people killing whales!

And when the milkman comes leave him has note in the bottle

Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust--

Ted Morgan described in these terms the place of Corso in the Beat movement (in Literary Outlaw, the Life and Times off William S. Burroughs , 1988):

If Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs were the three musketeers of the movement, then Corso was their D' Artagnan, partner young, accepted and appreciated, but with step completely their equal. It had not been there as of the beginning, represented by the alliance of the intellectuals of Columbia with connected Times Square. It was new arrived, although its references were enough impressive to give him free access to the first Beat circle…

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