report from new york

by

alden kirby

I attended a poetry reading here at the Living Theatre on the 9th of March, by Gregory Corso and Frank O'Hara. Mr. Corso seems to ally himself with the beat generation by the physical and we trust financial convenience of not combing his hair, having his clothes pressed, or shaving before the performance. Mr. O'Hara was dressed less poetically in an up-beat shirt and suit.

Mr. Corso began the evening before the lights were dimmed with remarks to someone who must have been his friend in the audience about the attractiveness of his girl friend's ass.

This, I take it, was supposed to set the mood for the evening, and to set the audience right in thinking that here was a poet who was a real man. Mr. Corso is also wise and broadminded. He disarmingly called Mr. O'Hara "a faggot," and pointed out that Mr. O'Hara, being truly an angel and an idealist was really much better cut out as a father-type than Mr. Corso. Mr. Corso I understand to be too naive to be so responsible, and too uncomplicated to be so idealistic; he is only honestly following the gift of genius that God has thrust upon him. Be that as it may, Mr. Corso got a

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good hand for his entertaining reading of his long poem, Marriage, which was about the conflict of marrying with the commercial and public rituals of the courtship and honeymoon. The poem, I thought, was good. Mr. Corso has his own style and in this poem he had something to say, and said it. It accomplished what it set out to do very well, which is always an accomplishment in itself. But I hope Mr. Corso will give up making public statements which reflect so nicely upon himself and, as Mr. Allen Ginsberg, I believe it was, shouted from the audience, "quit this fooling around and get to the poetry."

Mr. O'Hara's work promised more to the reader if not so much to the listener (Mr. O'Hara's voice is a low and modest one and does not tend to dramatize his work fairly). It was disappointingly scatological. I was surprised that writers are still trying to bear up bravely under the stress of having been toilet trained, and that they are still preoccupied with the tricks their bodies can do. We would all like to take such things naturally as dogs in the street do, but it isn't always appropriate to the occasion, and, worse, is usually a great bore.

I was disappointed most of all by everyone's whether they were dubbed faggot or not-rather desperate concern over their masculinity. Mr. Jack Kerouac was also present, or at least someone loudly announced himself as such as he passed the ticket taker. According to the interview of him in the New York Post the following day, he came in from his newly purchased house on Long Island. His mother lives with him. She says "He is a good boy," and she knows, because "I'm his mother."

I went home at the intermission. Before I went to bed, I washed my face, shaved, combed my hair and closed the bathroom door. I, too, write poetry.

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