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Bruce Isaacson's avatar

Norse's "Memoirs of a Bastard Angel" is the best of the genre. He lived a truly incredible life, and his involvement with Modernists like Auden and Williams is equally interesting. Thanks for including this poem which I didn't know.

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

Appreciate it, Bruce!

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RGomez's avatar

Full Moon: A Memoir

The Universe led me to Ginsberg’s “Howl” when I was just a boy.

I read an excerpt of it in my 7th grade English class, and my friends loved it.

Little did I know how Ginsberg changed the course of my life at that moment.

But I felt it.

Oh, yeah … hair bristling on the back of my neck, invisible wings growing on my shoulders — as the maddest of my pals howled like baby wolves, enjoying our first full moon.

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Joe's avatar

Reading this poem, and others like Ginsberg’s, is like looking at an era that has regrettably passed away along with them. His poem is an ode to a time of vibrant liberalism and freedom in America.

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Peter Borkowicz's avatar

I love the rambling connection of these two, and what a way to meet… over that amazing Bateau Ivre.

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M. G. M.'s avatar

The days of strawberry wine, and paper roses, hippie beads, peace and love....s I g h💧

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Mary's avatar

Yes….all but the wine….🩷

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M. G. M.'s avatar

Booneshill also Watermelon Wine...you had to be there...

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Mary's avatar

Never was into sweet wine. I did drink too much rose in college (1969?) and couldn’t drink it again for 40 years….when they started making the tart roses 😆

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M. G. M.'s avatar

Sophistication was not a hippie byword. Anything that was consumable and was consumed.

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David's avatar

Read all of him and then went to city lights as a young man and met ferlinghetti - magic poet

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Peter Borkowicz's avatar

Pilgrimage to art, literature and music; we did it and it still drives me.

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C.L. Steiner's avatar

Allen was a brilliant fool.

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Mike Warwick's avatar

That gives me shivers. Thank you 💚

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Liv Morrison's avatar

I love the poem America

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David's avatar

Arguably his best poem

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J.S. Kasimir's avatar

Ginsberg, Kerouac, Norse, etc....That whole lot of beatniks were some of my favorite to read during high school. The way they spoke about one another was something else.

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Jo Wright's avatar

We need Ginsberg now! But 5000 years not yet up.

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Cameron Kidd's avatar

Time to dust off my beat collection.

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Miller Henry Grace's avatar

Important reading

Important enough,

Never to be forgotten!

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Dawn S. White's avatar

I only saw Ginsberg once ... it was 50+ years ago so, you know, I was a youngster. I lived in Miami and he was speaking at the Miami Marine Stadium, I was a reporter for the Miami News, but just wanted to hear him, I wasn't there to work. There was a long line, and I waited there to see if my name was on the list. It wasn't of course, so I listened as each person checked in to see the routine. When it was my turn, I saw another person's name on the list, read it upside down and claimed "that's me!" -- no ID was required -- and I was in. That was the day I got to hear the amazing Allen Ginsberg speak (and I hope the person whose name I stole claimed their identity and got in, but who knows!) Just the memory of that day, especially the powerful feeling of seeing and hearing him in person, felt like "I love and support you Allen!"

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