I first heard Allen Ginsberg read at Johns Hopkins when I was a grad student there. At the time, I was writing a paper on Whitman and didn’t understand how he was using the word “electricity,” so I figured if I got the chance, I’d ask Mr. Ginsberg. In those days, our teachers didn’t think much of us underlings, but as they tried to hustle him into the car that would take him to a professors-only reception, he looked up and saw a fresh-faced lad and waved me over. I said, “What’s the deal with electricity in Whitman, Mr. Ginsberg?” and he said, “It’s a way for one poet to pass the spark to another. I slept with Neal Cassady who slept with Gavin Arthur who slept with Edmund Carpenter who slept with Whitman, so it’s a line of transmission.” He smiled in a way that made me think that I could be part of that line if I wanted to, and maybe I should have taken him up on the offer – I might have upped my voltage a bit. But I had a paper to write.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 11:51:23 +0000
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