poetry week pt 1: curiously poetic (beat generation).

Good. Now here's what poetry can do.

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.

There's an awful shrug and, suddenly

You're beautiful for as long as you live

                                           -Stephen Dunn              

si pudiera escoger como quisiera que fuera mi vida para siempre, seríamos tú y yo en una casa del árbol leyendo poesía y tomando vodka, durmiendo en hamacas, tomando turnos para ir por provisiones, en bicicleta. para siempre.

pero para eso tengo que hacer que te guste la poesía. así que toda esta semana voy a estar escribiendo para ti sobre mis poetas/poemas favoritos.

primero hay que alejarnos del concepto de 'las rosas son rojas, las violetas azules' porque NO. no toda la poesía es de amor, y si lo es, nunca es tratado de la misma manera. ah, y además no tiene que rimar.

para empezar, puedes leer una poesía sobre poesía. es con el que empecé este post, es de stephen dunn y es especialmente para ti porque se llama 'Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry'. esta es otra parte que me gusta mucho:

I don't know what music this poem can come up

with but clearly, it is needed. For it's apparent they will never see each other again and

we need music for this because there was never music when he or she

left you standing in the corner. You see, I want this poem to be nicer than life.

I want you to look at it when anxiety zigzags your stomach and the last tranquilizer is gone

and you need someone to tell you

I'll be here when you want me like the sound inside of a shell

puedes leerlo completo aquí: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Stephen-Dunn/5526

bueno, voy a hacer esto en varias partes porque sé que no tienes mucha concentración y te distraes muy fácil. tampoco quiero que te aburras, otro de tus talentos. así que en la primera parte me voy a concentrar específicamente en mi movimiento literario favorito, la beat generation. (stephen dunn NO es de este movimiento). la mayoría de las historias personales de estos escritores son tan interesantes como sus obras.

ahora, el primer poeta y probablemente mi favorito pues fué el que me hizo empezar con esto es allen ginsberg. su uso del lenguaje es impresionante y a veces me hace sentir un extraño high. es obvio y necesario empezar con su obra más famosa, howl.

howl es sobre todo, sobre locura, drogas, perdición, nueva york, sexo, éxtasis, arte, la vida, la muerte, sobre ti, sobre mi. es el poema más importante del siglo 20 y es impresionante. estos son fragmentos, porque es muy largo:

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz

...

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railway yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,

who studied Plotinus Poe St John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the universe instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,

who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy

...

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman's loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness

....

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried

...

II

...

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstacies! gone down the American river!

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

III

...

I'm with you in Rockland

where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won't let us sleep

I'm with you in Rockland

where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we're free.

...

verdad?

aquí está completo: http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm

también el pie de página de howl es perfecto:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy!
The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nosse is holy!
The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy!
everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!

...

Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana       hipsters peace
& junk & drums!  Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements!
Holy       the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the       mysterious
rivers of tears under the streets!
(http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3744/)
después de howl, mi favorito de ginsberg tiene que ser 'After Lalon'. este es mi fragmento favorito:

III
If I had a soul I sold it
for pretty words
If I had a body I used  it up
spurting my essence
If I had a mind it got
covered with Love-
If I had a spirit I forgot
when i was breathing
If I had a speech it was
all a boast
If I had desire it went
out my anus
If i had ambition to        be liberated
How'd I get into this
wrinkled person?
With pretty words, Love essences,
breathing boasts, anal
longings, famous crimes? 
What a mess I am, Allen Ginsberg
     
ya que estamos en la beat generation debo mencionar a jack kerouac, el exponente más famoso. incluso él le dio el nombre y sentó las bases para el movimiento. on the road es su obra mas  famosa pero es novela. 
varios de estos autores se sentían identificados con el budismo, el cual es un tema recurrente en la obra de kerouac, por ejemplo 'how to meditate'

-lights out-
fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
i hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance-Healing
all my sicknesses-erasing all-not
even the shred of a "I-hope-you" or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought
comes a-springing from afar with its held-
forth figure of image, you spoof it out,
you spuff it off, you fake it, and
it fades, and thought never comes-and
with joy you realize for the first time
"thinking's just like not thinking-
So I don't have to think
     any    
       more"
uno de sus libros de poesía 'Mexico City Blues' lo escribió imaginándose a él mismo como un saxofonista de blues. fragmento de '239th chorus': 
 

Charlie Parker looked like Buddha
Charlie Parker, who recently died...
"Wail, Wop" Charlie burst
His lungs to reach the speed
Of what the speedsters wanted
And what they wanted
Was his eternal Slowdown

no quiero extenderme tanto con la beat pero bueno,  gregory corso. cuando tenía 17 lo metieron a la carcel por 3 años donde pasó la mayor parte del tiempo leyendo y se enamoró de la literatura. y cuando salió conoció precisamente a kerouac y ginsberg quienes lo empujaron hacia la poesía.
For Homer (fragmento)

and there is no tomorrow
theres only right here and now
you and whomever you're with
alive as always
and ever ignorant of that death you'll never know
and all's well that is done
a hellene happiness pervades the peace
and the gift keeps on coming...

ese de verdad me hizo temblar la primera vez que lo leí, pocas veces me he sentido así. deberías leerlo completo creo que te va a gustar mucho.
http://www.myspace.com/lindseyelizabethfu/blog/185048788
este también me gusta mucho:

Zizi's Lament
I am in love with the laughing sickness
it would do me a lot of good if I had it --
I have worn the splendid gowns of Sudan,
carried the magnificent halivas of Boudodin Bros.
kissed the singing Fatimas of the pimp of Aden,
wrote glorious psalms in Hakhaliba's cafe,
but I've never had the laughing sickness,
so what good am I?
The fat merchant offers me opium, kief,
hashish, even
camel juice,
all is unsatisfactory --
O bitter damned night! you again! must I yet
pluck out my unreal teeth
undress my unlaughable self
put to sleep this melancholy head?
I am nothing without the laughing sickness.
My father's got it, my grandfather had it;
surely my Uncle Fez will get it, but me, me
who it would do the most good,
will I ever get it?
otro, otro!

The Whole Mess ... Almost 

I ran up six flights of stairs 
to my small furnished room 
opened the window 
and began throwing out 
those things most important in life 

First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink: 
"Don't! I'll tell awful things about you!" 
"Oh yeah? Well, I've nothing to hide ... OUT!" 
Then went God, glowering & whimpering in amazement: 
"It's not my fault! I'm not the cause of it all!" "OUT!" 
Then Love, cooing bribes: "You'll never know impotency! 
All the girls on Vogue covers, all yours!" 
I pushed her fat ass out and screamed: 
"You always end up a bummer!" 
I picked up Faith Hope Charity 
all three clinging together: 
"Without us you'll surely die!" 
"With you I'm going nuts! Goodbye!" 

Then Beauty ... ah, Beauty -- 
As I led her to the window 
I told her: "You I loved best in life 
... but you're a killer; Beauty kills!" 
Not really meaning to drop her 
I immediately ran downstairs 
getting there just in time to catch her 
"You saved me!" she cried 
I put her down and told her: "Move on." 

Went back up those six flights 
went to the money 
there was no money to throw out. 
The only thing left in the room was Death 
hiding beneath the kitchen sink: 
"I'm not real!" It cried 
"I'm just a rumor spread by life ..." 
Laughing I threw it out, kitchen sink and all 
and suddenly realized Humor 
was all that was left -- 
All I could do with Humor was to say: 
"Out the window with the window!"
el último poeta del que voy a hablar hoy es William Carlos Williams, hay tantos más que nunca acabaría y bueno, te puedo prestar mi copia de 'the beat book' cuando quieras. además puedo verte poniendo los ojos en blanco, con desesperación como cuando empiezo a dar rodeos, o sea, siempre.
ANYWAY, williams es bastante sencillo. tiene temas muy mundanos como en 'this is just to say':

I have 
eaten the plums
that were in the icebox

and wich
you were probably
saving for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet and so cold
me gusta mucho hacer variaciones de este poema cuando en algunas desafortunadamente no sobrias noches me como las sobras del pay de elote que hace mi roomie (lo siento edgar, pero es que te queda delicioso).
y bueno solo para contradecirme, estos son el primero y el último verso de 'A Love Song'
What have I to say to you  
When we shall meet?  
Yet— I lie here thinking of you.  
.....
How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?