Mike: Ginsberg .... looms large in my mind because of who he was to me in my twenties. He was Christ in Temple turning over the tables of moneychangers. You go, guy!
Know the feeling. You could add Kenneth Patchen and the rest of the Beats.That's why I referenced the Preface to Milan Kundera's _Life is Elsewhere_. He writes of the poet's transformation in the 20th century. Previously, Kundera notes, poets were symbols of national identity (Goethe, Pushkin) and the spokespersons of revolutions (Beranger, Mayakovsky, Lorca), but have now only a tiny voice.
In the book, Kundera questions the relationship between youth and the "lyric attitude," and also asks, What is the relationship between a longing for the absolute and revolutionary fervor?
My complaint is that teachers (usually high school teachers awakened in their youth by the Beats) taught the Beats as a strict canon, and thus helped silence the full range of poetry, turned it into slam poetry, some rap, and mostly silence, before the pop culture identity machine. Poets now write only for other poets, and Britney-types speak (albeit in garbled fashion) for the young.
Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html