Title: Collected Poems: 1947-1997

Author: Allen Ginsberg

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 1196

Rating: 4/5

Given that these are Ginsberg’s Collected Poems, it makes the most sense for me to share some of my reviews of the individual poetry books in the collection, so here goes.

The Gates of Wrath: This book contains some of Ginsberg’s earlier poems, and I wasn’t particularly impressed. For me, whilst there was the odd spark of genius, it pales into insignificance next to his later work. Still worth reading it, though.

Howl and Other Poems: Most famous for the epic poem Howl, which launched Ginsberg’s career and caused an obscenity trial, this collection is also notable for greats like America, Sunflower Sutra and In Back of the Real.

Reality Sandwiches: If you’ve ever read Ginsberg before then you probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect. This is a pretty typical example of Ginsberg’s work and the majority of the work is from the late 50s, when Ginsberg was arguably at his best.

There were obviously a whole bunch of different poems and subject matters here, and some of them resonated more closely with me than the others. But as a general rule, it was good stuff that still holds up today.

Kaddish and Other Poems: In this stellar little collection of poetry spanning the years 1958-1960, you can tell that Ginsberg is tripping balls – in fact, it includes poems titled ‘Laughing Gas‘, ‘Mescaline‘ and ‘Lysergic Acid‘. The three poems that follow, completing the collection, were written “to record visions experienced after drinking Ayahuasca, an Amazon spiritual potion,” according to the author.

Howl and Other Poems is the best place to start with Ginsberg – read this next, and you’ll be a full convert.

Planet News: Perhaps I’m just getting old, but unfortunately Ginsberg just doesn’t really seem to do it for me anymore. I do think he has a bunch of great poems, but I also think that he has quite a lot of filler, and this collection felt like it had more filler than genius.

Still, I did think it was worth reading, and it’s perhaps notable because it contains the poem Television was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber, which I’ve seen referenced in a bunch of different places and which I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Ginsberg himself doing a reading of.

Would I recommend it? I mean, only if you’re an Allen Ginsberg fan and you’ve already read Howl and most of Ginsberg’s other stuff. It was ai’ght.

The Fall of America: The Fall of America is one of my favourite collections of Ginsberg’s work, despite the fact that it doesn’t contain his most famous or most celebrated poetry. It is, however, a longer collection than some of his others, spanning the years 1965 – 1971 and charting a period in history that I can’t help but be fascinated by.

Whether you’re reading September On Jessore Road, with its Dylan-esque refrain and anti-establishment vibes, or the heartwarming series of elegies for Neal Cassady, you’ll feel the raw power of Ginsberg’s words as they jump off the page and blaze a path across your mind, and you’re unlikely to forget the feelings that were roused even if you do forget the meaning.

The Neal Cassady poems are of historical importance themselves – Cassady, a fellow writer who inspired the character of Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, was the first of the great beat figures to die, coming to an early end after walking home alone beside a railroad track.

Mind Breaths: It seems like every collection of Ginsberg’s work has some pieces of stand-out poetry, and this one’s no different – Mind Breaths, the titular poem of the collection, is like an extension of Howl, and Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass is a triumphant celebration of the poet’s sexuality. Keep your eyes peeled, too, for Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox, a vicious indictment of the government and the wars that they carry out that was adapted by Rage Against the Machine.

Ginsberg’s work here is as sharp as ever, and it’s a pretty short collection – too short, in fact, for you not to read it.

Plutonian Ode: Plutonian Ode is one of Ginsberg’s more forgettable collections, but only in comparison to the stand-out work that he produced throughout the fifties – there are still some fantastic poems here, political pieces designed to make his readers think about the world around them.

These poems are no less relevant than they were when they were written, between the years of 1977 and 1980. If you’ve read and enjoyed some of Ginsberg’s other work then I highly recommend you buy not only this but the rest of Ginsberg’s pocket poets collection.

White Shroud: This late collection of Ginsberg’s is difficult to track down, and I think I know why. Because this came along so late in Ginsberg’s career, I suspect that after the initial print run, it mostly just got tacked onto the end of his collected poems after he died.

It’s a decent collection but too hard to get hold of to be of any real interest to anyone other than the seasoned Ginsberg reader. I’m glad I ticked it off, though.

Cosmopolitan Greetings: Cosmopolitan Greetings is pretty special because it’s some of the last work that the great poet Ginsberg ever wrote, written between 1986 and 1992 and published in 1994, three years before his death. Despite his old age, his work is as strong as ever, and much of it is still relevant today.

If you’re a musician or an artist, you’ll be particularly interested in some of Ginsberg’s visual work and some of his music – he wrote lyrics to go alongside music, like Bob Dylan in reverse. Cosmopolitan Greetings sees Ginsberg back in the form that he was in back in the 1950s.

So those are all of the reviews that I’d already written, and that leaves me with a couple hundred words left to finish up with. That should be just about all I need.

There are a few other sections with titles here that may or may not be based on existing collections. By the time that I picked this up, I’d already tracked down as much Ginsberg as I could, and so the collections that I was missing were the ones that are particularly rare and/or hard to track down.

That was fun for me because it meant I was able to go back to basics and read some of his earliest stuff, back when his poetry used to rhyme. Rhyming poetry isn’t really my thing, but it was interesting to see how Ginsberg handled it and there were also a few homages to other poets.

All in all, it’s one heck of a chunky monkey, and so unless you’re a huge Allen Ginsberg fan then I can’t imagine you wanting to pick it up. It’s a fantastic read for lovers of the beat generation, though, as well as an indispensable reference book, especially for those rarer poems that aren’t as easy to find online. There’s a reason why I whizzed through it so quickly.

Learn more about Collected Poems: 1947-1997.