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Republished with a new cover and a new introduction by David Amram, this publication includes forewords by two legendary Beat writers, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great collection by a great poet
Corso, the fourth Beat never as well-known as the holy trinity of Kerouac Ginsberg Burroughs, Poet's Poet, starving artist bum madman addict jerk & joker.

He wrote numerous undeniable classics, like Bomb, Marriage, I am 25, and Columbia U Poesy Reading--1975. Some of his lines are the definition of pure poetry. He earned his place at the table with the greats of the Beat Generation.

His style's less experimental than the other beats; he adhered more to traditional romantic poetry like his hero Shelley. Legend has it that he read the entire Oxford English Dictionary while he was in jail, and it shows in his lovely vocabulary. Without Corso, I never would have heard of words like talaria & autochthonic.

For most readers, this collection will be all the Corso you will ever need. Completists will want to buy his individual books, but with the exception of a gem here & there, you'll likely find that you're not missing much. One exception might be the long hand-written section of poems & drawings about ancient Egypt in "Elegiac Feelings American."

Definitely a must-have for any fan of the beats, and possibly for those looking for something less wild & experimental than the other beats.

Thoughts on Corso
If you like Ginsberg, you'll undoubtedly love Corso. If there is to be any collection that represents his art, this is it. I found out about Corso through a Professor at the old College I used to attend while I was writing some of my own work, and practicing with the art of poetry. For any writers and readers of poetry, if you want something out there, stretching the boundaries of form, if you wantbeat poetry at its heart, this is the book for you.

It Wins You Over
I was all prepared not to like this book...
but by the time I was 3/4 through...it won
me over.It's really very good...no wonder
Corso inspired his famous friends.

An American original
Mindfield is an expansive retrospective of poems by one Gregorio Anuzio Corso.This guy is one of the original Beats.He was part of the original seven of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, Huncke, Holmes, Cassidy and Corso. Corso wrote an excellent collection called Gasoline which is generouslyrepresented in this book.Thisvolume also includes poems from Corsosbooks for New Directions.Poems like Bomb and Marriage are Beat classics. Long Live Man should be retitled Long Live Corso!Corso never attained thelevel of noteriety of Ginsberg, Kerouac or Burroughs but there is work inthis collection that will really make you wonder why.Shorter poems likeItalian Extravaganza and I Am 25 really hit the spot. (amazingly Corso canstill pull off I Am 25 at readings even as he reaches the age of 70)Thisis American poetry by an American original.It would be great to see Corsogarner the recognizion that he has so long deserved.

A Prankster's dream
this book is an absolute dream for those of us who were not able to join Kesey and the Merry Pranskters first hand.And after reading Electric Koolaid it was nice to hear first hand what went on.I loved this book. ---young but still on the bus ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

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I'm not going to wax poetic about this book, but I enjoyed it. It had a bizarro aspect to it that I enjoyed. Mexicans sure were mentioned a lot. I guess Corso likes Mexicans.

...Wait, I think Corso is a Hispanic name. That might explain it.

fill 'er up!!!
Excellent poems.full of wit. I too at times take it with me.Great gasoline for the mind.

The best Beat book.
I bring this book with me when I travel. I keep it next to the bed at night. I have spare copies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

the first book of American poetry I ever fell in love with..
Corso in this book writes in a clear, concise language, a rabid indictmentof alot of America. He is written off as one of many: standing in the lineof poets behind Ginsberg and Kerouac BUT, at least technically, probablyeither equals or surpasses them.

This was the book that allowed me to seemid-twentieth century American poetry okay (in high school) when I wantedto write it off as a bunch of wasted filth. I've since come around to a lotmore of it.... ;)

Definatley read this book if you have the oppurtunity.Well worth your effort.....

Great Poetry...
This is a great book of poetry by a sadly neglected American poet. Corso is probably one of the greatest poets of the twentieth-century, and yet academics will dismiss him as a "Beatnik."

In this book, Corsosteers away from grandoise language and imagery, in favor of more"clear" language and ideas. But it is powerful in its compactnessindeed. Get this book, and find out for yourself. ... Read more

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Corso, Long Live Man. Poetry that jubilates over being a "(hu-)man, Alive, here in the moment". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Life, Death, Myth, Travel, Pain, Beauty
Corso's probably the most criminally underrated poet I can think of, especially considering how much today's teenagers hold the rest of the Beats(a label that made Corso a bit uncomfortable), Kerouac and Ginsberg especially, in awe.Oh well, genius is usually ignored or misunderstood.His style, ranging from the purest of aphorism to the wildest celebration of language's infinite flexibility(he even breaks it a few times!) is never forced; it only serves to inundate the reader with the power of one of the last Romantic souls.A study in contradictions--terse yet lyrical, death-obsessed yet wildly hopeful, grittily simple yet bathed in references-- Corso was a true unique.

Long Live Man is the book that, along with Happy Birthday of Death, ties for best claim to being the man's masterpiece.Written over a series of years of travel, from Greece to Tangiers to Paris to the rest of Europe to New York, this collection chronicles his emotional trials and triumphs from monument to monument, little town to little town, acquaintance to acquaintance.Throughout this time of physical uprooting, Corso is going through a great deal of emotional turmoil.The omnipresence of death and the sense that everything will come to naught press down upon him, but he fights back with that all-consuming love of life that even outdoes the "Carpe Diem" poems of the Roman Horace for sheer vivacity.He flings image after image, experience after experience after experience, at Death, God, Love, Despair, (hu)Man(ity), and ends up with a celebration of all that is worthwhile in life, set against the chilly background of impermanence and death.He binds all of that to his alternately aphoristic and linguistically wild style to make art that will last forever in the reader's mind.There are parts that I can't help but quote all the time when I want to say something profound.Truly, a wonder.Ps: there are a few lines in "Greece" that _will_, if I have any say in the matter, be my epitaph(page 25, the train of thought starting with "Life, I love you...").Why does NOBODY remember this guy?!

The triumph of mankind is...
the subject of this collection of poems.Gregory Corso, Beatnik poet extroardinaire, writes about the glory of being a (hu-)man, Alive, here, in the moment...These poems span a period of traveling for Corso, withsections about his journeys in Greece, Tangiers, and other parts of Europeas well as poems about New York.If you've never read anything by GregoryCorso, this is a good place to start. He creates phrases and passages thatstick in your mind at once;this book of poetry needs to be read, andre-read, then read again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

From a rainy afternoon...
I fell upon this book in my university library on a cold, miserable, lonely afternoon.I sat under a maple tree and reading it suddenly I am uplifted, inspired renewed and in love with the verse of Corso, so much so that I had to not only own it but write essays about it, I am, like so many others saddened and grieving that he is so understated."Marriage" is particularly delectable, though my favourites would have to be "Hair" and "Park".Corso gives what so many poets do not; a joyous and truly wonderous love of words, such that my own writer spirit is awakened.I recommend this book highly to any with a youthful, playful spirit.This is for the artist's heart.Corso has moved me, for you I hope he will do the same.

A Beat Poetry Classic
This was the first Beat book of poetry I ever read, in my teens, and I felt compelled to read more. So I moved on to Ginsberg, and others. There's a poem in this collection that I get a real kick out of and I absolutely love. It's called "Marriage." Very funny and amusing. These poems are really unconventional and highly imaginative in their use of language and free form.

David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"

The most underated writings of the 20th century
Perhaps the man who along with Allan Ginsberg altered the way poetry was written and percieved. This is by far his most eclectic collection, featuring the masterful BOMB (perhaps the ultimate epithath for the 20thcentury) and the brilliant and moving MARRIAGE, POWER, CLOWN and POLICE more of the contentsthat show what a clever witty deep commentator Corsois. Poems you can mull ove? Definatly! Poems you can analyse? Undoubtable!But here is a collection you can read again and again and enjoy again andagain.

Corso:simply brilliant
Gregory Corso must have been sitting in an empty room, with nothing more to think of than the emotions controlling his mind. In this book of poetry, the reader will gain a new appreciation for his work. The Happy Birthday ofDeath is one of the most powerful, and intense collections of writingavailable.

it was a great book
I recomend this book to everyone.it is funny,intellegent,and thrifting ... Read more

Product Description
Beat poet Corso's only novel. Inspired by his days inEurope, anxiously waiting for royalty checks and advancesthat were slow to appear, this freewheeling and farcical taleis the account of a birth in AmEx, and what came of it.With illustrations by the author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Still a great read
I first read this on publication in 1961. It's Corso"s only novel and is well worth your time. This is a nice new edition. The1st from France goes for over $100. Peter E Scott of Ridge Books

Reads like a Fairy tale
A real fun quick read. Corso wrote this in about a month while living in Paris and it is his only novel. Nothing life changing about it, but it's filled with comedy and satire to make for an entertaining read. ... Read more

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Fabulous letters from the vagabond Beat poet to his friends—among them Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

For all his charm and intelligence poet Gregory Corso lived a vagabond life. He never held down a regular job. He rarely stayed very long under the same roof. He spent long stretches—some as long as four or five years—abroad. Many of his letters came from Europe—France, England, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Greece—as he kept in touch with his circle of friends—among them his best friend Allen Ginsberg and a steady supporter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He left (or was left by) a number of girlfriends and he fathered five children along the way. He was apt to raise a bit of a ruckus at poetry readings and other public events. No one could be sure what he might do next except that he would write poetry and get it published and that it would be widely read.

When the idea of a book of selected letters was first proposed, Gregory had some reservations about it. Would the book reveal too much of his private life? But then with typical hubris he said the equivalent of "let it all hang out" and "all" does hang out in An Accidental Autobiography. The book is indeed the next thing to an unplanned self-portrait and gives a lively sense of the life Gregory Corso led, marching to his own drummer and leaving in his wake such marvelous books of Beat poetry as The Happy Birthday of Death, Elegiac Feelings American, Long Live Man, and Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit.

Bill Morgan, who is extremely conversant with the Beats, has done an admirable job collecting letters from libraries and various individuals across the country and then selecting and organizing them in a progression that spans Corso's lifetime. In addition to Morgan's introduction and commentary, the book includes a special foreword by poet and rock star Patti Smith as well as a number of photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent
This book fills in great holes in Corso's biography.Not only do we get an account of major periods of his adulthood, but for the first time his childhood is explored.The letter to his father is especially revealing.A major biography still needs to be done of this poet, among America's most important poets, and almost certainly the most important surrealist poet America has produced.It is especially interesting to see earlier drafts of now famous poems.The drafts are not nearly as good as the finished works, which to my mind proves that Corso was a conscious artist, and not the naif that he is often portrayed.Corso said the most important part of writing a poem was the editing.This voluminous group of letters probably gives first drafts of something like eighty poems.They are nowhere close to the hard sharp brilliance of the finished works.This book is indispensable to anyone who likes Corso's poems.It offers a very revealing insight into the biographical background.I am still hoping an excellent biography will come forth, and especially one that deals with the Catholic church, and Corso's foster families.Sadly, many of the people that Corso knew are dying off, so this project looks more and more remote with each passing year. ... Read more

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Gregory Corso is the most intensely spiritual of the Beat generation poets and still by far the least explored. The virtue of Kirby Olson's Gregory Corso: Doubting Thomist is that it is the first book to place all of Corso's work in a philosophical perspective, concentrating on Corso as a poet torn between a static Catholic Thomist viewpoint and that of a progressive surrealist. While Corso is a subject of great controversy - his work often being seen as nihilistic and wildly comic - Olson argues that Corso's poetry, in fact, maintains an insistent theme of doubt and faith with regard to his early Catholicism. Although many critics have attempted to read his poetry, and some have done so brilliantly, Olson - in his approach and focus - is the first to attempt to give a holistic understanding of the oeuvre as essentially one not of entertainment or hilarity but of a deep spiritual and philosophical quest by an important and profound mind. In nine chapters, Olson addresses Corso from a broad philosophical perspective and shows how Corso takes on particular philosophical issues and contributes to new understandings.Corso's concerns, like his influence, extend beyond the Beat generation as he speaks about concerns that have troubled thinkers from the beginning of the Western tradition, and his answers offer provocative new openings for thought. Corso may very well be the most important Catholic poet in the American literary canon, a visionary like Burroughs and Ginsberg, whose work illuminated a generation. Written in a lively and engaging style, Gregory Corso: Doubting Thomist seeks to keep Corso's memory alive and at last delve fully into Corso's poetry. ... Read more

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The Only Beat
I take my hat off to Kirby Olson.He is the only critic in the entire USA who understands Corso and gives him the reverence that is his due.

Read Olson.Read Corso. God speed. ... Read more

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Corso,Herald of Autoc. Spirit. Poetry heralding "the ivory applecart of tyrannical values" ... Read more

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Visionary, evocative yet slightly self-absorbed
Gregory Corso is one of the lesser known original Beat poets.His poetry commands just as much attention as his more popular peers Ginsberg and Kerouac.This collection is from the mid-70's and the pieces are, granted, emotive, visionary, acutely real but also obscure like only a Beat could be.Corso does have a clever lyrical gift and the ability to inspire despite his elitist tendencies.Personally, i suggest it as an afternoon read. ... Read more

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Entrant for the Pulitzer Prize in Letters, 2009, Best New American Poet, 2007: Pastore owes all he has, and has ever had, to a saving engagement with his art. What I particularly admire is the gamble he takes, and wins, with those classic stylized poems. In less accomplished hands they might have been distractingly archaic, but here, defused by the beautifully plain and heartfelt thanks for everything into which they flow, they connect back to the great tradition from which Pastore has drawn strength not just artistically but personally, one feels throughout one of the more impressively and, I might say, spectacularly, composed first poetry collections in contemporary American poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Don't judge this book by its cover.
I have a very serious bone to pick with this book's packaging, which I found deceitful and unethical. Publishers take note: package your products honestly, or you'll risk souring readers and reviewers' judgments as much as mine was soured here.

Let me backtrack a bit. I approached Brink of the World with much enthusiasm, noting it had been published by Harvard Press; the copy I received bore a silver sunburst sticker naming Stephen R. Pastore Poetry Review's Best New American Poet of 2007. Harvard and Poetry Review--how could I go wrong? Or so I thought, till an older, warier friend pointed out a teeny-weeny distinction between Harvard Press and Harvard University Press, the former apparently not our kind, dear, in the Ivy League.

Anyway, my skepticism gene had now kicked in. I tried in vain to find the Poetry Review award online, frustrated by there being so many revues (the most famous published by the Poetry Society in England) with very similar names. So, I thought to myself, someone who won a major poetry prize for 2007 has to appear in Wikipedia. Sure enough, there was a "Stephen R. Pastore" entry (now deleted by Wikipedia)--transparently penned by Pastore himself or a droolingly doe-eyed fan. Wikipedia's editors, who drool instead over verifiability--and who, like me, lost the slim needle of Pastore's prize in the haystack of impressively named journals--eventually purged the Poetry Review claim from the article.

The editorial reviews on Brink of the World's back cover are also revealing--of connoisseur taste in prestigious names and minimalist concern for ethics. If the distinguished Poetry Review really gave Pastore this exalted praise (like his award), their Web site seems very coy about acknowledging his existence. The much-lamented Saturday Review (not to be confused with the one now, suspiciously, on the Web) had no chance to be coy, having folded its tent in 1986. Not being a lawyer, I don't know if the legal "f-word" applies here, but ethically I feel victim of an "f-word" Amazon guidelines won't let me use.

But I digress from the book--which is exactly my point. Had Pastore refrained from his "name game" with literary awards, revues, and presses (Harvard Press is clearly a vanity house, "not that there's anything wrong with it"), and had his publisher checked his bona fides before pasting stickers, this review would be mainly about the book, which isn't all that bad. And one would be less inclined to doubt that the book's intro was written by Beat poetry legend Gregory Corso, or that Corso really was Pastore's cousin. (For me, the jury's out, but Wikipedia's pretty skeptical.) As for Pastore, I'm a fan of older, less prosy poetry, but I find his work competent modern verse, and generally better than the Beats (of whom I'm no great fan). Definitely not Pulitzer Prize (or even Best New Poet of 2007) stuff, but good enough to have earned another star or two--had I not felt "conned" by the ethically challenged packaging. Honest reviewers should withhold stars to punish deceitful hype. We hate watching innocent readers buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
... Read more

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Facsimile edition published by City Lights. ... Read more