Collected Poems 1947-1980

Author's Preface, Reader's Manual"Arrangement of Text"Herein author has assembled all his poetry books published to date rearranged in straight chronological order to compose an autobiography. "Collected Poems" includes seven volumes published in City Lights Pocket Poets series: "Howl, Kaddish, Reality Sandwiches, Planet News, The Fall of America, Mind Breaths," and "Plutonian Ode," backbone of three decades' writing. Books circulated less widely by delicate small presses (excepting song experiments in "First Blues") fill gaps in the sequence. Youthful poetries were printed in "Empty Mirror" and "The Gates of Wrath." Three odd books, "Angkor Wat, Iron Horse" and "Airplane Dreams," interleaf poems of the 1960s. "Poems All Over the Place" flash on spots of time from President Kennedy's assassination day, through 1972 Presidentiad, to author's meditation practice in his fiftieth year. Among half-dozen poems taken from prose journal and letter books, one singular rhapsody, "The Names," falls into place, with motifs from "Howl" particularized in 1958. "Many Loves" manuscript, detailing first erotic encounter with a lifelong friend, not printed till now for reasons of prudence and modesty, completes a sequence of writing that included "Sunflower Sutra" and "America," Berkeley 1956. "Advantages of Chronological Order""The Gates of Wrath"'s imperfect literary rhymes are interspersed with "Empty Mirror"'s raw-sketch practice poems. Disparate simultaneous early styles juxtaposed aid recognition of a grounded mode of writing encouraged by Dr. Williams, "No ideas but in things." "A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley" precedes "A Supermarket in California" because it wascomposed on top of the same page, originally one poem in two parts, here rejoined. Travel poems Calcutta-Saigon-Angkor Wat-Japan, 1963, mixed through three separate books, now cohere in sequence. Cross-country Auto Poesy chroGinsberg, Allen is the author of 'Collected Poems 1947-1980' with ISBN 9780809591329 and ISBN 0809591324.