Collected Poems 1947-1980

"But for the public performances, but for the merry pranks, but for his transformation into near-bald but tanned and wise survivor, would anyone still listen to, let alone read, Mr Ginsberg? Doubters, of whom there were always many, would say, 'No.' So it is good to have the 'Collected Poems'....Like it or not, no voice better echoes his times than Mr Ginsberg's. He was a bridge between the literary avant-garde and pop culture. Like television and advertising, his language is full of slogans and syntactically unbuttoned. He is funny and volatile in his emotions, unashamedly (religiously?) frank about the demands of the body and its disappointments, scavenging in his literary references, fast and pre-packed in his judgments. Though maddeningly interested in his most banal reactions...he is at least open about his self-fascination. In a 'me-too,' instant playback world where every voice counts, why not write as it all is, here and now, for him?"Ginsberg, Allen is the author of 'Collected Poems 1947-1980', published 1988 under ISBN 9780060914943 and ISBN 0060914947.