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An Interview by poet, Ed Smith, 1974 GARDEN STATE: A Poem by Allen Ginsberg  ALLEN GINSBERG was born June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey. He was the son of Paterson poet and English teacher, Louis Ginsberg, and Naomi Levy. He would later dedicate a poem entitled Kaddish (1961) to his mother, and it would become one of the most widely read and appreciated poems of theAmerican century. Helen Vendler considered this poem "a great elegy for his mother" while Louis Simpson called it a "masterpiece." After Ginsberg left Paterson for Columbia University to study law. He planned, at first, to be a labor lawyer. His stay there was interrupted by serving in the merchant marines during World War II. Later, he returned to Columbia to receive his AB in 1948. As a college student he met future novelists, poets and short story writers such as Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neal Cassidy, Ed White --today a prominent architect--Herbert Huncke, and Gregory Corso. Many of his friends were not Ivy League types. They were outsiders, Bohemian poets, prostitutes, writers, guitar players, jazz piano players, junkies, and dancers. Ginsberg formed a "marriage" with Peter Orlovsky (his mate for most of his adult life,) smoked marijuana, took LSD with Dr. Timothy Leary. He later wrote Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics and Consciousness, 1975, about what was happening. Howl and Other Poems was published in 1956, with an introduction by Rutherford's William Carlos Williams. Upon it's publication, Ginsberg had to face an obscenity trial for graphic sexual language. Judge Clayton Horn ruled the poem was not obscene, and it became a manifesto for the Beat Generation and future generations of American poets. "When I first heard him, I thought it was plain speech, " Allen Ginsberg remarked on William Carlos Williams. "I asked him, do you see your self as a doctor or poet? He said doctor." Then, "I saw him read in New York City" and that changed Ginsberg's style of rhyming poetry into free verse in the tradition of New Jersey's own Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams. (See The Gates of Wrath, 1973. ) Allen Ginsberg's poem "Plutonium Ode" was a brilliant poem for the anti-nuclear movement and rally of 1982. I participated by walking and holding the Poetry Project Banner of St. Mark's Church with 1 million plus peaceful New Yorkers marching from the Lower East Side to Central Park where the huge rally was held. And dig this: no one was arrested! I think one child was born during the rally. I have the French worded anti-nuclear banner hanging in my cellar-- given to me by Bob Holman after the march-- to remind me how close humanity came to being annihilated by nuclear bombs. The sad part is they are still around, and a new and even more dangerous star wars scenerio is in the making in Washington, D.C. in 2001, a plan which will put plutonium reactors in outer space. Allen tried to warn against this project in his last poems and letter to the president before he died. We poets and teachers need to writeour Congressmen/woman everyday to day that libraries and education deserve the money that will be wasted on this new and even more heinous generation of nuclear weapons. Allen would be rallying us against Bush's Star Wars if he were still around. He was always marching and donating his time to good causes. Allen Ginsberg was co-winner of National Book Award with Adrienne Rich for The Fall of America in 1973. Many of us were still in college and we were not going to Vietnam no matter what. I think my friend Rich Markert said it best "let's go to Canada," I was thinking perhaps Italy (since my Grandmother could call up my aunts and I could find refuge there). We were determined not to fight or die in that useless, illegal war. 
LOOKING BACK AT 1974 and VIETNAM When I interviewed Allen and Louis Ginsberg in February 20, 1974, at William Paterson College, Wayne, NJ. I was 21 years old. A $2 ticket got you in to see two of the world's most poets, a prominent teacher/father/poet and son/poet reading at Shea Auditorium. Louis Ginsberg was known as a "lyric poet" in the 1920s and anthologized in Louis Untermeyer's American Poetry Since 1900. After all, I was a bit nervous back in 1974 and I'd never interviewed a poet before, never mind the famous Allen Ginsberg. Here I was a political science major, a junior, at William Paterson College, Wayne, NJ, Ratzer Road "up the hill" from what Allen and Louis Ginsberg called home, Paterson, from the early 1940s. My first early memories of Paterson, New Jersey occurred when my Mom and Dad took me to farmers market on Getty Avenue. Here the vegetables were a little cheaper because you bought in bulk. Today, 2001, Corrados' Store/Warehouse stands in its place and currently does a booming commercial business. They pretty much do the same volume business selling expresso coffee, provolone cheese, fish, chicken, red peppers, sausages, pineapples, carrots, fresh Italian and Syrian breads made from ovens in Garfield and Lodi. Allen asked one of my college advisers for a cup of tea, lemon and honey for his throat. I was tongue- tied. I just sat there. Then John A. Bryne, the editor of my college newspaper, who now works as a Senior Writer for Business Week gave me a tape recorder. I had pen and pad in hand ready to go. Paul Manuel was the photographer that evening. He was also a member of the college newspaper the State Beacon. The last time I saw Paul was in 1986 at a Beacon reunion party. The following interview took place at William Paterson College, Wednesday, February 20, 1974. The original interview was recorded on tape and was edited for the State Beacon for which I wrote. Here it is, reproduced in it's youthful entirety from the original tape recording of that evening. ED: [Starts tape recorder.] That was John Byrne editor, buddy Allen: The last time we were here was for the Mortorium on the War. Ed: Was that in 1971? Allen: Yeah '71. Louis: This is the third time we are here. ED: At Tombrock College [West Paterson, NJ,1973] that was your brother [Eugene Brooks, Montclair State college poet of the year 1941] reading with the two of you. Louis & Allen: That's right! Ed: You had a broken leg? Allen: Yes. Louis: I had the sciatica and I had to sit down. Allen: He has had a rough year. First requiring an operation. Louis: Yeah. Allen: He had an operation, a stroke, rheumatism, this is like a resurrection. Ed: But you feel 16 right? As my grandfather would say. Louis: 78, I don't believe it! In fact, I have been teaching, in Rutgers University College, English poetry, American and British poetry, too. I took a leave of absence, sick leave, a month ago. I enjoyed teaching for 40 years at Central High. And I think at Rutgers for24 years! Ed: Allen, do you enjoy doing your Indian chants as I remember from last year [ Tombrock College]? Allen: Yeah. I had been there [India] in '61 again '71. What I've been doing is starting my readings with some sort of chant-some sort of Buddhist chant. Ed: In The Fall of America you had a preface to Walt Whitman. Could you elaborate on that? Allen: A little piece of Whitman, yes, what Whitman was saying --what I put in there a little statement of comradeship--friendship-- would be the basis of American democracy ....might succeed. But, if then, all people hated each other and were competing--- like under Capitalism--where it was competitive. Fighting dog-eat-dog, then democracy would not survive ----society would get too materialistic like a giant Watergatish paranoia rather than friendliness. So, the reason I put Whitman in there at the beginning for a book called the Fall of America [National Book Award 1974] was to show how far America had come in departing from the vision or practical sense of the Founding Fathers [of America]. ED: I noticed that book was published by City Lights of San Francisco, the same small press run by Lawrence Ferlinghetti which published your work early on. I heard you like to contribute to small presses. Allen: Yeah. It's safer. Because, if you put something into a real small magazine, then everybody knows it personal rather than canned. ED: McGraw-Hill released Kerouac's Visions of Cody. Allen: Yes, they are publishing a series of lectures [Allen Verbatim, edited by Gordon Ball, McGraw-Hill,1974] of mine. So, with poetry, I stay with City Lights publishing. Ferlinghetti is one of the characters in Dharma Bums. Ed: Beat Generation. Do you think it still exists and will there be another San Francisco Renaissance or what? Like at college a lot of professors will say read On the Road, but they won't go into the rest of Jack Kerouac or the rest of Allen Ginsberg or the rest of Ferlinghetti. [read] just one book and that's it. Allen: Well, William Burroughs did some things- Ed: Naked Lunch. ALLEN: And Gregory Corso and Gary Synder. So, all those writers connected with the Beat Generation are still all producing. And, are better known now then they were known before [1956]. No one published in the 1940s, the 1950s. By the '60s everyone was growing, by '70s everyone is alive except Kerouac. So the literary aspect of it is perfect-- still growing. ED: Do you think there will be another recurrence like that--in some other city-- not just San Francisco or Colorado, for that matter? ALLEN: Well, in the [United States] Senate Watergate hearings there is the climax of it. [laughs a bit] Because our whole point of view in the Beat Generation was to say that; [pauses] the official version of reality that the government was laying down in regard to dope, in regard to the War, and regard to censorship was fraud. A fraud. So since those days. We have seen the disgrace of the [Vietnam] War. We have seen the disgrace of the people in the government... and lying critically, and we seen the breakdown of censorship that used to take place. ED: You yourself were involved in a censorship trial...for "Howl." ALLEN: Yeah, so in that sense, what was conceived of, as main ideas on the Beat Generation are now more widespread. ED: ...so people are thinking about marijuana, the penalties reduced... ALLEN: --- they got sex flicks in Paterson. How many students smoke grass? ED: I would say 50%. ALLEN: So it is understood....[pause] the most important thing is that some spiritual move towards exploring inner space. So that's much more important. ED: Can you explain about LSD, was it Jerry Rubin? Correct me if I am wrong. ALLEN: Oh, we had a lot of acid, too. ED: Was that the same thing mysticism [in] India, was it all tied in? ALLEN: No. It was not. It was more discovery of self. The fraud in America, ah, the subjective reality, ah, slow motion, microscopic consciousness acid. But, nowadays the police poisoned all the acid. Syndicated crime now controls the supply of acid. Leary is now, in jail, so I would not advise anyone to take the street acid peddled by the police and syndicted criminals. ED: ---grass is more, how would I say it "accepted" than acid. [official government] Reports say this and that, for yourself do you think, for enlightenment. Did it help you? ALLEN: Oh yeah. A sense of use. Not to abuse it. Pure acid's good. ED: How about marihuana? ALLEN: Oh, yeah. ED: Louis, how do you feel about marijuana? LOUIS: I feel that the penalty for marijuana use should be reduced to a misdemeanor. There's some evidence....it might be harmful. [pause] Doctors and reserachers are saying so. Aside from that, I would not advise young people to smoke openly because they get arrested-- you know-- the hassles with the police. There's trouble there. Well, I tell you, Allen is a guru. ALLEN: I am not a guru. I'm a seeker! LOUIS: Well the people look up to him as if her were a guru or whatever poets are interested in him do. And I feel the implication to smoke is dangerous. I wouldn't want them to violate the law. Even though, the law lately is more lenient. That's my opinion. ALLEN: I think it's safer to smoke [marihuana] than drink alcohol. LOUIS: I understand there is quiet a problem with alcohol. ED: So, you both agree, you would like to see more research done. LOUIS: I would say that. ALLEN: On grass the research has been done, more the merrier. LOUIS: Still the doctors ccame out saying there is some damage from smoking marijuana. ALLEN: They come out with that every 5 years. Then they retract it. Last one was 2 weeks ago. LOUIS: So they take marijuana and kill themselves, so the parents everybody, every parent beware, you know. I tell you, I would say that if the average person was solid mentally [he] could handle it. Some people are not [wrapped tight] loose their bearings, they come apart with marijuana; people have not found themselves. But, for other people, you know who want to experiment [they are] sure of their reputation. I don't [think] it is so harmful. I would preach it you know from the pulpit. ALLEN: We both recommend mediation of some sort or another would bemore useful. LOUIS: Yeah, I would say that, mediation is good. ALLEN: I sit an hour a day. I got up to 10 hours a days. That's like the best medicine. LOUIS: ---that is good too. I may sit but I don't do transcendental mediation, you know. You could sit and think about things explore your mind structure, what you wanted. Your frame of reference, all those things are important--- ALLEN: --- the kind of mediation I would recommend is not transendental, with a small "t" Not thinking, no mind, involved in a dissolution of thought form but paying attention to the breath. So you are aware of everything, fantasizing, daydreaming. Or, sleepiness, return to your breath with your mouth closed. Dissolving the space in front of you and bringing you back to the space around you: the actual space. The place where you are from the daydreaming thought form. It might take you to Egypt or California. ED: How do you feel about your poetry and politics. Can we go over this a bit? Do you feel your poetry can [change] laws? PAUL MANUEL: How do feel about the environment? A distraction--" ALLEN: --NO, the environemental movement was a great thing--but, is now being crushed by the power heads, energy heads, and the government. So the entire environment blueprint is Earth Day '71 has now been confounded by.... The gas shortage hysteria everybody is apparently addicted to gasoline. So that they rush through the Alaska pipeline. [It] was a big disaster and they are going on with strip mining, a big disaster. They go on with ocean dumping-- it says in the Star-Ledger by Gordon Bishop is good [journalism.]. Rather than exploring decentralized dumping, solar heat, wind energy. So the whole environmental movement has been snowed under by the government. PAUL: What is going to be the end? Are you pessimistic it will go to the end? ALLEN: The last book I wrote was called The Fall of America. Well, the end? --there are all ready a great many species that have disappeared, places are destroyed--- And already the noise level, smog, levels in our cities are beyond being reasonably safe. So we have already gone over the edge. ED: Like, some rivers are burning already. ALLEN: All the rivers around here are poisoned. ED: The Passaic River, the Raritan- ALLEN:--so no more fish. The Passaic River, is more or less polluted. The Continental shelves are poisoned so less fish. Polluted. Actually, a big situation just outside for the series in The Star-Ledger ecological exam of information that said that 80% of all ocean dumping off the continental shelf was done off Sandy Hook, here. Right off Jersey so this is the biggest shit pile in America, like 20 miles from here. ED: Louis, how do you feel about that? LOUIS: Well, the fault of everything is everything. ALLEN: Everybody is at fault there. LOUIS: Too many people and the government is inept. Ah, the--- ALLEN: the control of the oil companies--- LOUIS: --the oil barons you know, the complacency of the oil barons, so they didn't care. They got the concession from the government they are in cahoots with them and things are bad. But, I am more of an optimistic than Allen. I feel in a democracy so many forces gentle each other. The people will wake up and protest. They toppled [President] Johnson South Vietnam. So they [will] topple Nixon, and there will be a regeneration because the democracy is special in America. Democracy is so strong that we can put all our errors sins right in front the window you know. ED: Like the Vietnam War? LOUIS: Yeah, it's part of the democracy so when it is very sick, it will recover. So when things are bad, I am not entirely pessimistic as Allen. As an older man I should be pessimistic, but I feel that suddenly things will change, and we don't know what forces are around the corner that will comply it. So, I am confident it will turnaround. ALLEN: I don't see it as a turnaround. Well the environment situation is worse. ED: The new environmental department [EPA]--? ALLEN: The environment situation's worse.... Now, they say since people discovered there was an environment situation. Since, Earth Day-- ED: 1971, or so. ALLEN: Well, people talked about it 20 years before the environmental situation got worse. The War is not stopped at all [Feb. 1974]. American bodies are not there, but there were 800,000 refugees since our last poetry reading in Paterson, New Jersey, and 60,000 more deaths since our last reading in Paterson, New Jersey. So, the scale of the War is big as it has ever been if not larger. The South Vietnamese have the 3rd largest air force in the World. So specific things have not ended, and there is now a reinstitution of censorship and-- ED: You mean like "Deep Throat?" ALLEN: They are Supreme Court decisions- ED: So each community decides what is pornography? ALLEN: And that has lead to the cancellations of good movies like Burroughs Naked Lunch. ED: Were they going to make a movie of On the Road? ALLEN: NO, NO.. The other thing is the military is stronger than ever before. The military budget is up to 100 billion. [Allen leaves to go to the restroom.] ED: I was going to ask you about your poetry. LOUIS: Well I'll tell ya, see: Allen despite his denial, is not political. He really is, but I am more philosophical by nature, and I brood more on the meaning of life, the awareness of the individual. I concentrate on a higher level--a greater awareness inside of life, of all the senses. So, I have written poems, about war, as a matter of fact, I have a poem I wrote about the Spanish Civil War many years ago--- ED:That was a big conflict in your day? LOUIS: Of course, you see I am of an older generation. I was not involved so much with what Allen is involved with. But, they say I'm more of philosophical [poet] than he is in some of my work. ED: Your poems tend to be written in a more lyrical style. LOUIS: I write short lyrical poems that saturate a philosophical idea or some viewpoint. Allen writes long poems a la Whitman which are very good. And, they have different impulses and so on. I was brought up in a different milieu and so was Allen, too. A different environment. And, we both share certain things along the same line. He went traveling to Europe and India. ED: Did you go to India with Allen? LOUIS: No, but we were in England and we gave readings. And we saw Keat's place and saw Shelley's and so on. We have a common bond, and in some ways, we share-- shall we say-- a transcendental and cosmic feeling of exhilaration on a certain unity of the race, you know, and development. I'll read a poem about that. But, mine is more lyrical. ED: Where do you focus -- in the United States or Paterson? LOUIS: Paterson, well no I write-- ED: Brotherhood for everyone? LOUIS: That's right, but if I write about Paterson it is about any city. It is about any city. But more lyrically than anything else ED: But, you tend to stay in your hometown? LOUIS: Yes, well yeah, more ofa pinpoint I have in there... Blake said that youcan see the universe in a nutshell. So, it all depends on the view. So, I'm lyrical and he's not. ED: Allen is more Whitmanesque LOUIS: He is franker. In my day you couldn't talk that openly. We didn't. ED: Victorian? LOUIS: Not Victorian, but more restricted. The use of the four-letter words, openingly as they do now. We were brought up differently. TEACHER: You know you gave your grammar rules in verse. LOUIS: I forgot about that. Oh, boy, many many years ago. Shall we go in? Can I see the interview? ED: Yes, [laughs] the end result as they call it. Then the poetry reading began with Louis Ginsberg taking the stand first. He, 78 years old, grey hair, sideburns, glasses, suit and tie. He still had that teacherly look after having taught at Paterson 's Central High for over 40 years but in a friendly manner. Louis started with his lyrical poems. They appeared basically short and philosophical in nature on the Spanish Civil War (1930s) "Spanish Revolution," some personal poems, about teaching, his former students, and life in general. Shea Auditorium chuckled as Louis read for over an hour. "Thanks for a Loan," "In the Operating Room," and "Loneliness" were the standout poems plus his humor filled nuggets of his wisdom and observations of Paterson. Allen took out his harmonium and started singing a mantra about the Fiji Islands after his father Louis left the stage. He had recently visited the island country with poet friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A few of his mantras dealt with the Fiji natives describing the beaches, sky and dirt roads. One curly haired gentleman asked Allen about Tibetan mediations and mantras. Allen responded by explaining how he mediates for one hour a day and warned against breathing the wrong way when one is meditating for a long period of time. After answering the gentleman's questions he went back to his poetry reading. Following two other poems, Allen chatted about organic food, acid, and grass with some people in the audience. Without using his harmonium, a small hand organ, Allen continued to read his poems. The best poems of the whole evening came when Allen recited ones about his late, Zen Buddhist poet, friend, Allan Watts, who died on November 16, 1973: "Statement on the Yom Kippur War," and "Stay Away from the White House." Remember Richard Nixon was still President of the United States and would not resign until August 1974. The poem on Allan Watts was personal in nature and very touching. The "Yom Kippur War" poem describes not only the Arabs but the Israelis having "built time bombs in the Middle East" through the military-industrial-complexes of the Soviet Union and the United States. Allen dug in with the diplomatic jargon instead of living in peace with one's neighbors. "Stay Away from the White House" is one poem that brought laughter from the college crowd, but also brought the message of how a corrupt government can continue in America without it being replaced by a responsible one. Louis Ginsberg came back to read a few more poems--including one to his father. He received a standing ovation from the audience. Then Allen countered with two poems, one dealing with New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. Finally, the Ginsbergs tried to get off the stage, but the audience wanted an encore and they got it. Allen came back to the microphone and started singing: "my father gets tired after ten/we'll read no more....the hills are echoing/so I'll go to bed" with his harmonium. The elderly father, Louis Ginsberg, looked upon his son with reverence as he listned to his song.
Louis
Ginsberg Mr. Ed Smith Thank you for the two copies with your interview. I thought your article was well-done and objective. I enjoyed it. Will give a copy to my son Allen this weekend. Best wishes from Louis Ginsberg
Included in this interview was a poem Allen Ginsberg wrote for AHNOI magazine, Hoboken, NJ, edited by Joel Lewis in Spring 1980. It's a rarely found text, as it's not in Allen's Collected Poems. This gem of a poem is titled with the often used nick name for New Jersey: "Garden State."
GARDEN STATE, by Allen Ginsberg It used to be,
farms, The communists
picnicked Then came the
Mafia, alcohol, Einstein invented
atom bombs Old graveyards
behind churches Reminds me of
a time ponds pure I was afraid
to talk to anyone "Mr. Professor"
said the Dutchman Greenhouses stood
by the Passaic in the sun, They threw eggs
at Norman Thomas the Socialist Now you can turn
on your boob tube Much less the
end of the world. Here in Boonton
they made cannonballs It's really spring,
the blossoms are out, The data terminal
people stand
"Garden State" by Allen Ginsberg [Reprinted from AHNOI Magazine, edited byJoel Lewis, Issue 3, page 4-5, May 1980 with permission from Harper/Collins: NY, 2001.Copyright © 1980 and 2001 with all rights reserved by the Allen Ginsberg literary estate.] Photos by Paul Manuel, William Paterson College, 1974
 As I end this article for NJPoets.com, I'm reminded of how wonderful that night was for me as I hear Allen and Louis Ginsbergs' voices on my tape machine. Listening again and transcribing their words from February 1974 brought a million memories to my mind's eye. In writing about the Ginsbergs, I discover how much I' ve changed, how different the world was then. The Vietnam War! No computers or e-mail! Just the telephone, handshakes and real hard-copy mail for communications. The Ginsbergs were truly poets, truly honest men. As the years flew by, I would see Allen at the Poetry Project in New York City; the Jack Kerouac Conference [25 Years after On The Road] July-August 1982; numerous times on the streets of New York City and Paterson for poetry readings. I would never interview him again. He was bigger than life, a huge POET in the 1980s-- but I think heunderstood the young person I was then or anyone interested in poetry. As the late Ted Berrrigan told a class in Boulder, Colorado[Naropa Institute 1982: "...no poet comes along and displaces another poet. I mean, you don't become a certain age, and you think you're pretty good, and you take a run at Robert Creeley or Allen Ginsberg, and you bump them out of a job, and you become them. No, that doesn't happen! You can only become you, and be you." Sometimes, I wish current poets would be so frank, friendly and candid about their position in the world-- just as Allen and Louis Ginsberg were in February 1974. Then, perhaps our imperfect world may start to be bearable and livable on this struggling planet Earth. Ed Smith Manasquan, NJ July 4, 2001 Sample Ed Smith's poems on NJPoets. com |
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Today
my correspondence flows from Robert Creeley to Rachel Hadas, Daniela Gioseffi,
Michael Lally, Elinor Nauen, Joel Lewis, and David Cope-- plus e-mail
messages are added in now. Let us go back a minute to those days, when
Vietnam was still on everyone's tongue and we worried how the war would
end in the year 1974. American troops on foreign soil! 
ALLEN:
I don't think of it in those terms. [he repeats] I don't think of it in
those terms. I think of my poetry as laying out thinking-- of my thought
forms. As distinct from say Nixon's speeches or politicians or advertising
which are intended to manipulate people's minds-- not telling what you
are thinking inside. That is the function of poetry: to let people
know what is going on. So they don't become paranoi. or be deceived of
what intentions you have inside your head. The byproduct of that is frank
discussion, .... frank discussion the corruption of government before
frank discussion of our sexual lives, from what the laws say they are.
It is intended to be like a political statement is intended to be personal.
The personal is political actually....when an entire politics is founded
on deception. Because if you have an entire government like Watergate
founded on deception--personal motives and personal acts, activities--
it kills the actual and truthful version of frankly what people are thinking--
that has political significance provides like major, ah, stone, which
other speech is revealed for its counterfeit nature.