To Allen Ginsberg

San Francisco

Sept. 1956

Read Howl and said « Allen is Allen still and better. » America cry was embar-

rassing, but so was Novalis and Wackenroder. And Kliest had the Amazon

eat her lover raw right on stage and he, Kliest, double-suicided with Eva

 Schmidt. The German poets are the end. Read Howl and thought why ? when

Rimbaud put us all down by 19ing himself. Read Howl and said why ? when

Chatterton rat-poisoned us by 17ing himself. You are old. I am old. Our cries

sound more like cracked wheezes than GRRRRRRRRRRRRRS. And LOVE.

We are too old to say what love is. Easily enough we can call it Zen Polemic

Boycock. I send you the first installment of Way Out.

Met Orlovsky, LaVigne, Donlin others. Don’t like San Francisco.

Reminds me of hip mid-western town. Besides, don’t see much of it. Stay at

home all the time. Met McClure. He says he wants to have a nice hone with

family and only write six poems a year. I don’t think he has it. Read some of

his things. He’s produce for New Yorker magazine. Read Howl and liked it

because it’s almost like my Way Out. Two old men who cupped their farts in an

organ. E. Power Briggs plays Bach’s Toccata in Fugue. If you don’t write and

live a great poem before your 30th year, give up. I told that to MacLeish, and

he sent me away from Cambridge.

Goodbye, Gregory Corso