Tags
Allen Ginsberg, Beat Generation, Beat poets, England, King Arthur, London, Peter Orlovsky, poetry, Prague, T.S. Eliot, writing
Did I promise you a connection between the Beat Poets and King Arthur the other day? Did I do that? How audacious of me! You probably walked away from your keyboard shaking your head, thinking “Wow, she’s looney. WHAT-ever. Like the Beat Poets would give a rat’s ass about King Arthur. Those cats were way too cool to bother with something so old-school. Those guys were way too wise to settle for something so establishment. Like hell, the Beat Poets have any connection to King Arthur – they were rebels!
The Beat Poets were too cool for just about anything everyone else liked - except King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, with whom they shared a certain subversive bent (Photo by Larry Keenan)
But – they were also poets. And if it’s good enough for the Romantics and T.S. Eliot, it’s good enough for them.
Allen Ginsberg (hey, we should start big, no?) was elected King of May by the Czech students in Prague on May Day of 1965; expelled by the government, he took the opportunity to travel a bit. He ended up in England, negotiating the publication of his poems in London. And while he was there, he made it a point to hike to Glastonbury, where he picked a flower off of the grave of King Arthur to send to his life-long companion, Peter Orlovsky. *
Too cool for establishment, my ass. Even Allen Ginsberg wasn’t immune to the immortal romance of the Arthurian legend.
Arthur first showed up in the Welsh triads of the 7th century, and he’s been mentioned at least once in every generation and nearly every literate country since then. He has stood for establishment, for dis-establishment, for the overthrowing of the ruling order, for the creation of the ruling order, for the crafting of government, for the destruction of government, as a symbol of revolution, as a symbol of stability, and everything in-between. His legend and the legends of his knights contain nearly every theme available to the human experience – love, loss, nobility, baseness, pride, shame, chaos, order, creation, destruction, beauty, the grotesque, freedom, imprisonment, truth, deceit, the individual, the collective, natural, the supernatural, magic, religion, power, weakness, war, peace, government, anarchy…. What made you think the Beat Poets would escape without at least a passing reference? Boo-ya!
* from the introduction to Ginsberg’s interview for the Art of Poetry #8, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4389/the-art-of-poetry-no-8-allen-ginsberg
In everything we say or do.. good or bad…past and present. there is poetry. Wonderful post
Poetry – It is one of the few constant behaviors present from the beginning of human existence, alongside drawing, eating, drinking, peeing, pooping, and fornicating…. ;op