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Introduction
He was able to show us this "disposable
life" and transcend it through his poetry Gregory Corso - Some Facts Gregory Nunzio Corso (1930 -2001) was born Nunzio Corso at St. Vincent's hospital (later called the Poets' hospital because Dylan Thomas died there). He used his confirmation name "Gregory" as his place holder when dealing with the world. However, he would use "Nunzio" as short for "Annunziato", the announcing poet angel Gabriel. A month after he was born, his mother abandoned
him. Gary Corso, consistently told Gregory Corso left the foster system as soon as he could and became a child of the streets in Little Italy, NYC. For warmth, he slept in subways in the winter and on rooftops during the summer. He was a gifted student and attended Catholic schools, not telling authorities he was living on the street. Street food stall merchants would give him food in exchange for errands. He was arrested and jailed, sending him into another state run system. While incarcerated, he fell under the protection of powerful Mafia inmates, and became something of a mascot because he was the youngest inmate in the prison. Ironically, Corso was jailed in the very cell just months before vacated by Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Mr. Corso read after lights-out thanks to a light specially positioned for Mr. Luciano to work late. He began writing poetry and studied Greek and Roman classics consuming encyclopedias and dictionaries. After his release from prison he worked as a day laborer in New York's garment district writing poetry at night. At Columbia College a group of students, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lucien Carr, along with an older, Harvard graduate, William S. Burroughs, envisioned themselves as future literary figures. Allen Ginsberg brought Mr. Corso into their inner circle as someone who had lived a genuine life. In later years Mr. Corso hated the "beat" tag and felt that he offered more than just that short period of his life. However, this association did provide him with a stage and a forum that would not have been open to him otherwise. His first published poems appeared in the Harvard Advocate in 1954, and the publication of his first book, The Vestal Lady on Brattle and Other Poems (1955), was underwritten by Harvard and Radcliffe students. Mr. Corso worked at times as a laborer, a newspaper reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner, and a merchant seaman. Mr. Corso traveled extensively, and taught
briefly at the State University of New York, Buffalo. He was
dismissed from the SUNY teaching position in 1965 for refusing
to sign an affidavit certifying that he was not a member of the
Communist Party. He taught several summers at the Naropa Institute
in Boulder, Colorado. He was married three times and had five
children. Gregory Corso died in 2001 at the age of seventy. Gregory Corso - Some Facts as I see Them Because Gregory Corso grew up on the street fending for himself and working for everything, every inch of his existence, he has a cold, truthful eye and ear to the world. However, his vision is also playful and hopeful.
Growing up in a very unconventional manner yet trying to fit in and make some sense of the world, Mr. Corso dealt with all of the questions of post-war America: the bomb, work ethics, marriage, etc. Again, his playful use of ideas and words shows how to make sense in a senseless world.
Life and death or the struggle seemed to be everything to Mr. Corso. He was not one to worry about "next". He was very concerned with how we treated one another. His background of acceptance led him to a life-long friendship with Allen Ginsberg. Mr. Corso met Allen Ginsberg in the Pony Stable Bar, one of New York's first openly lesbian bars. He was only 20 and recently released from prison. The women of the Pony Stable treated him as an "artist-in-residence". Mr. Corso was writing poetry there the night Mr. Ginsberg entered the bar and he was immediately attracted to Mr. Corso.
One of his early poems about the jazz sax player, Charlie Parker (also known as "Bird"), reads like a long fast horn solo. Mr. Corso captures the jazz breath that was held in high regards by Mr. Ginsberg and the others in the Colombia group. The three voices of the poem trade back and forth like jazz musicians trading licks.
Mr. Corso like everyone else who was alive during the 1950s was concerned with the proliferation of atomic weapons. This was not one people's interest in conquering some land or resources but possibly the utter destruction of the human race and even the planet. It was a time when poets had to take on the big issues as well as their personal daemons.
Mr. Corso was also in love with language. He was self-taught as well as a self-made man. He had read the classics in prison and continued to study all of his life. His teaching helped focus his energies and ideas. He often referred to classical images and references. He let his poem dictate it's own direction.
But he did not compromise his ideals. He often disagreed with the other "beats" and even though he was adamantly opposed to communism he would not sign a pledge that he was not one. In later years, Mr. Corso disliked public appearances and became irritated with his own "beat" celebrity. "Corso's handling of ideas is unique, as in various one-word-title-poems. He distills the essence of archetypal concepts, recycling them with humor to make them new, examining, mindblowing (deconstructive or de-conditioning) insights. In this mode, his late 1950's poems manifest a precursor of Pop artistry, the realized notice of quotidian artifacts." - Allen Ginsberg After Allen Ginsberg's death, Mr. Corso decided to go "on the road" to Europe and retrace "the beats" early days in Paris, Italy, and Greece. While in Venice, Mr. Corso became curious about where in Italy his mother might be buried. Filmmaker Gustave Reininger quietly launched a search her Italian burial place. Mr. Reininger found that Michelina Corso was not dead, but alive; and not in Italy, but in Trenton, New Jersey. Mr. Corso discovered that his mother at 17 had been almost fatally brutalized (all her front teeth punched out) and was sexually abused by her teenage husband, his father. At the height of the Depression, with no trade or job, Michellina explained the she had no choice but to give her son to Catholic Charities. After she had established a new life working in a restaurant in New Jersey, his mother had attempted to find him, but to no avail. The father had blocked even Catholic Charities from disclosing the boy's whereabouts. Living modestly, she lacked the means to hire a lawyer to find her son. She eventually remarried and started a new family.
Selected Bibliography - Poetry
The link to Corso: Corso - The Last Beat © Harry Furness 2009 Send Harry a message either directly or using the Word Catalyst feedback form.
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Good
poetry opens the world to us, as the reader. It provides images
that both directly enables us to experience the world and transcend
those images through ideas or the ideal. Poets have to use their
skills to invent ways to move their readers. Most American poets
never lived on the streets and had to fight just to grow up.
Only one of the "beat" poets had grown up living on
the mean streets of New York city. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
recognized that Gregory Corso brought a genuine personal experience
to their circle. The fabric of his life was defined by abandonment
and growing up as a homeless child. He did not let this define
him, but it was part of what he was. Most of the beats could
only identify with this type of alienation. Gregory Corso was
not only idealistically alienated but also had been left on his
own since he was born.
his son that his mother had returned to Italy and deserted the
family. He was also told that she was a prostitute and was "disgraziata"
(disgraced) and forced into Italian exile. Young Gregory spent
his first 11 years in foster care in five different homes. His
father declined to visit him.
Cheshire Cat
Truly Calhoun
Songs of