A Flower Grows In The Cement Stoned Landscape Of The City: Part III

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Nov 1, 2003

A Flower Grows In The Cement Stoned Landscape Of The City:Part III.

Corso disappeared for a few years in the eighties. He often taught classes, performed lectures, even produced a film, "Whatever Happened To Jack Kerouac", fondly remembering some of his old time friends from the Beat period; but he seemed to prefer the quiet life of home and hearth, avoiding the trappings of fame that so many of his fellow writers had fallen into, eventually finding those depths too hollow to escape. At poetry readings it was not uncommon to find him sitting crosslegged on the floor of a hotel lobby discussing art or life with the public. One of his last official readings was at the death of his one-time friend Allen Ginsberg at St. Marks Church in l996, where Corso delivered a one word poem, "Toodle-oo." A few months before his death on January 17, 2001, Corso left New York, a city that had always been kind to the great bard, to live with his daughter in Minneapolis. He left her some wonderful memories, and also a copy of one of his finest poems. Some consider "Marriage" to be one of his strongest.

"Should I get married ? Should I be good ? Astound the girl next door with My velvet suit and faustus hood ? Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries and she going just so far and I understanding why not getting angry saying You must feel ! It's beautiful to feel ! Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone and wow her the entire night the constellations in the sky---" (19)

Gregory Corso had indeed grown beyond the early thresholds of youth that seem to bind so many gifted poets. Rather than fade, he continued to explore new realms with each passing year. He had definitely traveled beyond the grassy fields of his youth. "Poet Talking To Himself In The Mirror" shows Corso dealing with his identity in being a poet and writer.

"I'd find not only me but a whole herd past me's, future me's He whole cart load and all the years and where have I gotten to in this point of time this isn't the same mirror I gazed into years ago It's the mirror that changes not poor Gregory." (20)

His ability to transcend the material; to fly above the earthly confines of his neighbors, and to see a world beyond the picket fence go

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