I - Introduction
In 1957, Peter Orlovsky wrote the lines “Songs burst from
my breast, all my crying stops, mistory fills the air … / I draw on paper and I
feel I am two again. I want everybody to talk to me” (Clean Asshole Poems and
Smiling Vegetable Songs). This “Frist Poem” establishes the mystery of Orlovsky;
a poet who became an underground legend simultaneously disregarded by scholars and
Beat readers. Although
peers and spectators knew him for his independence and creative individuality, his
lifelong relationship with Allen Ginsberg poses problems: in the appreciation of
his work, Ginsberg receives most of the credit. [1] Although Ginsberg was undoubtedly important in Orlovsky’s development
as a poet, the quality and volume of his artistic work deserves study and acclaim
on its own.
Peter Orlovsky drew from personal
inspirations beyond those of the Beat circle that led to his work being of a uniquely
surrealistic Beat sound. He wrote
under the influences of Allen Ginsberg’s circle as well as the French Surrealists
to the point that his verse reflects
the two styles greatly. [2] For a comprehensive
understanding of Orlovsky’s work as different and original, both Beat and Surrealist
influences require examination. The understanding that the Beat Generation only
consists of the original East Coast members, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William
S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Herbert Huncke, [3] has also worked against appreciation of Orlovsky’s poetry, because
it limits the Generation to these authors’ early writings. A more holistic understanding,
which would admit Orlovsky as a Beat, suggests the Beat Movement was the literary
uprise that led up to, and exploded after, the Six Gallery reading in October of
1955 in San Francisco. Although he did not speak, Orlovsky attended the reading
and spent the rest of his life working with these poets (Schumacher; Morgan, A Life in Words). He was an active member,
through publications, teaching, and socialization within the generation. Further,
Orlovsky certainly wrote with Ginsberg’s “first thought, best thought” mantra [4] that often characterizes Beat writing.
[5] There is no question that he was
certainly a Beat poet.
On the other hand, investigation
into Orlovsky’s life also demonstrates a keen interest in Surrealism and the surrealistic
that extends beyond most other Beat poets, and this is where he differs. The connection
between Surrealism and the Beat Movement has long been understood yet there exists
very little critical study of it. Scholars consider Philip Lamantia the Surrealist
Beat Poet, in part due to his close connections with some of the core French Surrealists.
[6] Although scholars agree with the
claim that Lamantia was a Surrealist, Ann Charter’s declaration that “Lamantia is
the only American poet of his generation to embrace fully the discoveries of surrealism”
(The Portable Beat Reader) neglects the realities of many Beat writers’ works,
including Orlovsky’s. When compared theoretically, Surrealist and Beat poetic styles
share similarities. Both disregard common and rigid poetic and grammatical structures,
and both attempt to derive imprudently calculated meaningful word combinations.
Further, the purpose behind both the Surrealist and Beat movements are similar:
they seek a means for social change through the overt defiance of the artistic status-quo.
Orlovsky’s poetry demonstrates these characteristics but with an identifiably personal
style that diverges from the presence of these techniques in the works of Ginsberg
and other Beats.
Therefore, the problem of Orlovsky
is threefold. First, he was a Beat poet who diverged from the standard Beat style
but not to the extent that he was of a different school. Rather, he wrote his own
version of Beat poetry that overwhelmingly resembles the Surrealists and the surrealistic.
Second, unlike Philip Lamantia, Orlovsky cannot claim the official title of the
hybrid Surrealist Beat Poet. Lamantia was an accepted member of the French Surrealists
when they worked in New York in the 1940s (Lamantia xxvii) and he worked closely
with and as a Surrealist poet and a Beat poet. By comparison, the interest and realization
of Surrealist poetry in Orlovsky’s work is in response to Surrealist poets mainly
outside of the core French group. Instead, Orlovsky more appropriately deserves
the title of a surrealistic Beat poet or surreal Beat poet. Third, scholars historically
attributed Allen Ginsberg credit for Orlovsky’s writing which undermines the appreciation
for the non-Beat elements in Orlovsky’s poetry. He produced writing of a very different
tone and style to Ginsberg; the two poets overlap in their manifestations of Beat
but differ through Orlovsky’s implementation of the surreal. Thus, I propose to
analyze Peter Orlovsky as a surrealist Beat poet who wrote in a different context
and style to Philip Lamantia but who nonetheless drew from both poetic disciplines.
I wish to address Orlovsky as a Beat poet who wrote in his own regard and who produced
art of a calibre worthy of study to his own acclaim.
I.I The Surrealists
The French Surrealist group
was comprised of André Breton and his followers, Paul Èluard, René Crevel, Antonin
Artaud, et cetera, who worked between the late 1910s and the 1930s. Earlier poets,
such as Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, and Guillaume Apollinaire, who wrote
in “Pre-Surrealist” styles, greatly inspired Breton’s circle. Breton then wrote
two Manifestos of Surrealism (1924, 1930) that differ in their representations
of Surrealism, but nonetheless demonstrate its philosophical evolution. In his First
Manifesto, Breton proposes that Surrealism is a “Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes
to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the
actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control
exercised by reason, exempt from aesthetic or moral preoccupation” (First Manifesto
of Surrealism). I follow this description of Surrealism for my analysis on Peter
Orlovsky. The second manifesto adopts a heavier political motivation that Orlovsky
does not reflect in his published poetry nor in his intimate journals. [7] Resultingly, the understanding of Surrealism
I use comes from the first manifesto and Surrealist poetry. Surrealism is a practice
that removes the human inclination to second-guess, construct, and consider. Surrealist
poetry rests on intuition and initial ideas; it is the transcription of what lies
just beyond conscious thought.
An easy trap to fall into is
to assess Surrealism from a series of anticipated codes. Codification, because of
the very nature of the Surrealists, is tricky and variations occur widely between
members of Breton’s inner circle. Michael Benedikt manages to identify a set of
generalized qualities that are often present in Surrealist poems and that prove
helpful for analysis. Benedikt summarizes that in Surrealism, “Images are apt to
be extremely disparate, … the poem reflects the fact that the mind often operates
in sudden associative leaps” (The Poetry of Surrealism xx-xxi). Consider,
for example, “Poet of the Black” by Antonin Artuad where he writes
bitter poet, life’s ended for you,
the entire town’s afire
the sky’s being drained away by the rain
and your pen goes gnawing away at the heart of
life. (Artaud
in The Poetry of Surrealism)
These four lines jump from a
poet to a fire, the sky, and back to the poet and their writing. Artaud draws the
poem from the micro of the poet outwards towards the macro of the sky and back to
an even smaller focus in words such as “pen.” Orlovsky most obviously plays with
this Surrealist sort of jumping of frames, ideas, and images throughout his poetry,
for example in “One Line Scrapbook” where “The world has a heart. / The moon is a bong on the drum of
the earth / A fat-eyed mammoth, happey am I” (“Poems”). Here he employs the Surrealist
tendency towards fast, successive leaps between images and ideas. Although the world
and the moon are two related images, the jump to a mammoth is dramatic, jarring
and resonant with Surrealist imagery.
Even though Surrealist images
are easily detectable, they are hardly the only characteristic of Surrealist poetry.
Benedikt continues his analysis as he suggests that in Surrealist writing, “the
usual tonal distinctions do not apply and are often actively subverted … [and] the
ideal of ‘spoken thought’ is present, [using] the diction leaning toward the everyday”.
The Surrealist attributes of tone and diction are more difficult to demonstrate
with original Surrealist poems given the changes a poem undergoes in translation.
French possesses significantly more opportunities for inflection than English and
it uses indications of formality more significantly. In English, tonal and lexicographic
characteristics of Surrealism manifest differently than in French: the use of slang
words, short forms, improper and colloquial grammar are all manners in which English-language
Surrealist poems play with tone. Orlovsky demonstrates the Surrealist subversion
of tonal normalities when he writes, “there
is another door & another door I open to go in / & yet another door &
the room gets smaller / each time I open another door –” (“Dear Allen: Ship Will
Land Jan 23, 1958–” “Poems”). His
repetition of the word “another” and the ampersand evoke a sense of accelerated
and excited speech characteristic of Surrealist writing.
Benedikt also asserts a more
difficult to detect quality of Surrealist poetry: it asserts that “the existing
[cultural] reality is fundamentally ‘out of tune’ with thought”. Surrealist poetry
combats against the conventional, societally appreciated understanding of reality.
Examples include Paul Eluard’s question “Are we close to or far from our consciousness”
(From “Our Movements” in The Poetry of Surrealism) and Pierre Reverdy’s observation
that “All those seen from behind who were moving away singing … They are the first
to arrive and will not go away” (“Endless Journeys” in The Poetry of Surrealism).
The Surrealists feel preoccupied with the individual’s position in the cultural
reality. These poets offer both an outsider’s perspective on and a paranoid testimony
from within the world. Eluard concerns himself with both his own and collective
consciousness while Reverdy observes the cyclical nature of the mass’s lives. These
passages are only two examples of the Surrealist’s much grander concern but they
parallel Orlovsky’s concerns such as whether: “will I recognize / New York even” (“Poems”) after it has grown
and changed in his absence.
Lastly, for Surrealists, “the
whole notion of ‘genre’ is virtually irrelevant”. Surrealism tends to subvert traditional
styles of poetry and Surrealists write in, and demonstrate, their colloquial and
everyday thoughts. However, with their colloquiality, they also combine extreme,
unrelated, and beyond-human images. Of course, every Surrealist poet realizes the
surreal differently and this adds to the problem of genre within the school. Each
of Benedikt’s observations may not be present in a given poem or even within the
works of a given Surrealist poet. Rather, Benedikt’s list is a set of Surrealism’s
characteristics that are helpful for identifying surreal writing and prove beneficial
in the analysis of Orlovsky’s poetry as surrealistic.
I.II The Beats
Similar
to Surrealist poetry, Beat poetry is difficult to codify. Attempts to
codify it can delegitimize the work of recognized Beat poets because they wrote
in various manners that often disregard the codes they previously established. Luckily,
Ginsberg helps solidify a base code when he describes “Beat” as “not so much protest
but a declaration of unconditioned mind beyond protest, beyond resentment, beyond
loser, beyond winner,… a declaration of unconditioned mind, a visionary declaration,
a declaration of unworldly love that has no hope for the world
and cannot change the world to its desire”. To be Beat is to feel preoccupied with
the horrors of the world and to still have and express profound love for it. Consider,
for example, Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” when he writes, “Poor dead flower? when
did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you
were an impotent dirty old locomotive? /… You were never no locomotive, Sunflower,
you were a sunflower! /… we’re not our dread bleak imageless locomotive, we’re all
beautiful golden sunflowers inside” (Howl and other poems). Ginsberg recognizes
the sorrowful state of the sunflower and questions it before he expresses the sadness
of seeing itself as the old locomotive. This passage demonstrates the Beat poets’
desire to acknowledge despair through lenses of love and awe.
Beat poets often express their
dual perception of the terrible and wonderful of the world through Ginsberg’s “first
thought, best thought” mantra: a technique where a poet attempts to express what
they can without self-censorship, or hyper-critical construction. They see how the
world beats down. As a result, Beat poets tend to situate themselves
in the spontaneous actual: images of the real world with eccentric twists. Overall,
the Beatific is more focused on reality than surreality, but often draws on Surrealist
images for effect. The “unconditioned mind” allows for the poet’s “first thought”
to guide them in their use of images. For the Beat poets, their intuition is important.
Their rejection of censorship mirrors Breton’s psychic automatism with the added
focus on the weight of the world rather than the poets inherent disconnect from
it. [8] Orlovsky acknowledges his use
of this technique in “How I Write Poems and Who I Learned From” when he says, “Ginsberg & Kerouac [taught me] extended speech-word flow”
(“Poems”). In this sense, Orlovsky indicates that he uses Ginsberg and Kerouac’s
automatic writing technique wherein he follows an uninhibited oral flow in his writing.
In a “biographical resume” dated 1957, Jack Kerouac also emphasizes
that “it’s not a question of the merit of art, but a question of spontaneity
and sincerity and joy I say. I would like everybody in the world to tell his full
life confession and tell it HIS OWN WAY… instead of the hesitations and cavilings
of ‘men of letters’ with blear faces who only alter words that the Angel brought
them” (Kerouac). Similar to Ginsberg, Kerouac suggests Beat writing expresses what
a writer deems earnest without worrying about reaching a certain, critical quality.
Orlovsky’s poems are not polished since he often wrote with improper grammar and
spelling, but his writing is true to his voice. [9] In Beat Poetry, tone, diction, and form
tend to be unrestricted and characteristic of speech, but individual Beat poets
possess personal sounds just as every person speaks in their own register. For example,
Frank O’Hara sounds remarkably different in “Meditations in an Emergency” when he
says, “All I want is boundless love” (“Why I Am Not a Painter”) from Orlovsky when
he says, “Oh Im in love w/ you, till I
die –” (“Poems”). Where O’Hara’s register is higher but casual, Orlovsky’s is strictly
oral and informal even though both lines express a similar sentiment. Both of these
lines possess an oral quality, but their styles drastically change their sound even
though they are both Beat. Orlovsky’s eccentricity demonstrates how closely he follows
Kerouac’s assertion that Beat poetry ought to follow the poet’s own voice.
This overall set of differences
between the Beats and the Surrealists is one of the points where Orlovsky differs
from the Beats: he plays with both the realistic and the Surreal in his imagery,
technique, and style. Primarily, he uses Surreal imagery to describe the real and
imagery of the real to describe the Surreal; the two realities coexist in much of
his poetry. He plays with both Beat and
Surrealist codes and drives his poetry further away from the codified Beat centre
than Ginsberg does. But Orlovsky’s employment of the Surreal evolved throughout
his career. His early poems possess a reserved Surrealist nature that he develops
cautiously before his middle period where this nature dominates. His middle period
is his most refined in his combination of the Surreal and the Beat. By contrast,
his final period becomes his most juvenile as he plays with absurd images and develops
an obsession with small-scale agriculture.
As a result of his evolution,
I assess Orlovsky chronologically in this essay, primarily to demonstrate his development
as a poet but also to assess how his Surrealist and Beat tendencies fluctuate over
his two active decades. Separate study into these three periods helps to illustrate
how the Beat and surrealistic elements fluctuate in Orlovsky’s work. This chronological
approach helps to contextualize his poems within the greater framework of his life,
his extensive travels, experimentation with drugs and sobriety, and battles with
mental illness. His biographic story offers significant insight into his latter
period but also helps to offer explanations for his dramatic growth between his
early and middle periods.
II – Early Poems
Peter Orlovsky began to write
journals as early as the summer of 1954 (Morgan, A Life in Words), only a few months after his
discharge from the United States military. He met Allen Ginsberg the same December
and the pair moved in together a few weeks later. Shortly thereafter, in February
of 1955, Orlovsky wrote in his journal “Thought of writing my diaries to form a
book – A Book of Peter’s Diaries” (“Life in Words”). Already, after only
a few months of writing, Orlovsky demonstrated in his desire to write and to be
read in his private writings. Then, in November of 1956, Orlovsky and Ginsberg began
their travels together, first to Mexico City, and later to Tangiers (Morgan, A Life in Words; Schumacher). Orlovsky composed
snippets of poetry and poetic prose in his journal, and he catalogued his journeys
semi-consistently. Seven months into their travels, Orlovsky composed the first
poem he would later publish. While abroad, he wrote the seven poems that open his
only anthology, Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs. Although
they realize the Surrealist characteristics that Benedikt lists, these poems do
so to a lesser and comparatively shallower extent than those he writes after his
return to the United States. [10]
During his early travels with Ginsberg in Europe, Orlovsky
also wrote visions of a few pre-Surrealists. In September of 1957, he wrote “Rimbaud
must of walked this road a few times” (“Life in Words”) in his journal. Later, in November, “Walking with Allen,
went to Baudelaire’s grave – but vampires above his head – he looks like mummy laying
there – I put a red flower by his cock between his legs” (“Life in Words”). He would go on to write his famous “Frist Poem” the next
day (“Life in Words”). These small entries
on the forefathers of Surrealism demonstrate how some of the pre-Surrealists influenced
Orlovsky as they did the French Surrealists, albeit distinctly due to their different
circumstances. These two entries are revealing; a common misconception about Orlovsky
is that he was unintelligent. His mother Kate forced him to drop out during
his final year of high school to work (Morgan, A Life in Words) and he misspelled words consistently.
[11] Orlovsky’s early journals show that he was well-read and
held an interest in poetry beyond the work of his contemporaries. They also demonstrate
his quirkiness and original creativity, particularly through his use of images surrounding
Baudelaire’s grave. This early period of Orlovsky is notably full of experimentation
as he establishes his voice as his own.
In November of 1957, Orlovsky composed his “Frist Poem” in
Paris. The title is misleading: the poem is only first in his anthology because
of the title. A few poems he composed earlier that year appear after this poem. [12] Orlovsky riddles “Frist Poem”
with Surrealist images as he begins with
A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified.
Songs burst from my breast, all my crying stops, mistory fills
the air.
I look for my shues under my bed.
A fat colored woman becomes my mother.
I have no false teethe yet. Suddenly ten children sit on my
lap.
I grow a beard in one day.
I drink a hole bottle of wine with my eyes shut.
I draw on paper and I feel I am two again. I want everybody
to talk to me. (“Poems”)
Immediately, he introduces fractured ideas that create a peculiar
and unreal image that manages to work coherently. He creates a world disconnected
from the real one. He does not evoke fear but instead, through the colours from
the rainbows and the voice that sings, he makes the scene feel eerily cheery. The
light-hearted sentiment continues as people appear in an instant and he grows aware
of his body. He writes from wonderland.
The poem then shifts focus as the world before him changes:
I use the
typewritter as my pillow.
A spoon
becomes a fork before my eyes.…
My dreams
lifted me right out of bed.
I dreamt
I jumped the nozzle of a fun to fight out with a bullet.
I met Kafka
and he jumped over a building to get away from me.
My body
turned into sugar, poured into tea I found the meaning of life (“Poems”).
The poem then ends with him at street level with, “Nobody
around, I piss anywhere. / My Gabriel horns, my Gabriel horns: unfold cheerfulies
my gay jubilation” (“Poems”). He contrasts his discovery of the meaning of life with
his anticipation for the end of it. With the end of the poem that contains and facilitates
it, the meaning must now come to an end as well. His public and shameless urination
appears to be an act of rebellion against the authoritative structures not at play
in this surreal world of his poem. He symbolically extinguishes both his stream
of ideas and his excitement in the poem-writing process. The poem is both an ode
to poetry writing and a declaration of its difficulty. This introduction to his
poems is eccentric and dramatic but primarily plays with the surreal free association
of images in a “first thought, best thought” presentation. He introduces numerous
characters and images he never revisits and takes the reader on a journey from the
window, to the room, to the street. Although many of the images appear disconnected,
the mosaic he creates of these real images coupled with the impossible, almost backwards
images, creates this coherent, other world. The poem is Beat in its fast-paced rhythm
as it is surreal in its presentation of ideas and images. This “Frist Poem” offers
a hint at the way Orlovsky combines the two schools originally as he develops his
skillset.
Right after he composed “Frist Poem” Orlovsky wrote his “Second
Poem.” It begins in “Morning again” (“Poems”) and like in his “Frist Poem” “Second
Poem” plays with rapid and disconnected images. The first series of sporadic images
begins on line 7 when he writes “A nock on the door, a cat walks in, behind her
the Zoo’s baby elephant demanding fresh pancakes—I cant stand these hallucinations
aney more” (“Poems”). Although this line has the potential to be profoundly surrealist,
after he changes his focus from the door, to a cat, to the elephant who wants pancakes,
he shatters his readers suspension of disbelief when he acknowledges that they are
mere hallucinations. He describes the surreal sequence as real, because to him,
it is. When he states that they are figments of his mind, Orlovsky changes the reality
frame from these surreal images, to the one where only he experiences them.
Even though Orlovsky constructs and destroys the surrealist
nature in his poem through images, the poem continues to possess other surrealist
qualities. Towards the end of “Second Poem” he refocuses his attention to the tasks
of his morning. He says,
Before
the mirror I look like a sahara desert gost,
or on the
bed I resemble a crying mummey hollering for air,
or on the
tabol I feel like Napoleon.
But now
for the main task of the day—wash my underwear—
two months
abused—what would the ants say about that?
How can
I wash my clothes—why I’d, I’d, I’d be a woman if I did
that. (“Poems”).
In this conclusion, he describes the specters he sees reflected
back to him in his mirror: a ghost, a mummy, and Napoleon. These three reflections
are dead and indicate a preoccupation with his mortality, something he likely confronts
alongside his desire to stop his hallucinations. His shift to focus on his task
to clean his underwear then takes on the characteristically surrealist tone; he
stutters as he says “I’d” and tries to gather his thoughts. The em-dashes that precede
it help establish his jumbled thoughts; he does not manage to construct a full,
complete sentence nor idea. Rather, he follows his racing mind onto the page and
allows himself the freedom of partial phrases. Like “Frist Poem” this poem introduces
surrealist techniques, but Orlovsky frequently restrains himself from their potentials.
In comparison though, “Second Poem” reads as a second part to “Frist Poem” where
Orlovsky continues to experiment with his surrealist inclinations.
In Cannes during the same year, Orlovsky wrote his “One Line
Scrap Book” a long poem of short ideas that continues his Surrealist tone as the
poem begins with the unsettling, “teeth are the fingers that type on the tung /
the salive the milkey-way gum / cave drippings” (“Poems”). He immediately writes
disconnected from reality. This poem is mystifying as it demonstrates his wrestle
with his state of mind. He writes “Call me crazzy but when talk of heaven enlivens
the party room / I roam all the morning long with you a dopey tung / so call me
crazzy” (“Poems”) and later says that “I have room for one more idiot in my house”
(“Poems”). His ultimate villain is himself. The poem continues along a spiral of
striking and apparently disconnected images that convey a disjointed state of mind.
He asserts his self-awarded label of “crazzy” to eliminate any question about his
state of mind. He insists
If you
have a mind dont hock it or put it in storage.
I have
a brain in the sane.
He looks
death, death carried from eye to eye, moves fast as a wink.
The show
must go on, wake up, eat cornflakes with white paint.
Baseball
plays on in the diamond grave. (“Poems”)
The morbid image of death separates the mind from the body,
as though the reader may be without a mind, just as Orlovsky hides his brain elsewhere.
Death also acts as an omnipresence rather than a state; it almost seems more like
a curious or comedic influence than something to be fearful of. This section of
the poem once again dives into a different world where death reigns and the mind
and self exist untethered. Since the mind is precious but Orlovsky has a “crazzy”
one, the poem disturbs its readers through an initial revocation of any sense of
security.
The unsettling images continue throughout the first section
of the poem; in the second section of “One Line Scrapbook” titled “another day”
he begins with a note of sadness:
The smiling
shadow in the heart is an unseen face in clay.
The bubble
from a fish as it comes to the surface to meet the
bubble
of the universe, both bubbles meet, the lesser pops
Action
in the universe from a fishes buble to the surface… (“Poems”)
As with his “Frist Poem” Orlovsky writes his own version of
the unreal universe. Here he presents the universe as a bubble a fish blows. He
offers an outsider’s perspective onto our own universe. With the word “the” he poses
the universe as a fragile entity on the verge of inevitable collapse. The fish’s
bubble is a cute image that holds happy and juvenile connotations, but it is also
epic as these two bubbles enter a war where only one can prevail. The whole image
is coded in layers, none of which are real, but mere perversions on common images.
Toward the end of the second section, he writes
The valley
of no moon.
The world
has a heart.
The moon
is a bong on the drum of the earth
A fat-eyed
mammoth, happey am I.
I want
gods lock, the clock is now in his mind.
I sit yearning,
I will send my beautiful dreams to him &
My wordless
fantisises (“Poems”)
He juxtaposes perceptions of the earth and the moon with the
metaphor of them together. He then demonstrates himself as a massive, extinct being,
and finally, as envious of and in conversation with God. Although he works in words,
he indicates the desire to speak to someone who understands the ideas that lie behind
them. He continues and amplifies his use of inventive, unreal images throughout
this poem and creates a series of eye-catching, disconnected vignettes. This poem
is hard to keep track of and only manages coherency because of its title: the poem
is not meant to be read as one, but as a collection of ideas.
The final, and shortest section in “One Line Scrapbook” also
titled “another day” begins with the curious “Silence can also be a poem” (“Poems”).
He continues to demonstrate the difficult relationship a poet must have with their
words since some of the greatest poems cannot be written seeing as words are restrictive
labels for the mind. Orlovsky tries to pass on the “wordless fantasises” he sends
to God when he asks us to consider silence for a moment. He winds the poem down
as he says, “All battles are lost at heavens feet” (“Poems”) as he subtly makes
the assertion that the battle poets have when they express the surreal ends in a
place non-reliant on words. If God can understand communication without words, why
would heaven not allow us to, as well?
The poem “My Bed Is Covered
Yellow” continues to demonstrate Orlovsky’s eccentricity, but with a much warmer
tone than his other early works. The poem begins with,
My bed is covered yellow – Oh Sun, I sit on you
Oh golden field I lay on you
Oh money I dream of you –
More, More cried the bed – talk to me more (“Poems”).
Oh bed that taked the wight of the world –
all the lost dreams laid on you …
Oh bed, only for man & not for animals
yellow bed when will the animals have equal rights?
Oh 4 legged bed off the floor forever built
Oh yellow bed all the news of the world
lay on you at one time or another (“Poems”).
The warm, luring image of the
bed takes on an ultimate sense of importance. Suddenly, instead of the bed being
something illuminated by the sun, it is a place where people unload their woes and
where the issues of humanity lie. One of these issues that Orlovsky chooses to raise
is the difference in rights between animals and humans, so much as that the bed
is only for the human. Although it may seem like a minor note, random even, it is
a precursor of the later preoccupations he addresses in his poetry. [13] In this poem, Orlovsky manages to juxtapose
the warm images of the sun-soaked bed with the weight of all human worry. He is
liberal with his use of images and writes with an oral sound that reads as a stream
of consciousness. Both of these techniques exist in traditional Surrealist and Beat
poetry and his use of them together helps this poem resemble both schools. Although
this poem reads a little differently than his other early poems, it maintains his
intrigue with the surreal of the world, albeit still cautiously.
These poems that Orlovsky wrote
during his early travels with Ginsberg demonstrate a young period of hesitant experimentation.
Although he had written previously, Orlovsky was at once in a series of new environments
and circumstances that realistically encouraged him to experiment more liberally
in his writing. The variety in subject matter during this early period demonstrates
how he was learning to develop his Surrealist technique, particularly through his
use of Surreal images and common tone. His poems demonstrate his unique voice that
sounds remarkably similar to how he spoke and reflects both his academic history
and his “write it down” (“Poems”) technique. He also begins to experiment with his
forms; longer poems with short sections and shorter, single-section poems. He is
also inventive in the ways he uses sectioning from making each new line being a
new section to experimenting with the possibilities of free verse and potentials
for section titles in “One Line Scrapbook.” He breaks several professional poetic
conventions, through his misspelled words and through his Beat page spacing, but
still manages to compose poems that attempt to say something, even though he embeds
their meanings significantly below the surface. These early poems combine the Beat
and Surreal as he experiments to create his own voice; his grasp on the two styles
strengthens as he continues to write into his middle period.
III – Middle Poems
In January of 1958, Orlovsky
returned home quickly from his travels to New York City to help with his family
(Schumacher). Orlovsky’s biographer, Bill Morgan, acknowledges
that “On board ship, Peter continued to experiment with writing in a surrealist
manner” (A Life in Words) and argues that “Dear Allen: Ship Will Land Jan 23, 1958
–” is the successful result of his experimentations (A Life in Words). The return to New York, the temporary separation from Ginsberg,
and the continued stress of his family, all seemingly enhanced his confidence in
his poetry. The poetry he wrote after his departure from Europe in 1958 possesses
a deeper appreciation for the surreal and he experiments more with form, length,
and subject matter during this period. [14] Although “Frist Poem” is one that fans and scholars reference
often, he formalizes his characteristic sound in the six years after its composition.
During this period between early 1958 and late 1963, Orlovsky traveled throughout
the United States, parts of Europe, and most notably, through India with Ginsberg.
He also spent periods where he traveled separately.
Although his middle period only takes place over five years,
he produced his largest volume of published poetry during the period. He wrote thirty-three
of the fifty-five poems later included in Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable
Songs during this half-decade. The stronger Surrealist qualities of his poems
during this period become the defining nature of Orlovsky’s poetry. As a result
of the length of this period, I assess five key poems from Clean Asshole Poems
and one unpublished poem from this period to offer a demonstration of the Surrealism
in his work from the middle period. I also examine “Letter to Charlie Chaplin” a
1961 collaboration between Orlovsky and Ginsberg to highlight how Orlovsky’s Surrealist
tendencies are at their strongest in his independent work. Finally, although Orlovsky
writes “Leper’s Cry” written nearly a decade after his middle period in 1971, since
this significant poem [15] resembles the other poems of later period, I also address
“Lepers Cry” in this chapter.
III.I – “Dear
Allen”
The second era in Orlovsky’s poetry began with “Dear Allen:
Ship Will Land Jan 23, 1958 –” an extended letter and poem in two defined parts
written in extensive stanzas. The poem is a stream of Orlovsky’s anxious consciousness:
Talk of
dreams
sleep of
headake –
cock of
ball – glass of water –
walking
into the bathroom to sit down on tiolet
I open
door but before I get to toilit
there is
another door & another door I open to go in
& yet
another door & the room gets smaller
each time
I open another door –
till I
finally feel I am a miget in a race of doors
in tiny
bathroom, what has happened
all I want
is candy – no toilet – let me alone –
would you
like to dance, perhaps you are in love
with me
– am I worth it? (“Poems”)
He begins with a dreamscape in which, almost as though he
is in wonderland again, his body shrinks. Claustrophobia sinks in along with the
headache. As he opens one door after another, he conjures an unsolvable maze. As
the stanza reaches its peak, he shatters the tension when he asks, “what has happened[?]”
He juxtaposes an intense, impossible, and surreal scene with candy, dancing, and
love, three images that are inappropriate given his anxiety. But rather than managing
to escape the anxiety, he reintroduces it with the universal, existential question,
“am I worth [love]?” Although Beat literature tends to play with contrasting images
and the weight of feeling through words, his surreal shrinking world is foreign
to typical Beat writing. Orlovsky places himself into an inescapable situation,
and once he reaches a climax in his tension, he seemingly wakes from his anxiety
and jumps to the next thought in his mind.
This style seems like the one that Breton describes in the
first Manifesto of Surrealism when he says,
If silence threatens to settle in if you should ever happen
to make a mistake – a mistake, perhaps due to carelessness – break off without hesitation
with an overly clear line. Following a word the origin of which seems suspicious
to you, place any letter whatsoever, the letter ‘l’ for example, always the letter
‘l,’ and bring the arbitrary back by making this letter the first of the following
word.
Orlovsky does not begin with the arbitrary letter “l” as Breton
proposes, but he does shift his focus through significant use of em-dashes. At the
beginning of the passage, after he introduces his state of his mind, he uses the
em-dash to begin the segment on the doors. Instead of a natural decrescendo, he
jumps into the different visions with three em-dashes in the line “all I want is
candy – no toilet – let me alone –” (“Poems”). He creates a visual divide on his
page to indicate the coming change in his ideas, from one expression of his mind
of the surreal bathroom, to the other, concerned with love.
He uses this jarring tactic throughout the poem until he shifts
his focus completely to discuss the Statue of Liberty, where he uses a series of
line breaks. In the third stanza, he calls on her:
My Libirty
knows that I love her –
in dreams
she holds hands with me
her kiss
beats red
Oh, money
is not on her –
She is
very lonely
………………………………
Oh Devel
Librity Kiss me –
Know that
I love you –
that I
need you. – & must
have you (“Poems”)
He breaks from his surreal play with images when he returns
to reality for a moment:
see New
York after one
years absent
– new buildings will
have grown
up – will I recognize
New York
even. (“Poems”)
The poem serves as a distraction from the sober reality that
New York’s landscape, including the people within it, will have changed in his absence.
Orlovsky explores layers of anxiety and emotion because of the reality that New
York has changed, and he does not manage to truly escape from his return through
this poem. Although “Dear Allen” serves as exploration into his mind and ideas,
his sudden tonal and thematic shift concludes the poem soberly. Orlovsky concludes
the poem in the foremost cabinet of his mind: the one that confronts his present
circumstance rather than a fantasy such as with his explorations of Lady Liberty.
He returns his readers to reality from his various explorations into the surreal
and leaves them stranded in the weight of his reality.
The length of this poem allows for him to investigate significantly
more than he does in his early poems. As in “One Line Scrapbook” Orlovsky here jumps
between a wide range of images and settings but unlike this earlier poem, “Dear
Allen” is unified in the sense that it is a rambling letter. He makes fluid use
of the letter structure as he repurposes a familiar form of communication into one
for mental exploration and experimentation. The second section opens an out-of-place
frame where he speaks to Lady Liberty, but it remains within the context of his
correspondence to Ginsberg. Many of his lines are relatively short here which make
the poem Beatifically fast-paced. The images are consistently surreal and create
a dreamlike and otherworldly quality that crescendos until the end with his sober
realization. He blends surreal explorations into his mental images, such as in his
“race of doors” (“Poems”) and love for lady liberty, with the Beatific stylistic
elements such as the repetitive use of the ampersand. He uses Ginsberg’s “first
thought, best thought” mantra beyond Beat to reach his Surrealist associations of
images. “Dear Allen” is a significantly surer poem than any in his early period;
Orlovsky writes with a consistent combination of Surrealist and Beat tones
III.II – Snail
Ramblings, Subway Rides, and Collaborations
During his time in New York, Orlovsky composed “Snail Poem.”
This poem is significantly shorter than “Dear Allen” and hints at his interest in
agriculture that becomes his focus in his later period. He begins the poem with
“Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired / & handsome felt”
(“Poems”). He juxtaposes the images of the heart and being handsome with a grave,
the primary motif of the poem. The body of the poem takes on an interesting shift
when he writes:
Ear turnes
close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound
of rain
dribble thru this layer
down to
the roots that will tickle my ear.
Hay grave,
my toes need cutting so file away
in sound
curve or
Garbage
grave, way above my head, blood will soon
trickle
into my ear – (“Poems”).
First, Orlovsky introduces the image of him in the grave where
roots tickle his ear. Then, he jumps to the image that his toe needs to be cut off.
Finally, he reintroduces the image of liquid that falls into his ear, but this time,
the liquid is blood. These images are all quite shocking. The self in a grave is
claustrophobic but Orlovsky does not express panic or even unease; he writes more
intently about the natural moss, roots, and rain around the grave. These images
of nature, independent of the grave, are relatively peaceful. Although they make
logical sense in a graveyard, the combination reads unsettlingly. The jump to the
toe and then the rain turning to blood is when the surreal quality of this poem
accelerates because the scene is no longer plausible. Orlovsky solidifies this surrealistic
tone in the poem with the final two lines: “So my toe can curl & become a snail
& go curiousely / on its way” (“Poems”). He reinforces his preoccupation with
his toe in lines 18 and 19 in these final lines as he actualizes the title of the
poem. He lies conscious in his grave and waits for his toe to dislodge and become
an autonomous snail. The thought is nauseating and frightening but nonetheless possesses
an element of charm through his juvenile tone and diction. “Snail Poem” is an interesting
realization of his Surreal voice in the way that the careful weaving of contrastingly
realistic and bizarre images leads to a full realization of the surreal at its conclusion.
In 1959, Orlovsky wrote a poem wherein he outlines his view
on writing poetry, something he would later reinforce through his lectures at the
Naropa Institute. In “Writing Poems is a Saintly Thing” he says
Memory
ramblings
over tall
mountains carrying me away to that nomads land whare
to breathe
is but to sigh at a lost dream that
rolls away
from the eyes. (“Poems”)
This description that he gives to poetry, as though it is
the mind’s way to express runaway memories and dreams, is, again, similar to Breton’s
idea that writing should be “products of free association or automatic writing”.
In this poem on poetry, Orlovsky feels like the poem takes him elsewhere. This other
place, this dreamscape is a space in the mind other than the conscious waking one
in which we conduct our day-to-day selves. It is the surreal space of the mind.
In the rest of the poem, he argues his room is not good enough since it “cant hold
/ all the people in the world and chairs lonely because built for / only one” (“Poems”)
before he suggests that “All angels meet on the curve of the earth & form a
line that / becomes a bridge to the sun” (“Poems”). He juxtaposes a lonely mentality
where, if he cannot have everyone, he is without anyone with the idea that angels
connect the Earth to the Sun, as though no one is every really alone. These peculiar
associations that Orlovsky writes heighten and reaffirm the surreal nature of this
poem.
In “Poems from Subway to Work” Orlovsky takes his readers
along his observational experiences as he rides on the New York subway. Although
this poem is reminiscent of “Frist Poem” and “Second Poem” he does not now shy away
from his surrealist inclinations in this poem, but instead allows them to guide
the poem. He writes,
Let the
subway be our greek meeting place
for there
is whare everybody goes
……………………………..
But here
all sad faces meet
& I
sit silent but happy bound
that all
my New York family is here.
I am a
subway rider near you all, only
I want
to talk to you – but everybody is so
straighfaced
& mummy fixed.
Standing
over you my tung drops out
and accidently
licks the bald head
of an old
man reading shues. (“Poems”)
By 1960, some of Orlovsky’s experimentations with morbidity
in his poetry and prose began to take on Baudelaire’s characteristics in the sense
that he begins to record the beauty of decay and ugliness. An unnamed poem from
his journal in April of that year reads,
All the
bugs in the zoo die
near the
flowers
or in small
rock caves
or under
bed legs of rotted wood
a berry
ripens
while a
banana warps
my tree
is a fig farm
falling
in hay
makes tomato
paste
under the
park rock a light will shine
behind
the moon a toy balloon will fly out
inside
my nose the smelly witch is stewing her brew
when I
die my toe nail will crawl away as a snail
Charlie
Chaplin is mining again under the caverns of my finger nails – (A Life in Words)
The poem jumps from one idea to another and does not fully
develop a single coherent thought. Rather, he puts together a compilation of various,
untethered images, to create an unsettling poem. He juxtaposes the beauty of flora
with the death of the already unpleasant images of bugs. He reintroduces creepy-crawlies
through the image of his toenail crawling away after death. The whole poem is uneasy
to read but successful at drawing the reader in to see just what he wishes to say.
The poem seems to draw upon the Baudelairean idea of combining the beautiful with
the dark and vile to create a gratifying yet unnerving reading experience, while
at the same time it mixes in the general Surrealist tactic of writing without hesitation
or censorship.
When Orlovsky returned to his travels in 1961, he collaborated
with Ginsberg on “Letter to Charlie Chaplin.” Dianne di Prima suggests Orlovsky
most likely composed the majority of the piece. [18] The letter is goofy, child-like,
and offers a taste of quirkiness that many of Orlovsky’s earlier poems lack due
to their melancholic tones. The beginning is somewhat odd when he says
Love letter for you. We are one happey poet & one unhappey
poet in India which makes 2 poets. We would like come visit you when we get thru
India to tickle yr feet. Further more King in New York is great picture, - I figure
it will take about 10 yrs before it looks funny in perspective. Every few years
we dream in our sleep we meat you. (“Poems”)
The writing is bizarre and scattered but uses a lot of images
Orlovsky plays with constantly. [19] With the use of shorter words, and jumpy ideas, he writes
less of unreality and more of excitement. Though Orlovsky uses Bretonian methods
of free-association writing, since this is a collaboration with Ginsberg, it makes
sense that this letter reads more like Beat prose poetry than his fully independent
work. The rest of the letter basically surveys what Orlovsky has learned in India
and how much he admires Chaplin before he asks “What else shall we say to you before
we all die? If everything we feel could be said it would be very beautiful” (“Poems”).
In this instance, Orlovsky demonstrates that it is too difficult to express what
one wishes to say since the words behind feelings are inaccessible. At the very
end of the letter, after an odd “synops[is]” (“Poems”), Orlovsky signs off with
the final message: “you will save the world if ya make it – but ur final look must
be so beautiful that it doesnt matter if the world is saved or not. Okay I guess
we can end it now. Forgive us if you knew it all before” (“Poems”). [20] These final few phrases offer
a glimpse of sobriety after the initial cascade of energy. The letter rides a natural
high through to its demonstration of sincere emotion cradled beneath it. What it
is exactly that Orlovsky wishes to say to Chaplin remains between the two of them.
Perhaps the letter is more to himself in the image of a world-saving-and-creating
comedian rather than to Chaplin himself. This letter is an exaggerated version of
the ones he writes to his friends and family during the same period and is more
Beat than his typical middle period.
After a noted pause in writing, Orlovsky completed “Lepers
Cry” one of his most notable poems due to its publication as number fifteen in the
Oblong Octavo Series. [21] This 1971 poem reads more like his middle period poems primarily
due to the subject matter, his structure, and his surrealist tone; he is not nearly
as jovial as in his later period and he discusses the memory of encountering a woman
with leprosy while in India. This poem is of a significantly more serious nature
than his other later poems.
“Lepers Cry” opens with Orlovsky’s description of the scene:
“When in Banaras / India in 1961 Summer I was / flooded on my morphine mattress”
(“Poems”). Throughout most of the poem he describes how he cares for this woman
with leprosy as he writes,
[the] maggots
became more alive and
active
& danced into the air
above her
side more. It was
difficult
to get all the maggots out
so after
a few
pourings
and cotton cleanings I
covered
it with sulpher ointment of
I dont
quite remember because its
been 10
years ago and I have
been so
scattered fingers to write
This real
sad tail – which is
another
discusting disease in its self (“Poems”).
This segment is an example of how he combines memory and personal
reflection with the surreal. The maggots develop lives of their own similar to his
toe in “Snail Poem.” Although he demonstrates his sadness towards the end of this
segment, he includes a sense of hyper-fixation with this illness he attempts to
treat. He demonstrates a deep sadness and compassion for this woman with leprosy
while he writes an almost perverted poem of fascination with the illness. [22] Orlovsky’s use of the contrasting
tones, along with the jarring jumps between recounting, spontaneous images, and
reflection create the surreal tone in this poem that reflects the poems from his
middle period.
Most of the remainder of the poem focuses on various days
when he attempts to help the woman clean her infections. A remarkable Surrealist
image he later introduces reads,
I saw
her again
and this Time I looked
on her
right side behind and there
was another
maggot soupe dish
big and
eaten down
to her
thigh bone (“Poems”).
Orlovsky’s middle period is his largest. He wrote thirty-three
of his fifty-six poems in Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs
during these few years. [23] Although these poems do vary in subject matter, they are
distinctly denser in surreal imagery and other surreal poetic tactics than those
of his earlier period. Here, he fluctuates between eccentric images and more calculated
surreal ones. In these poems, he records a lot of his life, both from day-to-day
minute moments to bigger, once-in-a-lifetime experiences he lives as he travels. [24] The length and complexity of
his middle period poems also help suggest his comfort in himself solidified during
these years; he granted himself more words and space to write and allowed himself
to express his thoughts comprehensively. In this period, he was preoccupied with
his place in the world and seems to try to stabilize himself through his “memory
ramblings” (“Poems”). The early and middle periods share the same style of surreal
experimentation as it pertains to tone. The primary difference is that he did not
stop himself as readily in this middle period. Instead, when he stumbled, he frequently
employed em-dashes, line breaks, and section breaks to restore the poem’s momentum
to a surrealist viewpoint. Further, both periods play with surreal images and create
the sense of a serious and plausible impossible wonderland, one that would feel
real in a dream. He remained hyper-critical and self-aware in these periods as he
attempts to question and record himself and his surroundings even though they appeared
surreal to him.
His later period underwent a significant shift from this established
sound. Orlovsky attempted to maintain his Beat and surrealist notes of fast paced
ideas and phrases but ultimately lost control of the atmosphere he constructed in
his early and middle writings. Altogether, Orlovsky’s middle period is the most
profoundly demonstrative of his creative capabilities and does not indicate his
creative decline.
IV – Later Poems
After his return from India, Orlovsky’s mental health slowly
declined as he wrote less frequently (Morgan, A Life in Words). Ginsberg’s
fame began to rise while the pair travelled throughout the United States and spent
months apart. Ginsberg’s biographer, Michael Schumacher, suggests “If anyone suffered
as a result of Allen’s fame, it was Peter Orlovsky”. Peter’s reliance on drugs caused
him to frequently find himself in manic, drug-induced cleaning frenzies (Morgan,
A Life in Words). Between 1963 and 1971, he took a break from composing whole
poems as he underwent frequent cycles of drug abuse and attempts to remain sober
(Morgan, A Life in Words). To offer the support he needed, in 1968 Ginsberg
purchased a farm in Cherry Valley, New York, to serve as a retreat from the drug-filled
streets of the Lower-East Side (Schumacher). During his years on the farm, Orlovsky’s
writing adopted a new style as he developed a passion and borderline obsession with
farming, pesticides, and GMOs. Along with his subject matter, his composition shifted
to an unstable, more chaotic, and louder one than he had ever written in. Further,
Orlovsky wrote seven songs which he includes in Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling
Vegetable Songs, that further express his interest in agriculture. This final
period is Orlovsky’s most eccentric but is also less refined than his earlier periods.
The poems and songs feel generally incomplete, messy, and careless as they frequently
employ scatology.
A notable demonstration of his latter period’s style is 1977’s
“My Mother Memory Poem.” Orlovsky repeatedly read this controversial poem at the
Naropa Institute and normally prefaced his reading with a statement about how his
mother wishes he would stop sharing it. [25] The short poem reads,
My mothers
very funney some times,
when I
was 17teen she told me
she sucked
my gigger when I was 3 months old
& sucked
my dildo in frunt of my farther
& he
got jealous she said & he told her to quit haveing fun.
I always
loved that storey & tell it fast when ever I can
to sweet
friendley girls. (“Poems”)
This poem arguably shows Orlovsky’s state of mind during his
later period. It is a gross tale that he calls “funney.” His tone and writing are
on the sloppier side of his poems. His declaration that he tries to share this story
as fast as he can only reaffirms its quality; Orlovsky is more concerned with retelling
this story to pick up women, as he indicates in the final line. He does not make
an active attempt to construct a full scene in this poem even though it is a technique
he employed constantly in his middle period. [26] This poem is an attempt at
Surrealism through his effort to attract intrigue, though his use of the disgusting
images and thoughts, but the poem does not reach its full surreal potential. Instead,
it leaves the reader dissatisfied and uncomfortable. This poem is an unsatisfactory
attempt of Orlovsky’s desire to write like a surrealist.
Later in the same year, Orlovsky writes the poem “America,
Give a Shit!” in which he urges city-dwellers to contribute their excrement to nearby
farms to use as fertilizer. He writes,
Remembering
Allen & me walking to East River
around
17th Street
& there
we saw the sewage flow about 2 feet deep
out 6 foot
diameter tunnel
slowely
moveing melting into East River.
What interesting
surprise brown flow discovery,
on its
way to East Rivers garden floor.
Even cows
dont throw away their plop
but let
it drop
near many
eating pasture spots
& next
year dung turns into better green
grass than
before. (“Poems”)
Once again, although almost as parody, Orlovsky seems to write
in a similar mindset to Baudelaire in the sense that they both intend to powerfully
shock their readers. Orlovsky writes excitedly and passionately about human excrement
and focuses on how it can lead to healthier and greener grass when used correctly.
The poem features remarkably disgusting and unpleasant images; in almost a childlike
sense, he brings colours and passion to what few would ever like to think of. But
instead of following the poem and allowing it to reach a natural climax and conclusion,
he winds down the poem with the suggestion that farmers sing “odes to human dung
/ while raking more dried human manure / into the ground under persimmon fruit trees”
(“Poems”). In this poem, Orlovsky describes himself as though he is not alone in
singing songs about human waste. He concludes the poem with a juxtaposing image:
one of beautiful pastures. The evolution between fertilizer and natural growth is
fairly unremarkable and possesses a realist quality rather than a surrealist one.
Orlovsky effectively plays with disgusting images in this poem but does not use
them to realize the surrealist vision present in his early and middle periods. Rather,
this poem is a mere description of an environmental dream. Orlovsky’s tone does
not even align closely with the ones he uses in previous poems; the use of the rhyme
“drop” and “plop” aligns more closely with the juvenile tone he uses in his songs
during this later period.
This bizarre, juvenile, yet highly engaged tone is present
in the seven songs he includes in Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs;
four of which are about healthy crops. Arguably his most famous song, “All Around
the Garden” written to the tune of Jimmy Rodgers’s “All Around the Water Tank” begins
with the date and the setting of the scene:
All around
the garden, May 30, 1973
Only planted
600 feet of Edable Pea Pods
Oh belly
how silly I can be
All around
the Rhubarb Patch,
nearby
dairy farmer Mr. Grahm let me have
his 50
year old Rhubarb Patch,
Transplanted
& growing as big as the ground
Floor of
a red Rhubarb house. (“Poems”)
Buckets
full of human manure, here I come after you.
All around
the compost pile
The bigger
the compost pile the better
Hey compost
pile as big as my room
With the
help of a million worms
I’m gonna
drag you into my dreams. (“Poems”)
The image Orlovsky constructs goes from one of a vegetable
patch to the one of human waste. The size of the image of compost crescendos through
repetition and it plateaus with the notion that it will take one million worms to
help him deal with it. However, the most Surreal part of this verse is that he insists
he will employ these worms to transport the manure from the physical realm into
his dream world, something no one would ever realistically want to do nor be excited
about. The song goes from a lighthearted nature to one that evokes sickness, disgust,
and unease.
Another song that focuses on a similar subject matter is “Feeding
them Rassberres to Grow.” The song begins with,
5 years
ago up in New York State
Planted
50 feet of the Rassberry Gate
Now I see
them growing on my plate
Lovey sweet
Rassberrys growing in a row
Sweetest
country time
Feeding
them Rassberrys to grow (“Poems”)
This song possesses a more lyrical quality than “All Around
the Garden” The rhyme scheme of this first stanza goes AAABCB. He does not maintain
this rhyme structure throughout but does include the AAA rhyme pattern for the following
two and then fifth and sixth stanzas. This poem combines the juvenile voice that
frequents this later period with his refined knowledge of agriculture.
He throws in the occasional surreal image in “Feeding them
Rassberres to Grow” such as “I see them growing on my plate” (“Poems”) alongside
the discussion of the growing raspberries. Arguably the most surreal part of the
song is during the final stanza when he says,
Oh you
grow with a little red hat over yr eye
Oh you
grow a little sigh in the middle of my eye
Oh Im in
love w/ you, till I die –
Rassberry,
Rassberry, Rassberrey, Sweet inside
Oh Sweet
Rassberry, healthey & drinkable inside
Drink you,
drink you, til you grow, sweeter inside me
Sweet is
the flowers that bloom in august,
my little
red bells
Hang you
from my memory window tung brain (“Poems”).
Here, Orlovsky demonstrates his keen obsession with the raspberries.
Orlovsky is insatiable; he desires more and more of the raspberries inside of him
for them to grow and to gain all the sugar. It is truly bizarre and nearly uncomfortable
to read. Though, some of this discomfort comes from the surrealist tactics Orlovsky
employs. He plays with the surreal images of the “red hat” raspberries growing over
eyes and suggests that they grow sweet as inside of him as he consumes them. This
sense of continuous growth is reminiscent of both Alice in Wonderland and
the doors he kept running through in “Dear Allen.” The song seems to exist in a
completely different world where the only thing of importance is the raspberry.
Unlike “All Around the Garden” Orlovsky does not take his attentions off the raspberries
to create a series of images; he only focuses on the raspberries and is hyper-fixated
on them beyond rationality.
In 1974, Orlovsky began to teach occasional classes at the
Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Colorado.
Most of the courses he taught happened during the summer semester, an important
time for a farmer, which rendered the farm less beneficial to his recovery (Morgan,
A Life in Words). He taught numerous courses during the core school year,
but in those lectures, he often sounds exhausted and irritable. [27] Morgan suggests that
During
the final thirty years of his life Peter had fewer and fewer lucid days. … his use
of drugs and alcohol fueled his increasingly crazy activities … eventually winding
up in halfway houses, clinics, and mental institutions. His writing became even
more sporadic, incoherent, and scatological in nature (A Life in Words 267).
There is little to pull from these final years as most of
it is jumbled and not reflective of his earlier, deliberate work. Even in his last
poem from his journals, Orlovsky demonstrates how he was no longer in the same frame
of mind he had once been in: “Like a fool, Uncle Pete shot too much coke / and now
no money left – / Not to mention no brains left” (A Life in Words 283). Nevertheless, Orlovsky’s later poems not only highlight
the extraordinary nature of his earlier works but help to contextualize his poetry
in his life. Although his earlier poems offer more room for literary praise, these
final poems help to emphasize his employment of scatology throughout his creative
career and to demonstrate the importance Orlovsky placed on Surrealism. His use
of scatology in these final poems is reminiscent of his darker, more disturbing
images in his earlier poems, such as in “Snail Poem” but they are more extreme.
Although these final poems appear disconnected from Orlovsky’s more active, earlier
periods, they reflect his mental decline and demonstrate the importance he placed
on his creative impulses regardless.
V – Conclusion
Peter Orlovsky was an overlooked
poet, educator, and member of the Beat Generation. Alongside his life partner, Allen
Ginsberg, Orlovsky spent his creative career developing his own unique style, creative
personality, and voice. Although he was certainly a Beat poet, with respect to both
his style and contemporaries, he drew extensive inspiration from the Surrealist
movement and surrealistic poets. In various written and oral mediums, he vocalized
the ways poets such as Arthur Rimbaud, Guillaume Apollinaire, Federico García Lorca,
Kenneth Koch (“How I Learned to Write and Who I Learned From” “Poems”), Louis-Ferdinand
Céline, and Paul Verlaine (A Life in Words) influenced him through various
written and oral mediums. These records suggest he possessed a thorough acquaintance
with the artistic outputs of Surrealist and satellite-Surrealist writers that helped
modify his style. Even though he did not engage personally with the core members
of the French Surrealist circle, his poetic inspirations did, and important elements
of his style and form were influenced by the circle. In reviewing his published
and unpublished creative work, it becomes evident that Orlovsky learned creative
techniques from these poets, resulting in his unique employment of the surreal.
In this essay, I have assessed
how Orlovsky plays with the surrealistic in fourteen of his fifty-five poems in
Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs, as well as in further poems
and poetic entries from his journals published in Peter Orlovsky: A Life in Words.
Even so, this investigation serves as only a survey of Orlovsky’s work. Although
surreal and Beat elements are present throughout Orlovsky’s body of creative work,
the poems assessed here demonstrate the relationship between these two creative
schools in his most widely circulated and discussed poems. [28] He interweaves Surrealist
and Beat poetic characteristics and styles consistently throughout his body of artistic
work.
Joanna Pawlik supports this
method of investigation into Surrealist interactions with Beat poetry when she suggests
that
American writers’ dialogues
with Surrealism were not usually with the ‘First Manifesto’ of 1924, or solely about
irrationality, fragmentation, spontaneity, or romanticism… [they] were instead more
frequently conducted between the many mediated versions of Surrealism in circulation,
a consequence of the movement’s long history and permeation of transnational literary,
artistic and intellectual cultures.
Even though historical and formal
definitions help to establish and contextualize artistic movements and ideas, they
also serve as limitations against holistic investigations into the nature of artists
removed from and yet influenced by a movement. Peter Orlovsky was unlike the best-known
Beat-Surrealist poet Philip Lamantia, in the sense that he drew inspiration from
other surrealistic writers and did not engage with the Surrealists themselves. Orlovsky
was a Beat poet in both his style and associations with the core Beat members, but
he was also a surrealist poet in his implementations of surrealistic concerns and
techniques. He primarily drew inspiration from other poets who wrote in surrealistic
fashions and demonstrates their influences through his unique, fragmented, and vernacular
poems. He employed disconnected and startling images that are often reminiscent
of Surrealism and he concerned himself more with describing his experiences as he
imagined them rather than how they engaged with society more broadly, as most Beat
poets did. The lack of a connection with official Surrealist writers does not change
the presence nor impact of the surrealist techniques in Orlovsky’s poems. Rather,
Orlovsky only affirms Pawlik’s suggestion that surrealism expanded beyond the Surrealists.
This account of Orlovsky attempts
to demonstrate how he created in his own style routed in the surreal. Although it
is a Surrealist tactic, his demonstrated inclination towards misspellings is also
reminiscent of E. E. Cummings’ style. Cummings was not a Surrealist, but this surrealistic
tactic he used mirrors Orlovsky’s. Although it is difficult to discern whether these
irregularities were purposeful or circumstantial, his education history suggests
that his spelling was a result of his schooling, and his letters, journals, and
poems remain inconsistent. He wrote a number of entries that are grammatically and
orthographically strong along with numerous others that contained frequent and repetitive
mistakes. Whether intentional or not, these misspellings and vernacular writing
create Orlovsky’s distinctively juvenile, oral, and loose sound. The implementation
of misspellings follows in the dual Surrealist and Beat modes to write automatically,
with one’s “first thought.” He uses this language to employ other elements of Surrealism,
such as his colloquial tone, surreal images, and the suggestion that his reality
and thought are constantly disconnected from each other.
Even though Orlovsky’s poetry
fluctuated in his implementation of the Surreal throughout his creative career,
this evolution suggests his keen and active involvement with Surrealism and his
own poetry. He grew increasingly comfortable with his experiments until he reached
a resounding peak in his writing. External forces then caused him to pause his creative
pursuits for a decade. During this time, he experienced significant emotional and
physical traumas primarily due to his relationships with drugs and alcohol. Although
most of his work during his final period is not as strong as his earlier work, his
interest in and implementation of the Surreal prevails to his final works in Clean
Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs.
His combination of these two
literary styles, the Beat and the Surreal, demonstrates Peter Orlovsky as a poet
worthy of recognition and study. To date, Orlovsky has not received sufficient critical
response nor recognition. Thankfully, Bill Morgan completed an annotated selection
of Orlovsky’s correspondence and journals in 2014, but this is the most comprehensive
attention his work has received to date, and it offers a biographical picture rather
than a scholarly review. Even critical mentions of Orlovsky, such as those written
by Ann Charters in The Portable Beat Reader, Beat Down to Your Soul,
and her critical essay “Peter Orlovsky” paint the picture of Orlovsky as “the original
‘flower child’” (Charters in A Life in Words, xiv) of the Beat Generation
rather than as the serious poet he was. The tendency to attribute his success to
Ginsberg also devalues his legacy as a poet that he deserves.
Further analysis of the relationship
between Surrealism and Beat in Peter Orlovsky’s published poetry would likely continue
to assert the merit of his poetic style. This research would continue the investigation
into the relationship between Surrealism and the Beat Generation beyond that of
the poets in direct communication with the core French school. Additional investigation
into his other influences, such as the potential influence of E. E. Cummings, could
also offer valuable insight into the value, complexity, and eclectic style Peter
Orlovsky developed throughout his artistic career. Finally, more attention given
to the role Orlovsky played as a member of the Beat Generation, not as an aside,
but as the focus of an investigation, could offer insight into Orlovsky’s development
as a poet, and into the roles other minor and fluid members of the Beat group. These
research avenues will prove helpful in furthering our historical and academic understandings
of the Beat Generation and the work its members produced. It will also simply continue
to demystify the legend Peter Orlovsky left in his wake as an ethereal character
in Ginsberg’s story, and will offer both the positive and negative recognition this
artist deserves.
NOTAS
1.
Most frequently, when Orlovsky is mentioned, Allen Ginsberg is accredited with encouraging
him to write to the extent that Orlovsky’s career seems almost like one of Ginsberg’s
many accomplishments. For example, when introducing his chapter in The Portable Beat Reader, Ann Charters suggests that, “Encouraged by
Ginsberg, Orlovsky wrote occasional poetry” (404).
2.
Orlovsky highlights how he derived influence from these poets in “How I Write Poetry
and Who I Learned From.” In the prose poem, he outlines what he learned from Gregory
Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Chögyam Trungpa, and William Carlos
Williams, all of whom were closely associated with or integral members of the Beat
movement. He also demonstrates what he learned from the Surrealists and pre-Surrealists
Arthur Rimbaud,
Guillaume Apollinaire, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Kenneth Koch (“Poems” 123-124).
Additionally, in his journals and letters, Orlovsky
frequently drops the names of poets he read. He mentions Rimbaud, Louis-Ferdinand
Céline, and Paul Verlaine as early as August of 1956 in a Letter to Ginsberg (“Life
in Words”45-46).
3.
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Cassady, and Hunke were a group of friends who wrote
and collaborated on writing in the early years that later acted as the beginning
of the Beat Generation before their eventual collision with the San Francisco Renaissance
Poets.
4. See First Thought Best Thought by Allen
Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Anne Waldman, and Diane di Prima as well as I.II: The
Beats.
5.
See “How I Write Poetry and Who I Learned From” in Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling
Vegetable Songs and his audio lecture, “Literary History of the Beat Generation
1982” in the Naropa University Audio Archive for examples.
6.
André Breton published Lamantia’s first collection of poems in 1943.
7.
Toward his later period, Orlovsky does develop some political drive. He becomes
preoccupied with the destruction of land and mass-agriculture, though his political
concerns do not overtake his writings. See section IV: Later Poems for further conversation
on the political element in his poetry.
8.
This distinction between the Beat and the Surrealist automatic writing is important
albeit slight. A Surrealist’s use of automatic writing will present as jarring and
disconnected images, fluid unreal images, and emotive declarations about the state
of reality versus unreality. Meanwhile Beat automatic writing manifests as long
passages of thought about a problem or moment, cries against corporate culture,
consumption, and industrialization, as well as frequent evocations and allusions
to inspirational artists and poets. It can be difficult to distinguish between Beat
and Surrealist automatic writing because both schools tend to use a colloquial tone
during automatic writing. Their contexts, content, and motivation tend to be better
distinguishing factors. The effects of their automatic writing most heavily rely
upon their content. Even so, their rapidity, fluidity, and jumbled nature tends
to add a sense of urgency and orality to both school’s poems.
9.
The Naropa University Audio Archives offer extensive audio recordings from workshops,
classes, and readings where Orlovsky spoke. His register was often excited and fast
paced and he spoke in with less-refined diction, often swearing or using excessive
colloquialisms. His poetry often sounded like he spoke with his students when teaching
and conversing in the sense that they share his rhythmic speech patterns and word
styles.
10.
See Chapter III: Middle Poems.
11.
See Chapter V: Conclusion for further discussion regarding his orthography.
12.
See Orlovsky’s poems “I Dream of St. Francis” “Mental Hospital Julius” and “Peter’s
Jealous of Allen.”
13.
See Chapter IV: Later Poems.
14.
See II: Early Poems for comparison.
15.
The Phoenix Book Shop published Lepers Cry as number fifteen in their
Oblong Octavo Series. The only other creative work Orlovsky publishes in its
entirety as a stand-alone publication is Dear Allen: Ship Will Land Jan 23, 58
published by Intrepid Press in 1971 as number five in their The Beau Fleuve
Series.
16.
Such as how Ginsberg evokes the image of Walt Whitman in “Supermarket in California”
or how Ferlinghetti evokes the images of Goya’s paintings in “In Goya’s Greatest
Scenes.”
17.
As mentioned briefly in I.II: The Beats, the Beat poets often wrote about the despair
of modern humanity. Common themes include people’s discontent with and from modernity,
urbanization, industrialization, rising corporate culture. Often, images are bleak
and dusty and represent the cityscape as something soulless with little pockets
of life to be sought out. Orlovsky’s preliminary description of the people on the
subway is a remarkable example of what it looks like when the world beats down
on people. They do not share Orlovsky’s excitement in everyone’s movement and
coming together in this space; they demonstrate apathy toward their surroundings.
18. See the note regarding “Letter to Charlie
Chaplin” in the compiled reference version of Floating Bear (Di Prima).
19.
Such as feet, love, New York, dreams etc.
20.
This statement is reminiscent of Ginsberg’s description of the Beats quoted on page
7. Orlovsky and Ginsberg emphasize the Beat ethos of recording and coming to terms
with how the world beats down.
21.
See footnote 14 for more information.
22.
Orlovsky’s interest in the ill woman follows in the pre-Surrealist tradition Baudelaire
establishes in “Une Charogne” where Baudelaire describes a carcass in extensive
detail.
23.
Thirty-four when relaxing the date parameters (early 1958 to late 1963) and including
“Lepers Cry.”
24.
His travels certainly help to broaden the scope of his writing. He wrote various
poems and journal entries about the new places and things that he saw. See “Trying
My Best To Walk Around Paris” and “August 23, 1961 Cairo Notebook” for examples.
25.
See the “Fundraiser Reading” from the 12th of August 1972, available
in the Naropa University Audio Archives, for an example.
26.
See III.II: Snail Rambling, Subway Rides, and Collaborations for my analysis of
“Poems from Subway to Work” for an example of Orlovsky’s ability to construct a
scene.
27. See the “Poetry for Mouth Singers” lectures
from the Naropa Archives for examples.
28.
Many of the poems I discuss in this essay were previously published in literary
magazines. For example, prior to Clean Asshole Poems, Orlovsky published
“Second Poem” twice: the first time in Yungen volume 4 from 1959 and the
second time in The New American Poetry edited by Donald Allen from 1960.
He also recorded readings for some of his later poems such as “My Mother’s Memory
Poem” and “Feeding Them Raspberries To Grow” in UP, a 1971 collaborative,
spoken-word record with Allen Ginsberg. Finally, Orlovsky would read certain poems
at poetry readings and in classes at the Naropa Institute more frequently than others.
See for example his readings of “Frist Poem” and “Second Poem” during his 1982 Lecture
“Literary History of the Beat Generation.”
WORKS CITED
Baudelaire, Charles. “Un Charogne.” Œuvres complètes.
Edited by Jean Ziegler, Gallimard, 1975.
Benedikt, Michael. The Poetry of Surrealism:
An Anthology. Little, Brown & Company, 1974.
Breton,
André. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Translated by Richard Seaver and Helen
R. Lane, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1972.
Charters, Ann. “Peter Orlovsky.” Beat
Down to Your Soul. New York, Penguin Books, 2001.
___. “Peter Orlovsky.”
The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America, edited by Ann Charters, Gale, 1983. Dictionary of Literary
Biography Vol. 16.
Charters, Ann. The Portable Beat Reader.
New York, Penguin Books, 1992.
Di Prima, Diane. Untitled note. The Floating
Bear: A Newsletter, issue 21, New York, 1962.
French, Warren. The San Francisco Poetry
Renaissance, 1955-1960. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1991.
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “In Goya’s Greatest
Scenes.” A Coney Island of the Mind. New York, New Directions, 1958.
Ginsberg, Allen, Peter Orlovsky, Peter Rowan,
Anne Waldman, Philip Whalen, and others. “Fundraiser Reading.” Naropa University
Audio Archive, 12 August 1972, Naropa University, Boulder, Lecture. https://cdm16621.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16621coll1/id/1373.
Accessed 5 July 2021.
Ginsberg, Allen. “Sunflower Sutra.” Howl
and other poems. San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1959.
Kerouac, Jack. “[Biographical Resume, Fall
1957].” Heaven & other poems. San Francisco, Grey Fox Press, 1977.
Lamantia, Philip. The Collected Poems
of Philip Lamantia. Edited by Garret Caples, Andrew Joron, Nancy Joyce Peters,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 2013.
O’Hara, Frank.
“Meditations in an Emergency.” “Why I am Not a Painter” and other poems. Manchester, Carcanet Press Limited, 2003.
Orlovsky, Peter. Clean Asshole Poems
and Smiling Vegetable Songs. San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1978.
___. Dear Allen, Ship will land Jan 23,
58. Buffalo, Intrepid Press, 1971.
___. “Feeding Them Raspberries To Grow.”
UP, Rainbow Records, 1971.
___. “Literary History of The Beat Generation.”
Naropa University Audio Archive, 7 October 1983, Naropa University, Boulder.
Lecture.
___. Lepers Cry. New York, Phoenix
Book Shop, 1972.
___. “My Mother’s Memory Poem.” UP,
Rainbow Records, 1971.
___. Peter Orlovsky,
A Life in Words: Intimate Chronicles of a Beat Writer. Edited by Bill Morgan. Boulder,
Paradigm Publishers, 2014.
___. “Poetry
for Mouth Singers, no. 11.” Naropa University Audio Archive, 30 September, 1982, Naropa University,
Boulder.
___. “Poetry
for Mouth Singers, no. 12.” Naropa University Audio Archive, 7 October, 1982, Naropa
University, Boulder.
___. “Poetry
for Mouth Singers, no. 14.” Naropa University Audio Archive, 4 November, 1982, Naropa University,
Boulder.
___. “Poetry
for Mouth Singers, no. 15.” Naropa University Audio Archive, 2 December, 1982, Naropa University,
Boulder.
___. “Second Poem.” The New American
Poetry, edited by Donald Allen, Grove Press, New York, 1960.
___. “Second Poem” Yugen, vol. 4,
edited by LeRoi Jones and Hettie Cohen, New York, 1959.
Pawlik, Joanna. “Surrealism, Beat Literature
and the San Francisco Renaissance.” Literature Compass, vol. 10, no. 2, Blackwell
Publishing Ltd., 2013.
Schumacher, Michael. Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
RION LEVY. A researcher and poet based in Toronto, Canada. He is mainly concerned with the stories we choose not to tell and just what this says about us. His first book, Poems of the End Times, will be released Spring, 2023.
PIERRE MOLINIER (França, 1900-1976). Fue pintor, fotógrafo, diseñador y creador de objetos. En 1955, Pierre Molinier se puso en contacto con André Breton y en 1959 se exhibía en la Exposición Surrealista Internacional. En ese momento, definieron el propósito de su arte como para mi propia estimulación, indicando la dirección futura en una de sus exhibiciones en la muestra surrealista de 1965: un consolador. Entre 1965 y su suicidio en 1976, hizo una crónica de la exploración de sus deseos transexuales subconscientes en Cent Photographies Erotiques: imágenes gráficamente detalladas de dolor y placer. Molinier, con la ayuda de un interruptor de control remoto, también comenzó a crear fotografías en las que asumía los roles de dominatriz y súcubo que antes desempeñaban las mujeres de sus cuadros. En estas fotografías en blanco y negro, Molinier, ya sea solo con maniquíes de muñeca o con modelos femeninos, aparece como un travesti, transformado por su vestuario fetiche de medias de rejilla, liguero, tacones de aguja, máscara y corsé. En los montajes, un número improbable de miembros enfundados en medias se entrelazan para crear las mujeres de las pinturas de Molinier. Declaró: En la pintura, pude satisfacer mi fetichismo de piernas y pezones. Su principal interés con respecto a su sexualidad no era ni el cuerpo femenino ni el masculino. Molinier dijo que las piernas de ambos sexos lo excitan por igual, siempre que no tengan pelo y estén vestidas con medias negras. Sobre sus muñecas dijo: Si bien una muñeca puede funcionar como un sustituto de una mujer, no hay movimiento, no hay vida. Esto tiene cierto encanto si se está ante un cadáver hermoso. La muñeca puede, pero no tiene que convertirse en el sustituto de una mujer.
Agulha Revista de Cultura
Número 220 | dezembro de 2022
Artista convidado: Pierre Molinier (França, 1900-1976)
editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com
editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com
concepção editorial, logo, design, revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS
ARC Edições © 2022
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