Fred Hall ''Allen Ginsberg and pedophilia''

[Will Dockery]

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.poems/msg/aa523b0420cea54d?dm...

i knew it was wrong
i'm not really a good babysitter
i felt myself getting hard
as she sat in my lap
and then she kissed me
i told her no
she kept kissing me
soon the passion
was too much
i grabbed her
and slammed my swollen cock
into her virgin pussy
and exploded as she screamed
hours of screams
then...
her parents came home
asked if she did her homework
and if she behaved
she looked at me
and wet her lips with her tongue
i said yes
she was a perfect angel

This is obviously a ''shock poem'' in the style that Bukowski became
rich writing.

Of course it is. Yet Fred's got the idea from it that the poet is a
threat to children; not only that, but that everyone who doesn't agree
with that is also a threat to children.

Even closer to this poem, and much more based on the ''real life'' of the
poet, is the case of Allen Ginsberg, who in his later years was /very/
upfront about his pedophilia in his real life statements /and/ his poetry.

Ginsberg was even a member of NAMBLA, the pedophile rights group.

In fact, I posted on this, to little or no interest on these groups, since
not many here are really interested in poetry, a couple of years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg

Association with NAMBLA
Ginsberg also spoke out in defense of the freedom of expression of
NAMBLA.[13] Ginsberg stated "I joined NAMBLA in defense of free speech..."
In "Thoughts on NAMBLA," published in Deliberate Prose, Ginsberg elaborated
on these thoughts, stating "NAMBLA's a forum for reform of those laws on
youthful sexuality which members deem oppressive, (it is) a discussion
society not a sex club." Ginsberg expressed the opinion that the
appreciation of youthful bodies and "the human form divine" has been a
common theme throughout the history of culture, "from Rome's Vatican, to
Florence's Uffizi galleries, to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art," and
that laws regarding the issue needed to be more openly discussed. Ginsberg
left the organization when he felt that his point on freedom of speech in
America had been made.

http://www.salon.com/april97/columnists/paglia970415.html

THE PURITY OF ALLEN GINSBERG'S BOY-LOVE

Dear Camille:
For many of us children of the '60s, the recent death of Allen Ginsberg was
a major loss. But some critics contend that Ginsberg's legacy is stained by
his support for the North American Man-Boy Love Association. What are your
feelings about Ginsberg? What do you think of his pro-NAMBLA stand?
San Francisco hippie

Dear Hippie:

Allen Ginsberg, along with Marshall McLuhan and Norman O. Brown, was one of
the central figures of my college years in the '60s. He had enormous
influence on my intellectual development, and I would be proud to call him
my guru.

I was introduced to Ginsberg's masterpieces, "Howl" and "Kaddish," by a
brilliant teacher, the poet Milton Kessler, whose fierily rabbinic
recitations of those bardic lines are emblazoned in my psyche. Ginsberg's
hallucinatory imagery, incantatory rhythms and jazz syncopations are the
ultimate, operatic expression of 20th century sexual and political
radicalism. I raptly studied and treasured the small, black-and-white City
Lights Books editions of the two poems as if they were sacred texts from the
Jerusalem that was then avant-garde San Francisco.

Ginsberg is, just as he claimed, in the main line of modern, prophetic
poetry from William Blake through Walt Whitman and Hart Crane. Therefore it
saddens me that my illustrious graduate-school mentor, Harold Bloom, has
always dismissed Ginsberg and even refused to list him among important
contemporary American writers in the long appendix to "The Western Canon,"
which contains many, far lesser figures.

Through his influence on Bob Dylan (who in turn influenced the Beatles),
Ginsberg revolutionized rock lyrics and directly affected the thinking of
several generations of young people around the world. For this alone, he
deserved the Nobel Prize -- which continues to be awarded to safe, standard,
derivative, politely leftish, literary humanitarians. Ginsberg's Buddhist
mysticism, Hebrew severity, Hindu comedy and African polyrhythm were too
original a mix for the stuffy patriarchs of Stockholm.

I met Ginsberg only once, in April 1995 at the State University of New York
at Buffalo, which had invited me to be the main speaker at Fiedler Fest, a
lavish celebration of readings and performances in honor of longtime star
professor Leslie Fiedler. When Ginsberg and I were introduced at a
reception, I reverently bowed with hands pressed together in Buddhist
homage, a greeting he returned with surprised laughter.

There are a number of photographs of us intensely conversing as we sat
together at dinner at the university president's house. Ginsberg was already
in ill health. He complained of the censorship on American radio, which
prevented his poetry from being widely broadcast and therefore deprived him
of his livelihood. He blamed his problems entirely on the government and
seemed to know surprisingly little about campus political correctness, which
has played so negative a role in the culture wars and has particularly
threatened free speech.

As far as Ginsberg's pro-NAMBLA stand goes, this is one of the things I most
admire him for. I have repeatedly protested the lynch-mob hysteria that dogs
the issue of man-boy love. In "Sexual Personae," I argued that male
pedophilia is intricately intertwined with the cardinal moments of Western
civilization. Donatello's historically pivotal bronze sculpture, "David"
(1430), was my main exhibit -- a languidly flirtatious work that would get
the artist arrested for kiddie porn these days. In "Vamps & Tramps," I said
that Western moralism and hypocrisy have driven the matter underground and
overseas, where impoverished Third World boys now supply the sex trade.

Allen Ginsberg was the apostle of a truly visionary sexuality. Like the
expansive, sensual, democratic Whitman but unlike the twisted, dishonest,
pretentious Foucault, he saw the continuity between great nature and the
human body, bathed in waves of cosmic energy. Seen from this pagan
perspective, Ginsberg's celebration of boy-love was pure and sinless,
demonstrating the limitations of Judeo-Christian paradigms of sexuality...''

[No Man]

Hickory Dickory Dockery
A rat called throughout the rockery:
"I'm as close to Yeats
and them other greats,
As Swift's satire is to mere mockery!"