Planet News: 1961-1967 (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) [Paperback]

Allen Ginsberg (Author)

Book Description

Series: City Lights Pocket Poets Series | Publication Date: January 1, 2001

Planet News collecting seven years’ Poesy scribed to 1967 begins with electronic politics disassociation & messianic rhapsody TV Baby in New York, continues picaresque around the globe, elan perceptions notated at Mediterranean, Galilee & Ganges till next breakthrough, comedown Poem at heart & soul last days in Asia The Change 1963; tenement doldrums & police-state paranoia in Manhattan then half year behind Socialist Curtain climaxed as Kral Majales May King Prague 1965, same years’ erotic gregariousness writ as Who Be Kind To for International Poetry Incarnation Albert Hall London; next trip West Coast thru center America Midwest Wichita Vortex Sutra . . . at last across Atlantic Wales Visitation promethian text recollected in emotion revised in tranquility continuing tradition of ancient Nature Language mediates between psychedelic inspiration and humane ecology & integrated acid classic Unitive Vision with democratic eyeball particulars-book closes on politics to exorcise Pentagon phantoms who cover Earth with dung-colored gas.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Allen Ginsberg is also the author of Howl and Other Poems, which was originally published by City Lights Books in the fall of 1956.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: City Lights Publishers; First Edition ~1st Printing edition (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872860205
• ISBN-13: 978-0872860209
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #80 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Anthologies
  • #93 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Single Authors > United States
  • #100 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > United States > Poetry

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "to be meek, alone, beside a big dark lake at night -", October 19, 2000

By 

DJ Rix (NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Planet News: 1961-1967 (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) (Paperback)

It really pays to read Allen Ginsberg in the original City Lights Pocket Poets series. Each one has the special flavor of its cultural period in America. Planet News traces Allen's transformation from weary Fifties beat figure (1961)to his flowering as the bearded, iconic hippie prophet in the Uncle Sam hat (1967). Allen Ginsberg, Superstar.

Allen is approaching Forty as Kennedy is killed & the old, leftist folkie beat scene gets K.O.'d by the One-Two punches of The Beatles & Dylan Electrified. So, A.G. brings it all back home, "Here at the atomic crack-end of Time XX Century..."

Of the several small epics within Planet News, "Wichita Vortex Sutra" is the Ace. This long plane flight - actually one section of an infinitely long spin toward the Event Horizon - brings us face-to-face with the Vietnam Apocalypse & the growing cancer on America's soul, to be continued in the Fall of America.

But the beauty-soul of Planet News is found in the shorter poems: the lovely "Galilee Shore;" "Big Beat" & "Portland Coliseum," where The Beatles astonish him, no easy feat; The legendary "First Party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels," Allen doesn't seem terribly impressed; Crowned the "Kral Majales" in the short Prague springtime; "Death News" of his friend, William Carlos Williams; Waking up the Royal Albert Hall crowd with "Who Be Kind To," can you envision Marianne Faithful? & let us not overlook "Patna-Benares Express," "I Am A Victim of the Telephone" & especially "Why is God Love, Jack?" Yes, that Jack.

At last, "The Pentagon Exorcism: "Pentagon awake from planet-sleep!" & of course it never has from that day to this. But it did rise ten feet off the ground & spin like some nauseating carnival ride. At least, that's what I heard. Beautiful thing.

Bob Rixon