White Shroud: Poems, 1980-1985 [Hardcover]

Allen Ginsberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1986

Poems by a modern master. "[Ginsberg's] powerful mixture of Blake, Whitman, Pound, and Williams, to which he added his own volatile, grotesque, and tender humor, has assured him a memorable place in modern poetry."-- Helen Vendler

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is Ginsberg's first collection since the publication of his Collected Poems ( LJ 12/84). The title poem, a dream vision in which the poet meets his dead mother, returns to the subject of "Kaddish" (1961). Aging, mortality, and political protest are common themes. The poems often convey a sense of frustration and outrage, but the anger is mitigated by humor and compassion. Ginsberg experiments here with a wide range of styles from short haiku forms to rock-and-roll songs; "Old Love Story," a joyous celebration of homosexual love, is written in heroic couplets. Included is a series of poems written by the poet during a 1984 visit to the People's Republic of China. A major work by one of America's foremost poets, White Shroud belongs in all collections of contemporary poetry. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

The Question
221 Syllables At Rocky Mountain Dharma Center
After Antipater
Airplane Blues (with Music)
Arguments
Black Shroud
Brown Rice Quatrains
Cadillac Squawk
Do The Meditation Rock
Empire Air (flying To Rochester Institute Of Technology)
Fighting Phantoms Fighting Phantoms
Going To The World Of The Dead (with Music)
The Guest
Happening Now? End Of Earth? Apocalypse Days?
Homage Vajracarya
I Am Not
I Love Old Whitman So
I'm A Prisoner Of Allen Ginsberg
In My Kitchen In New York
Industrial Waves
Irritable Vegetable
It's All So Brief
Jumping The Gun On The Sun
The Little Fish Devours The Big Fish (with Music)
Love Comes
Maturity
Memory Cousins
Moral Majority
Old Love Story
One Morning I Took A Walk In China
Porch Scribbles (1)
Porch Scribbles (2)
Porch Scribbles (3)
Prophecy
A Public Poetry
Reading Bai Juyi
Red Cheeked Boyfriends Tenderly Kiss Me Sweet Mouthed
Student Love
Sunday Prayer
Surprise Mind
They're All Phantoms Of My Imagining
Things I Don't Know
Those Two
Thoughts Sitting Breathing Ii
'throw Out The Yellow Journalists Of Bad Grammar'
What The Sea Throws Up At Vlissengen
What You Up To?
White Shroud
Why I Meditate
World Karma
Written In My Dream By W. C. Williams
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 89 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers; First limted signed edition edition (1986)
• ISBN-10: 0060157151
• ISBN-13: 978-0060157159
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,815,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Allen Ginsberg was born in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, a son of Naomi Ginsberg and lyric poet Louis Ginsberg. In 1956 he published his signal poem, Howl, one of the most widely read and translated poems of the century. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French minister of culture in 1993, and co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute, the first accredited Buddhist college in the Western world, Allen Ginsberg died on April 5, 1997.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Say what?, April 27, 2004

By 

David R. Munson "Good enough isn't." (Chicago, IL, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Shroud: Poems 1980-1985 (Paperback)

Regardless of your feelings about the man, his lifestyle, and even his writings, one cannot deny that Ginsberg was one of the monumental figures of 20th century American literature. He was talented, prolific, and was writing good stuff up until the very end.

I was very pleased with the contents of this book. At this point I've read most of Ginsberg's writings. While I do in general prefer his earlier work to his later work, I definitely enjoyed the poems in this book. I'd put it a little above his "Cosmopolitan Greetings," which I also enjoyed very much.

I think it's important to not expect the Ginsberg of the 80s and 90s to be the same as the Ginsberg of the 40s and 50s. Like any creative individual, he evolved over time. Some may like the change, others apparently do not. I like all of his work, old and new, and I consider this to be as important a reading as anything else for anyone wanting to get a clear picture of the whole of Ginsberg. For those starting out with ginsberg, I would recommend the collected works book with the red cover from the same publisher to start with. But if you've already got an appreciation for the man and his work, I can recommend this volume without any reservations whatsoever.

5 stars for this one.

0 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars the famed beat poet fails to deliver, September 7, 2001

By 

[e-mail] "[e-mail]" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: White Shroud: Poems 1980-1985 (Paperback)

THE Beat Poet fails to deliver once again. i seriously don't know where this man's fame comes from. it isn't his poetry (with the exception of Howl and a few other poems). there really isn't much to say about ginsberg's work other than it is bad. maybe if he had spent a little time in revision he could have done better. you're best off with his selected or collected poems.