Gregory Corso (use this one)

1959 Uncomprising year—I see no meaning to life. Though this abled self is here nonetheless, either in trade gold or grammaticness, I drop the wheelwright’s simple principle— Why weave the garland? Why ring the bell? Penurious butchery these notoriously human years, these confident births these lucid deaths these years. Dream’s flesh blood reals down life’s mystery— there is no mystery. Cold history knows no dynastic Atlantis. The habitual myth has an eagerness to quit. No meaning to life can be found in this holy language nor beyond the lyrical fabricator’s inescapable theme be found the loathed find—there is nothing to find. Multitudinous deathplot! O this poor synod— Hopers and seekers paroling meaning to meaning, annexing what might be meaningful, what might be meaningless. Repeated nightmare, lachrymae lachrymae— a fire behind a grotto, a thick fog, shredded masts, the nets heaved—and the indescribable monster netted. Who was it told that red flesh hose be still? For one with smooth hands did with pincers snip the snout—It died like a yawn. And when the liver sack was yanked I could not follow it to the pan. I could not follow it to the pan— I woke to the reality of cars; Oh the dreadful privilege of that vision! Not one antique faction remained; Egypt, Rome, Greece, and all such pedigree dreams fled. Cars are real! Eternity is done. The threat of Nothingness renews. I touch the untouched. I rank the rose militant. Deny, I deny the tastes and habits of the age. I am its punk debauche .... A fierce lampoon seeking to inherit what is necessary to forfeit. Lies! Lies! Lies! I lie, you lie, we all lie! There is no us, there is no world, there is no universe, there is no life, no death, no nothing—all is meaningless, and this too is a lie—O damned 1959! Must I dry my inspiration in this sad concept? Delineate my entire stratagem? Must I settle into phantomness and not say I understand things better than God? Gregory Corso http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1959/ Gregory Corso was a postmodern poet that died in 2001 and lived in New York City, NY. He was an important member of the beat movement. He lived in the time of 1959, so the poem speaks from a real life experience about the time. Hardships and struggles are evident from the poem. It acts as if giving up was close. “There is no of us, there is no world, there is no universe” is a very dark and radical view of the world. He felt that there was no meaning, and he uses poetic devices to convey this attitude and a negative connotation. He uses imagery to further this negative image about the darkness of life. He was 29 at this time, so he had an educated view that he had experienced a lot in his life at this point. It is a free verse poem, which goes along with the way he described this and wrote. The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who wrote in the 1950s, and they had a distinct culture. Beat culture included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition. Corso had radical beliefs, and he fit in with the other Beat Generation writers, yet the things he had to say were meaningful and possibly how a lot of people felt after World War II.