title

I’m also still struggling with a working title… for some reason, though, I keep gravitating toward the words “binge” or “bent.” Maybe moreso bent, as it can be a slang for being intoxicated and gay, which fits Allen to a T.

I’m only worrying that the title might mess with maybe how the poems may feel. I don’t know if that sounds weird, but I can’t explain it. But if I do go with either of those words, I want them to be a play on one of Ginsberg’s titles, or even a line in his poetry. Specifically, I’m focusing on the poems he wrote in East Harlem from June-July in 1948. I think my most promising idea right now is maybe calling it “The Bent Rose.” It’s a play on Blake’s “The Sick Rose,” which is the poem Ginsberg was reading when he had his vision. Also, the image of a bent rose might be intriguing, so it could be a possibility, but something in me isn’t 100% sold – and isn’t Allen himself a bent rose, a vulnerable flower that’s been crippled by emotional turmoil?

Additionally, but maybe off topic, one of my favorite poetic lines Ginsberg uses toward the end of Part I of “Howl” is “and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination” (117). That image of the yellow paper rose, in my opinion, is a symbol of his mother, after he signed the papers for her lobotomy. Maybe he also saw himself as a flower? That’s a question for another day.

I’m still thinking about it, trust me, but for now I’m going with “The Bent Rose.” I think. Maybe.