the week

Moving forward, it’s time to begin planning on how this project is going to take shape. In my head since the start of the semester, I’ve had this vague idea of how I wanted it to look, particularly in a digital space. I want to implement pictures from places Ginsberg has been (whether they’re taken from actual photos of his or ones I can take myself), and layer the picture with various clickable easter eggs. For example, if I have a picture of his apartment, I want the user to click a typewriter and have a poem come up, or if they click the radio, maybe a snippet of Jazz starts. Like I said, that’s how I envisioned it at the beginning of the semester, so the idea still seemed a little broad. However, I’ve honed the time period of my project down from a decade to a particular week.

From here, I’m focusing on the week in Allen’s life of when he had his vision that William Blake spoke to him for the first time – I believe that is an extremely important period in his life, and an event that made something inside him change tremendously, in terms of writer identity. In the summer of 1948, he had experienced what he could only describe as enlightenment, as he heard Blake speak to him (Morgan 103). That same time period, he was experiencing a flood of emotions – all of his friends were off doing things while he was stuck taking summer classes, Neal Cassady had rejected him, his dad was disappointed with his homosexuality, and so on. He smoked week everyday in that apartment in Harlem, alone and stuck with his thoughts. I feel like that time period has such potential in creating poetry and is pivotal in how Allen had started to think of himself, especially as a writer, and a prophet.

Thus, for my thesis, I want each section to be envisioned as each day of the week. I need to go back to his interview with The Paris Review to see if he mentions the exact date (or at least day of the week), because I want that to at least have some weight of reality. That will be my next move. The rest of the outline for the day of the week and certain events will be fleshed out after that climax.

Additionally, I know I talked about the digital space project earlier – I’ll map that out more in the future! There’s also strong possibility for a paper version, which I think is totally probable For now, though, I’m focusing on outlining the week. In a few days, I’ll storyboard more of this (mostly, after my portfolio is due for my class tomorrow!)

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put down your cigarette rag

I wanted to reread “Kaddish” today, and then when I finished, I wanted to hear it read by Allen himself. I know I’ve heard a recording of it before by him, but the one I was listening to just wasn’t doing it a lot of justice. I have it in the back of my mind to listen to an actual kaddish read aloud, because Dr. Rich says it will change the reading of the poem after listening to an actual one, which interested me.

Regardless, I went on Spotify, because Allen Ginsberg (as well as all the Beats) have channels full of recordings of them reading their work. Allen, too, loved to sing and record music, particularly later on – I haven’t really listened to any of it besides “Father Death Blues,” but I’ve been finding them amusing. I think they all speak to his character.

I also ordered three more books, one being Peter Carey’s book about Ned Kelly. The other two are also biographies about Ginsberg, so I’m wondering how / if they differ or can add anything that Bill Morgan hasn’t already covered in his biography of Allen. At any rate, they should be here next week, so I’m excited to read them.

In terms of the proposal: I’m still looking at what OED wants, and I guess I’m struggling writing my proposal to fit my thesis to it. I don’t know why I’m having such a difficult time with it.

poem for allen

Last Wednesday, Dr. Rich (the professor kinda sorta related to good old Allen) handed me a piece of paper before class started. He said it was a poem he had written a number of years ago, and he had more or less forgotten about it until our conversation had triggered the memory of it. Dr. Rich said he’s been having a lot of flashbacks and thoughts of Allen since our discussions about his own early life and encounters with Allen, and he wanted to share the poem with me, which I’ll share on this blog now:

 

To Allen Ginsberg

 

When I saw you on Public Television

You sparked tearful memories

About our family

 

Their concealments and jealousies

How your Aunt Rose was kind to me

But my father called her a Communist

 

What did that mean Allen

That she couldn’t hug me

Or I could not talk to her

 

Your Uncle Sam was the nicest man

I ever knew giving us rides in his Packard

While he spoke of his life in Russia

 

My mother and Bubba listened and glowed

I think my father was jealous and agry

Because he hated Russia and the pogroms

 

I never met your father

But he gave my Zeyde a copy of

The Everlasting Minute

 

I have it now next to Howl

But not my grandfather’s poetry

Bubba burned it after he died

 

So I finally called your Aunt Honey

Today after months of delay

Her voice richly intelligent

 

I want to talk to her more

To ask about you

Rose Naomi Sam Joel Claire

 

– Dr. Morton D. Rich

 

I was very emotional after reading the poem, and really appreciated that he was sharing it with me. After class, we talked more about Allen’s Aunt Rose and some other stories about the family. He also suggested I listen to a traditional kaddish, and then revisit Ginsberg’s “Kaddish.” Even if some of this seems “off topic” for my thesis, I don’t necessarily think it is – I enjoy listening to any real life knowledge of Allen, and I think it will all feed in to the character’s mythology. I told Dr. Rich that even if he remembers wrong, it still works out – any truths or untruths about Allen that he really believes are helpful and enjoyable.

exciting stuff?!

Last night I found out my professor for Writing for Young Adult and Children is kind of related to Allen Ginsberg – what?!

Apparently, his mom’s first cousin married Ginsberg’s aunt. So there’s kind of a relation / kind of not. His older brother, who was roughly around Ginsberg’s age, would hang out with young Allen. My professor would too, during his younger years, but since he wasn’t as old as the “older” boys, they sometimes excluded him. Needless to say, he lived a few blocks from Allen in Paterson, and more or less grew up with the young poet. He’s met Naomi a few times, but never Louis.

I told my professor about my fascination with Allen and my thesis, and he says I’m more than welcome to pick his brain about the poet! I’m very excited, and also very nervous! I’m still a little floored, but I have a lot to ask him next week!

allen goes digital, hailey goes on a rant

After last week’s Thesis Tank, you can say I was… inspired, so to say. Maybe a bit challenged, too. If I’m being honest, I feel like I got less out of it the experience than everyone else, and that’s okay – the panel was not a good fit for dispensing constructive criticism and guidance for my project. Besides Alan and Dr. Zamora, the only helpful response I got was from Kate Bowles, who suggested Peter Carey’s Ned Kelly, which I am yet to look into. But, even if I just got that, like I said, that’s okay! If anything, I did get something out of it – a fire to start the digital space of my project.

Additionally, since my project revolves around authenticity in personal poetics, such as Allen’s die-hard belief that the line between what you tell your friends and what you tell your audience should be blurred, I was not pleased after my part of the Tank. I appreciate guidance. I appreciate constructive criticism. I just felt like I was very greatly underestimated by some people on that panel, since all I felt like I was hearing was “don’t overwhelm yourself,” which I completely understand! I never want to take on a project that’s way too big – and this project is, in my opinion, a Master’s level project, and as such, I want to take on and produce a Master’s level work ethic and project. I’m not going to half-ass it, and I’m not going to leave it unfinished – this piece of electronic literature will be, at the end of spring semester, completed and ready to be explored and experienced by whoever stumbles across it. That’s the standard I hold myself to, and I never once thought of doing anything less.

Suffice to say, by the end of last week’s session, I felt motivated. Maybe motivated by the “wrong” reasons, but alas – I thought of the things that someone might have thought would “overwhelm” me. The only idea I had for my project that I wasn’t “sure” about was if I could implement HTML code alongside of Wix. I know a lot of Wix is drag and drop (it’s what I made my last piece of elit with, so I feel like I’m pretty skilled with the website creator), and I know it’s “limited” with those features that aren’t explicit coding. Specifically, one project idea I had came from Alan, in having some texts change upon viewing them; basically, if you click on an image of a typewriter, perhaps a rough draft comes up of a poem. Next time you click on the same image, something else is there in its place. I know Wix can’t do that on its own, so I found the code. Amazingly, it wasn’t an “overwhelming” task. Go figure.

I had to rewrite the code because I couldn’t change the font size and style, so I changed it around to fit my own purposes to test it out. It took a few tries, but I got my desired result (and I apologize right now for my… Jersey language. I just used a string of dirtier words to generate because I’m a simple girl with a simple mind.)

Alas! The only thing I was most worried about! I’m excited to tackle the rest of the digital space. As of now, here’s the site so far – nothing impressive. I just put a picture of Allen there for now to take up space (and, if you look at the upper right hand corner, my code is still in actions. Don’t worry, that’ll get taken down). I tried looking for higher quality pictures of Allen’s actual apartment, but my searches did not yield promising results. Thus, I might just take generic 1940s apartment photos, maybe photoshop some typewriters in, so on so forth, in order to make it look like Allen’s space.

That’s all for now, unless another man underestimates me!

a step toward clarity

 For my thesis, I plan to do a digital poetry project centered around Allen Ginsberg and his emerging status as a writer in the Beat Generation. A lot of what I want to do is inherently inspired by Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, in that Ondaatje utilizes unique and interesting multimodal techniques to build up the character of Billy. It plays with perspective, truth, and voice, as well as other postmodern themes and concepts. The collection of poems all focus on Billy and his world, and fleshes out the realm in a way that seems very intimate for the reader. With that being said, Allen’s world is also like that – his poetry is rooted in being very honest and personal with his audience, and is all about throwing in the people and places in his life without giving any context whatsoever. His poetry does not care and does not ask for the reader to know who Peter is – it just wants the reader to accept that Peter is there.

With that being said, I make a collection of poetry that does the same for Allen. I want to build up the Beat world, with no prior knowledge needing to be known – I want the reader to be engaged, regardless of the context. Additionally, I want it to be done in a digital space. I think having the thesis as a digital poetry project is important in the storytelling aspect of it, because digital spaces allow for interdisciplinary elements and techniques. I want to incorporate audio, visual, transitions, hypertext navigation, and an overall cyclical feel to the world, as opposed to any traditional linear storytelling methods. I will use primary letters, poems, drafts, text, and photos to build the authenticity of the world, and have them present throughout the piece of digital poetry.

The significance, ultimately, is going to be one that is personal to me, as well as other writers. I want to focus particularly on Ginsberg from the 1940s-1950s, and his emergence as a writer. Unlike many people, Ginsberg seemed to have a lot of self-confidence – at least on the outside, anyways. I want to explore his psyche, explore his insecurities, as he launches himself to be the figurehead of such a distinct literary movement. I want to illustrate his frustrations and worries with faux rough drafts, which in themselves become apart of the poetry collection. I also want to write “fake” poems from his voice, as well as voices from others, to add to what was happening in his world, and what was happening with his writing. Maybe it was his jealousy over Kerouac’s success, or depressed writer’s block because of his failed love affair with Neal. Ultimately, I want to tell Ginsberg’s story, maybe taking some fictional liberty with his character, to explore the journey of becoming a writer, and maybe how that also parallels to my own journey, too.

ride the reel

I’ve been thinking about films lately as a resource – I think partially after Alan emailed me about finding little glimpses of the Beats, even in movie credits (sorry I never replied! I did read it, though!), and also partially because of our fangirling over things like Moana. There’s been a few movies about the Beat Generation, especially over the past ten years. Most notably, there has been Howl (2010), where Ginsberg is portrayed by James Franco, who surprisingly does a great job at acting and sounding him. A live adaptation of Kerouac’s On the Road was made in 2012, too. Most recently, though, was a movie made from the novel Kerouac and Burroughs collaborated together on about their experiences getting away with murdering Lucien Carr’s ex-lover and professor. The novel, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, turned into more of a toxic love story between Carr and Ginsberg called Kill Your Darlings (2014). Another fun fact: Daniel Radcliffe, our beloved Harry Potter, plays Ginsberg in this movie, which I think was very generous of the producers. Don’t get me wrong – I love Ginsberg, but he was not a very handsome dude.

All of this has a point, though, instead of just naming off some good movie suggestions! I know I want to explore Ginsberg’s psyche, toying with the accuracy of the character, but there have people who have already done that for creative purposes – actors. I’m wondering if there are some interviews with actors like Franco and Radcliffe, where they talk about their experience in becoming Allen. After all, it’s more than just putting on a pair of dark-framed glasses and running around naked. Franco, too, is an English professor at Columbia, so he has a pretty analytical and interesting perspective:

I think their information is very valuable, and can definitely be used as a reference – maybe even, when I get to the digital part, I can even rip and embed audio soundbytes from Franco or Radcliffe talking about “being Allen.”