On the Bus: The Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters

by Gregory Corso

Gregory Corso's an aphoristic poet, and a poet of ideas. What modern poets write with such terse clarity that their verses stick in the mind without effort? Certainly Yeats, Pound, Williams, Elliot, Kerouac, Creeley, Dylan & Corso have that quality. Corso's handling of ideas is unique, as in various one-word title poems...--Excerpted from the Foreward by Alan Ginsberg

Genres: Poetry, Classics, American

268 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Gregory Nunzio Corso was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

and after all
other people are hell.
*
the nearer you arrive
the farther you leave
*
How I wish I could be as nice as my poetry—

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant in some places, usually the early stuff, lame and unfocused in (most) others.

Corso was a talented poet but he got too carried away with being a wild child (and among the Beats as a whole, that's quite an accomplishment) and neglected to develop his craft.

Don't get me wrong- I'm a fan of "the derangement of the senses" and all that, but it depends greatly on just who we're really talking about. Some creative people need to cut loose to make their work come alive, others actually need to pare their bombastic inclinations down a bit so as to get the maximum power out of their material.

Ginsberg was ten times the poet Corso was, though kindly Allen (who'd actually discovered Corso the raffish street kid who'd basically grown up in jail in a lesbian bar in NYC back in the day) would have probably argued otherwise.

Come to think of it, Corso's life story would actually be very well-suited to a novel or a biopic. It's a shame that we get so little of it in his poetry, actually...

[Erika B. (SOS BOOKS) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever read three Gregory Corso books in one night? I just did! (I read Gasoline a couple of days ago so it doesn't count) I don't really know anything anymore!

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the introductory remarks by Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs attest, Corso's one of those poets who maintained a high reputation among those who knew him as part of the Beat Generation. Reading this selection of the six volumes he published during his life, supplemented by a sheaf of mostly forgettable unpublished work, I caught glimpses of what he had to offer. "Marriage" has been one of my favorites since I read it when I was first discovering poetry-outside-class: "Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust!" still makes me smile. "Bomb," "1959," "American Politica Historia," and "Power" rank with the second tier of Ginsberg's prophetic jeremiads (which isn't bad). "Elegiac Feelings American," written as eulogy for Kerouac, catches the feeling of the Beats as they passed out of their moment, and "The Whole Mess...Almost" is a sad serious meditation on what Corso knew was his failure to match his dreams. Combine those with a handful of funny and/or pinpoint lyrics--"Requieum for 'Bird" Parker, Musician," "Birthplace Revisited," "Don't Shoot the Warthog," "The Love of Two Seasons," "Active Night"--and you've got a more than respectable career. But it's hard not to wonder what might have been if Corso hadn't lost so many hours and neurons to drugs and despair.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important collections of beat literature out there.

This is NOT a collected poems of Gregory Corso but it is still the largest collection of his poems to date, although that is soon to change, with The Golden Dot, a large collection of poems that I have heard will soon be published.

While Corso was not as prolific as Allen Ginsberg, he was on the ball a lot more than Ginsberg, whose work sometimes soars and sometimes crashes and burns, or comes across as something that would have been great at its time but not necessarily OVER time.

Mindfield offers a judicious selection of great poems and highlights from throughout Corso's career, starting with The Vestal Lady on Brattle (1955) right through to Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit (1981) and then a few extra poems that had not been collected prior to this publication. It is unbelievable that very little of Corso's work or books on Corso have been published over the past 20 years.

I used this book to teach a course on Gregory Corso and my students really loved it, even though some of the poems were quite difficult to follow.

My personal favourites in this collection include "Last Night I Drove a Car" "I Gave Away" "From Another Room", of course the 'crowd favourites' which are "Marriage" and "Bomb" and possibly his strongest work which is "Fire Report - No Alarm" and the almost perfect "The Whole Mess ... Almost."

This book is still in print I believe so if you are interested in beat poetry, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy. Even if some poems leave you scratching your head, others will have you howling not with Ginsberg but with laughter.

[sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And after all other people are hell.”

In these poems, one can already catch the glimpse of Corso's blossoming beauty, a beauty he'd go on to embellish with mythic and delicate metaphors. What truly captivates the senses are the palpable influences, like Ginsberg, who steered him toward the enigmatic realms of Blake. This collection, well, it's more than just poems, it's a heartfelt serenade to Shelley, the one who held Corso's heart in a fervent embrace.

favorite poems:
- writings in the early morn and early night in calabria
- poet talking to himself in the mirror
- a poem begun to see how good my head still is
- from rome to boulder

[Bookworm Adventures Deluxe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Am 25
Marriage
Bomb
The American Way
Inner & Outer Rhyme

Great Stuff

[Jerry Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books of poetry. A wonderful selection of poems from throughout his career including some of his best late period pieces. Corso's poem The Whole Mess...Almost, is a personal favorite. Elegiac Feelings American and Bomb are classics.
Gregory Corso will always hold a special place in my heart. He is the one and only Beat that I got to meet. He came to give a poetry reading at a funky bar named Duffy's in St. Paul, Minnesota in the late winter of 1983. The night of his reading a blizzard was in progress. Only a handful of us ventured to the bar and we were rewarded for our effort. Gregory invited the whole audience to come sit on the stage with him while he read and performed his heart out for us and then hung around, drank beer and chatted with us. I was even able to give him some of my poems, which he graciously accepted. A night I'll never forget.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dumb genius blows
feeble breath into my windowless room
He—the sagacious mute
rap-tapping a code of doom
—the drunkard punched the wall to have his storm!
Through the crack! Through the crack!
My feast was in the easy blood that flowed.

- - -

With people conformed
Away from pre-raphaelite furniture
With no promise but that of Japanese sparsity
I take up house
Ready to eat with you and sleep with you

But when the conquered spirit breaks free
And indicates a new light
Who'll take care of the cats?

- - -

A tarsier bewrays the end of an epical rain
Burying beetles ponderously lug a dead rat
A moth, just a few seconds old, tumbles down fern
Bats are drinking flowers
The lonely tapir walks the river bottom
And up comes a manatee with a sea-anemone
on its nose

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection from an interesting, albeit hardly a first-tier poet. Yet Corso does find the occasional gem. For example, this ("Spirit") from Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit (1981), which served as his epitaph on his tomb in Rome:

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 3-star is a bit misleading--it's difficult to rate a collection as a whole. Some of the poems were 4-star, a couple even 5-star. But on the whole, I was not thrilled with the poetry, which I thought I would be. His best poems, to me, are when he's speaking about his life (i.e. his birthday poems). So many of his poems rang more like essays to me. Just didn't knock my socks off.

[J.P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The place to start with Corso. The best available overview of his work, bar none.

[Haylee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a Corso compilation. If you've never read Corso, start with Elegiac Feelings American.

[Il Pech]

Negli Usa considerato uno dei 3 grandi Beatnik con Ginsberg e Kerouac, in Italia molto meno conosciuto.
Figlio di immigrati italiani, Gregory ha un'adolescenza turbolenta durante la quale entra ed esce dal riformatorio; Diciassettenne viene condannato a 3 anni di carcere, lì s'innamora della letteratura ed inizia a scrivere poesie. A 20 anni esce, incontra Ginsberg in un bar, gli declama i suoi scritti, entra a far parte dei beatnik e, nonostante sia il più giovane del gruppo, è il primo ad essere pubblicato. Nel 1958 esce Gasoline, raccolta che contiene la scandalosa Bomb, ironica poesia d'amore per la bomba nucleare (scritta a forma di fungo) e probabilmente la poesia più famosa della Beat dopo Howl.

Corso incarnò a pieno lo spirito beat: libero, pieno di vita, non ebbe mai un lavoro stabile, visse la vita come un inno alla precarietà che lo portò in giro per America latina ed europa, sempre alla ricerca della bellezza.
Alcolista e tossicodipendente dagli anni '60, Corso morì nel 2000 e fu sepolto per sua scelta a Roma, vicino ai suoi idoli Keats e Shelley.

La sua poesia è semplice ma caotica, ironica, imprevedibile, piena di associazioni paradossali e spiazzanti.

Vi lascio con le parole di Fernanda Pivano:
"Insolente al di là del sopportabile e strafottente nella più assoluta imprevedibilità. Qualunque cosa abbia detto o scritto, Gregory Corso ha sempre rivelato il dono di non dire mai una sciocchezza. Era un birbante ma anche un cherubino della poesia: dovunque passava seminava guai e disastri, però anche le più belle poesie che siano state scritte negli ultimi cinquant’anni da un americano"

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

More sane, controlled, and conscious of the poetic tradition than Ginsberg, but still very much with the rolling-happily-in-the-dirt feel you've come to expect and perhaps love from the Beats. Wins points for humor and occasionally being shocking without stupid tricks (see "Bomb"), loses points from me thinking at multiple points, Hmm, this would be far better if I had just ingested a lot of narcotics.
Perhaps the thing we all need to do is watch this bizarre thing that I found out from the introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_12rc.... Or perhaps not.

A good strong politics/ spirituality mix, as you'd expect:

Thus many a patriot speaks lovingly of himself when he
speaks of America, and not to appreciate him is
not to appreciate America, and vice-versa

Preach it, fifty years ago and counting

[Pachyderm Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blows my mind every time. Like shrapnel from a "Bouncing Betty" liberally mixed in with ketchup, mustard, and the neatloaf and alfalfa sprout sandwiches I ate as a kid with mayo. A compellingly compulsively conscciousness-crushing compendium of poems by a fellow who was bedfellows with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in his day. Corso and his existential explorations are playfully reminiscent of Kenneth Patchen as a profane pundit of pedantic proportions.

[Edward Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good things here. I think the technique if first write best write should not be ironclad but Corso appears to be faithful to it. Although we never know, do we? I am glad I read it right after Ginsberg's complete poems. I ought to try some Burroughs.

[Jackie]

What? I dont know, I've read about 9 poems and maybe 7 of them were good. What the fuck is this? MANDIE HOW DOES THIS WORK?!

[Mills College Library]

P Hanuman