Gasoline & The Vestal Lady on Brattle

by Gregory Corso

"Open this book as you would a box of crazy toys. Take in your hands a refinement of beauty out of a destructive atmosphere. These combinations are imaginary and pure
in accordance with Corso's individual (therefore universal) desire." - Allen Ginsberg

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, American, Literature, 20th Century, Classics, The United States Of America

105 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

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

Reviews

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow and I say again wow. One of the best collections of modern surreal poetry I have EVER read. Already very impressed with Corso's first book of poetry, The Vestal Lady on Brattle, Gasoline showcases Corso's explosive growth as a poet. This book features some of his well-known poems like 'Mad Yak' and 'I am 25' and 'Last Night I Drove a Car' which Corso himself called a 'weirdo' poem. (Listen to 'The Three Angels' CD in which you can hear Corso, Orlovsky and Ginsberg read some of the favorite or most well-known poems).

Just like in Kerouac's Mexico City Blues, somehow at a deep-level, these poems do make some form of telepathic sense (see Ginsberg's Naropa Institute lecture on Mexico City Blues for more details). And as Corso pointed out in one of his scathing Naropa lectures, the reader is able to get much more out of a poem by sitting down and having the page in front of him and being able to re-read it. Corso felt that the audience at poetry readings often misses so much because they are hearing the poem for the first time. Just like with some great songs, we discover that certain poems are great upon our second, third, fourth or fifth reading. I think it is because the various meanings and twists and turns slowly seep through our consciousness and our comprehension of the poem and then suddenly 'pow!' it hits you right between the eyes. And that is the poet's job - to deliver a beautiful knockout. A purely spiritual hit between the eyes. The only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars is that there was 1 or 2 poems in here that I thought were just okay and secondly because I haven't read Long Live Man yet which apparently features his best work including the poem 'Marriage' which is hilarious.

Here we have a beat poet in his prime and someone who has carved out a singular and definitive 'signature sound' to his poetry. I can just imagine the surprised looks on Ginsberg's face the day he met this sweet, tough kid from the Bronx who wrote crazy, wild but beautiful poetry. If you haven't read or heard 'The Whole Mess (Almost)', which I personally think is Corso's strongest poem, then do yourself a favour and read it. Sheer genius!

One thing that set Corso apart from his beat peers though is his outstanding knowledge of Greek poetry and mythology, redolent throughout his oeuvre. Whenever I read his work I feel ignorant because I know next to little about Greek mythology outside of Zeus, Hercules and Narcissus. Corso's impressive general knowledge comes from his time in prison where he read entire encyclopaedias!

If you are a fan of the beats, definitely check this out! If you want a smaller, more 'pedestrian' sample of Corso's work, check out Ann Charters' second most famous book (her famous biography on Kerouac being her first) called The Portable Beat Reader for a chapter on Gregorio Nunzio Corso. It is high time that his poetry was recognized and I can't wait for the documentary on him, Corso: The Last Beat, to come out on DVD. Highly recommended to all you beat fans out there. One final thing, I love the pocket series poetry books because you can carry them around everywhere. I found myself reading Corso's poetry when I was at the train station, on the bus or even walking down the middle of Tokyo. Long live man and long live Corso.

My favorite line contained in this book is in the preface and comes from his unpublished poem 'Power': Standing on the street corner waiting for no-one is power.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is America and I'm fun in it

with a wealth of music and lunatics

with a mouth that cannot sing

and I love a woman

and hate the rest and I'll make it

with any female ten to fifty

and fifty's best

This is America and there's lots more

fun in it

and lunatics

lots that can't sing worth a damn

and lots that can

but who gives a damn

I do

In California I sang

my eastern culture into a dying Mexican's ear

that couldn't hear

and he died with a smile on his face

The bastard had three gold teeth

an ounce of tea

a pocketful of payote

and a fourteen year old wife

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection from one of the more undervalued Beat poets. Corso has strong merits, but his work comes across as darker and more pessimistic than others, and does not speak to me in the way that Ferlinghetti does or (to a lesser extent) Ginsberg. Much as "Howl" was in many ways Ginsberg's defining poem, "Bomb" (not contained in this collection) was that for Corso. The other poems in this collection do not come close to that masterpiece, though they still have their relative strengths. Among my favorites in this work were "Sun" ("The sun like a blazing lollipop can be sucked"), "But I Do Not Need Kindness," "I Am 25" ("O I would quiet old men say to them:--I am your friend what you once were, thru me you'll be again"), "Hello," "The Horse was Milked" and "The Wreck of the Nordling." But, perhaps, best of all in the work were Ginsberg's introduction (my apologies to Corso) and the epigraph.

[K A G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this all the way through in one sitting and enjoyed every minute of it. Some poems felt like a break in between the more enjoyable poems, but that being said I found none of the writing to be bad. I marked some pages for a reread so I can take each poem in even more in the future. Corso sometimes is unfortunately ignored by people because of other writers of his time, but I am glad to have read this as my introduction to his work!

[Pablo Andrés]

A veces la poesía no tiene sentido y otras veces nada más siento que la poesía no tiene sentido. Pero eso, a la vez, me revela paradójica y misteriosamente por qué existe. Un libro de poemas está para leer en vez de llorar en un parque o una iglesia o escuchar el chisme de tus tías. Algo de lo fuera de foco de Corso me salpicó y de eso me sirvió. Hay un poema suyo que dice que el paso del tiempo es hueco en la soledad. También me gustó su réquiem por la muerte de Charlie Parker. De los demás, la mayoría no me gustaron demasiado.

[Erika B. (SOS BOOKS) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thus begins my sojourn into the life and poetry of Gregory Corso. He and I will be pretty tight all the way until May (thank you college). Good thing there is something about his words that really draws me into his verses. He's my "Urban Shelley." One reviewer on here called him the Ringo Star of the Beats, to which I totally and completely agree. Two favorite poems from this work-

I Am 25

With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
has gone from ear to ear:
I HATE THE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying: - I did those then
but that was then
that was then-
O I would quiet old men
say to them:- I am your friend
what you once were, thru me
you'll be again-
Then at night in the confidence of their homes
rip out their apology-tongues
and steal their poems.

and my other favorite-

Hello...

It is disastrous to be a wounded deer
I'm the most wounded, wolves stalk,
and I have my failures, too.
My flesh is caught on the Inevitable Hook!
As a child I saw many things I did not want to be.
Am I the person I did not want to be?
That talks-to-himself person?
That neighbors-make-fun-of person?
Am I he who, on museum steps, sleeps on his side?
Do I wear the cloth of a man who has failed?
Am I the looney man?
In the great serenade of things,
am I the most cancelled passage?

There you have it-a little taste of Gregory Nunzio Corso! :)

[Happydog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corso is probably the least well-known of the Beat writers. More people know of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. However, Corso, in many ways, is a more finessed and nuanced poet. He has a deeper artistic background than any of the above-named gents, and his knowledge of the great poets of the past (and the great painters as well) informs his word choice and metaphors. He can be more abstract and more flowing than his contemporaries, and yet he can turn on a dime to write something so simplistically and beat/ifically true that it is breathtaking.

These are some of Corso's first-published poems, and in spots they can be a bit too abstruse. The influence of William Carlos Williams can also be felt in the earlier poems, and a very few have not worn well with time. However, Corso overcomes these flaws, and his vibrant and vital self comes through beautifully in the book. Ginsberg, in his introduction, calls him "the greatest poet in America," with typical Ginsbergian effusiveness and ardor. That's up to history to decide, but the poems here are vital, fiery, and alive, with a strongly individual voice that bears listening to.

[Paul Stubbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems an almost well accepted fact that more than fifty years on from when it was first published in 1958, Gasoline (City Lights, 1958) by Beat poet Gregory Corso is a seminal book in the birth of that particular literary generation. Yet today, when compared to Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, the other major Beat writers, his work is still relatively ignored, and while their books can be found in large amounts in most British and American bookshops, Corso is still almost untraceable. And actually, at the time of writing this, Corso’s selected poems Mindfield is criminally out of print. Consequently, Corso’s poetry has still to receive its true recognition, which in part is due still to the ruling classes of Academia, and maybe even to a certain snobbishness over his sometimes wild and spontaneous antics.
full review: http://paulstubbspoet.wordpress.com/2...

[Garrett Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars!

Truly loved this. There are two collections in this book, Gasoline, and the Vestal Lady on Brattle. I think I preferred Gasoline, the first half, but both are solid. Vestal Lady feels just less refined as far as voice.

Allen Ginsberg’s introduction to this book perfectly describes Corso and this collection. “Corso’s a great word slinger.” “But what is he saying? Who cares? It is said!” Yes. I think Corso finds a really delicate balance between the spirit of beat poetry (especially in the later work of Gasoline) and the classic American voice of perhaps regality and loftiness (more present in the earlier works of Vestal Lady). I love this book for that reason. It’s wonderful to sit down and read and get some quality commentary on the confusion of life, but also he just says random shit that sounds cool and I love it. “Dirty ears aims a knife at me… I pump him full of lost watches,” (from “Birthplace Revisited”). If Ginsberg was the king of beat poetry, Corso was the prince (Kerouac more like the court jester; his prose was far better).

Some of my favorites from this collection were “Coney Island,” “Birthplace Revisited,” “Ode to Coit Tower,” “For Miles” (about Miles Davis), “Requiem for ‘Bird’ Parker, Musician” (about Charlie Parker), “Greenwich Village Suicide,” “The Vestal Lady on Brattle,” “Three” (from which one of my favorite lines: “Death Weeps because Death is human // spending all day in a movie when a child dies”), “I Am 25,” “In the Morgue,” and many more that I will not name because it will take too much time to type all of them.

I think a big reason why I enjoy this book so much is that it feels like the key that opened my mind to the back room door of understanding poetry. I feel like I transcended my brain’s former capability of comprehending what poets are rambling on about, and I have a new perspective on poetry as a form of writing. Really excited to reread Howl and Lunch Poems (which I loved thoroughly) with this new perspective and understanding. I’ve also found that it’s a whole helluva lot easier to understand poems when you know more about the poet. READ ABOUT THE LIVES OF THE POETS YOU ARE READING! Poets are really good at saying shit with no context; sometimes context of the writer is nice (poetry is basically just glamorized nonfiction to me).

Anyway, all of that to say, I recommend for sure. Really great introduction to Beat Poetry if you’re looking to find an entry point. I will absolutely be reading again; I probably already reread it like three times honestly I read almost every poem like five times over.

[Caroline H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually rlly loved this.

Corso rlly twists and bends words nicely where your reading it and you’re like huh i guess that works sir.

[Márcia Figueira · Rating 4 out of 5]

mix

Hay-like universe
-
He said: Gregory, here's two boxes of night
one tube of moon
-
When I hear the rose scream
I gather all the failure experiments of an anatomical empire
and, with some chemical dream, discover
the hateful law of the earth and sun and the screaming
rose between.
-
There’s an old man who always sits by candlelight.
I can see his hands move
dripping colours, crushed ones
like pressed flowers dropped from a book.
-
5
Tired of walking,
Tired of seeing nothing,
I look out from a window
belonging so someone
nice enough to let me look.

And from a window Cambridge is not all that bad.
It is a great feeling to know
that from a window
I can go to books to cans of beer to past loves.
And from these gather enough dream
to sneak out a back door.

[Kasandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd only read a couple of Corso's poems before this book, and I expected to like it much better than I did. The pluses: playfulness, bizarre hilarity, surreal and vivid imagery, spontaneity. The minuses: a lack of focus overall, a consistent tone of self-importance that intruded on a lot of the better poetry, what felt like sloppy, unedited pieces in some places, and a feeling of "whatever, this is jazz so I can be obscure". I especially liked "Puma in Chapultepec Zoo", "For Miles", "The Horse Was Milked", and "Man Seated Outside My Window". Definitely worth reading and keeping, I think in general I warm to Beat poetry much less than most people I know who read poetry -- I have a hard time taking a lot of it seriously, and that's what largely happened here.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, 3 and a half. These are really early Corso poems, from 1955 and '58 respectively. The good ones are really good, he gets up in the air and does his thing. The rest are just crap, particularly plagued by the cheesy rhyme (the horror!). Well, there are a few that are just okay, I don't mean to exaggerate. I don't know. I kind of hoped that this book would be awesome like, "Before he started to believe his own blurbs he was really good," but not really. More like: before he started to believe his own blurbs he had a lot of potential and he started believing the blurbs before he really gave himself a chance to do much with it. Bummer.

[Bri · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a frenzy to blow up both poor Marissa and Molly’s timelines with my absence updates, I’ve got to say I really adore the energy that Corso brings to his poetry. ‘I Am 25’ is so much fun (I HATE OLD POETMEN) and ‘2 Weird Happenings in Haarlem’ (something weirdly architectural/like a rackety cannibal/came to Haarlem last night/and ate up a canal!) was read to my Oma with much confusion on her end.

[RA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read one these poems to a speech class at UW, my first attempt at college education. Other students and professor hadn't ever heard anything like this. I was on a permanent real and contact high for these years/

[James Carmichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corso is the Ringo of the Beats, if Ringo had the songwriting chops of George Harrison. His poems are odd and frequently disarming in their charming openness - I really enjoyed reading this slim volume.

[Steven · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve never read any beat poetry that I can say was any good. This one falls into that category. Total fucking trash. Another book on the heaping pile of the pretentious, that I’d love nothing more than to set aflame to.

[Genevieve Paquette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a birthday present, and my first real introduction to beat poetry and I enjoyed it very much, particularly the Sea Shanty. "Thy mother's feet, was its answer" has stuck with me. A small but dense and well-selected volume.

[Adrian Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent early beat and city lights poetry from a formative poet in the genre who is often criminally neglected when the beats are discussed.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

These two early Corso books are quite lively.

[Rolando Marono · Rating 3 out of 5]

Otro poeta Beat que se suma a mi colección de leídos. Si tuviera que comparar la poesía de Corso a otros contemporáneos y amigos suyos, como Ginsberg, Kerouac y Burroughs diría que es el menos experimental en cuanto al ritmo y la lectura en voz alta de sus obras y al mismo tiempo es el que más se asemeja a poesía clásica, o logra crear una fusión interesante entre los recursos beats y los recursos clásicos.
El apartado que considero más débil del libro es su temática. Algunos poemas son emotivos, otros son críticas sociales, y otras son meras observaciones del entorno urbano como si de un Haikú se tratase. Emotivamente hubo dos o tres poemas que me gustaron por los temas que toca pero el resto se me hicieron sosos.
En lo que destaco a Corso como poeta es su precisión. Tiene muchos poemas cortos que son concisos y que utilizan la métrica con holgura pero con maestría. No se siente que las palabras de Corso estén contenidas en estructuras silábicas, no se siente limitado, sino que parece que está diciendo exactamente lo que quiere decir y que coincidentalmente, o como si fuera por accidente, coincide con una estructura métrica sólida.
También me gustó que la poesía de Corso, es más entendible o tiene un significado que se puede encontrar más allá de experimentar con los sonidos de las palabras. Por ejemplo, la mayoría de los poemas de Ginsberg y de Kerouac están hechos para leerse en voz alta, lo que está diciendo el verso es un sin sentido porque lo importante suele ser la lectura sonora de la obra y cómo las palabras se combinan para crear una sonoridad parecida al jazz. Aquí no se logra tanto eso pero en cambio si tenemos un peso en el significado de los versos.

[Rasmus Tillander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gregory Corso oli se "neljäs beat", joka jäi auttamatta Kerouacin, Ginsbergin ja Burroughsin varjoon. Hän oli myös jollain tapaa kristillinen mystikko.

Corson kaksi ensimmäistä runokoelmaa The Vestal Lady on Brattle (1955) ja Gasoline (1958) olivat ihan kiinnostavaa luettavaa. Näistä ensimmäinen oli jotenkin aika standardia beat-sekoilua, jossa oli kuitenkin muutama ihan veikeä runo ja muutamia ihan kauniita säkeitä. Gasoline sen sijaan oli huomattavasti surreaalimpi ja mystisempää kamaa. Corso selvästi löytää toisessa kokoelmassa omanlaisensa äänen. Corso myös kenties kuuluisin runo "I am 25" löytyy tästä kokoelmasta ja on ihan veikeä runo.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hit or miss collection, but with some really great high points. The poems are quick and easy, so where they don’t resonate, it’s still pleasant and that’s ok. But when they do, it’s truly wonderful. I love the way Corso writes about jazz, about Bird and Miles. And he writes about what it feels like to be a stranger living somewhere, to have another place (New York for him) knocking at the door, beckoning another personality, another life.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gah, I wish I would've read this back when I was more into thew Beats. i might've thought it better than I do now. Some of this stuff just seems like child's play to me now. Not that I'm a better poet or something, but just that, I guess, I don't find a lot of this Beat stuff as romantic or profound as maybe I once did.

This does have its moments, but by and large it can be skipped.

Recommended for those young hipsters looking for niche literature to reference across coffee tables.

[Chris]

"As a child I saw many things I did not want to be.
Am I the person I did not want to be?
That talks-to-himself person?
That neighbors-make-fun-of person?
Am I he who, on museum steps, sleeps on his side?
Do I wear the cloth of a man who has failed?
Am I the looney man?
I the great serenade of things,
am I the most cancelled passage?"

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I mean as a whole, I loved the whole thing, but I guess it's not uncommon to prefer Gasoline. If I feel bad about such a brief review later, might add a list of favourites or some standout lines.

[Harrison Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The sun like a blazing lollipop can be sucked”

Arguably the most interesting of the beats, most definitely the most interesting upbringing - reminiscent of Genet if Genet was kicking about Greenwich Village and not the backstreets of Europe.

[LordSlaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting collection of poems that didn't really resonate with me. Some intriguing imagery and ideas, but overall I couldn't get deeply engaged with the two collections contained in this volume.

[Charles Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corso excellence

[Brendan Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

gasoline was great; the vestal lady on brattle was meh