Col#280- 4/19/26
MY VISIT WITH ALLEN GINSBERG
By
Richard Davis
Reflecting on events in our lives that have helped to create the person we are can help us better understand the person we have become. There are certain times in our lives that pop into our consciousness from time to time, perhaps signaling to us to think about what they mean in our personal evolution.
The year was 1971 or 1972 and a friend and I spent a weekend at Allen Ginsberg’s farm in upstate New York. It was a weekend filled with insight and meaning for me. The world was in flux and the transformations of the 1960’s were lingering in the air.
My friend had been an acolyte of the Hare Krishna movement which had become popular at that time. He had met Ginsberg and was given an invitation to visit him at his farm. After my friend, now called Chris but formerly Karuna, left the Hare Krishna movement we stayed in touch. I never joined the movement but I did meet a lot of talented people hanging around their places of worship in Boston and New York. I got to know the musician who worked with George Harrison on My Sweet Lord, but that is another story.
Chris and I drove to the Ginsberg farm on a Friday afternoon and met a cast of characters out of a Ken Kesey novel. Allen’s father Louis was there, sitting in a wheelchair, somewhat lifeless and speechless after a major stroke. Allen and his friends were caring for Louis.
Then there was Peter Orlovsky, Allen’s longtime lover. Peter was considered a minor character in the Beat movement but he was an original. At the time of our visit Peter was trying to learn how to yodel. He was obsessed with the effort and spent most of the weekend making bizarre sounds in his attempt to master the technique. It was a perfect background sound for our visit.
Ann Waldman, a poet, was also there. I did not know much about her. She was friendly but seemed to be in her own bubble, walled off from too much direct contact. Perhaps a state of poetic contemplation. The ambiance surrounding Ginsberg was always “be who you want to be”.
This was a time in Ginsberg’s life when his big project was putting the poems of William Blake to song. He spent a great deal of time with his harmonium trying to craft songs to fit the poems. Ginsberg had always felt a close connection to the mysticism of Blake. He had already recorded Songs of Innocence in 1970 but was working on more songs.
I was at a stage in my life where I did not have a sense of direction. I was 21 years old and trying to find out who I was. I had always been writing something during my young life and during this visit I was working on some poems. Ginsberg and I discussed my efforts, and he truly seemed like a mentor. He was very encouraging and I still remember his advice. “Find your voice.” That was his mantra and I considered that the best advice I could get to carry me through not only writing but life’s up’s and down’s
I may have been writing and looking for my writer’s voice, but in retrospect, I was really looking for my identity as a young person who came of age in the 60’s. Ginsberg had been someone I had admired for many years before I met him. He was one of the mainstays of the Beat Movement and had become something of an American folk hero.
Ginsberg was also never committed to a one-to-one relationship and he tried to lure me into a one-time relationship with him. I made it clear that I was not interested and he backed off. He remained a kind and gentle soul and I declared my boundary.
I know that weekend changed my life. The how is still unclear in many ways, but as long it remains in the easily retrievable part of my consciousness I will try to learn from it from time to time.
