Gregory Corso 1930-2001

Allen Ginsberg once called Gregory Corso "the awakener of youth," and Bruce Cook described Corso as "an urchin Shelley" in The Beat Generation. Born Nunzio Corso, March 26, 1930 his teenaged mother abandoned him a month after his birth. His father would tell him his mother returned to Italy and was a prostitute. He spent 11 years in five different foster homes. A troubled child sleeping in subways, Corso lived on the streets. He was arrested for petty theft at twelve and was held as a material witness in a trial against a dealer of illegal merchandise. Corso later wrote he was abused by other prisoners during the time he was being held. By sixteen he was sentenced to three years in Clinton Prison for theft. It was here that he read the classics. After his release he met Allen Ginsberg at a bar in New York in 1950 who introduced him to contemporary and experimental poetry.

Corso moved to Boston in 1954 and spent time reading poets at Harvard libraries. In 1956 he moved to San Francisco, but he arrived too late to participate in the Six Gallery reading, considered the first public event of Beat poetry (where Ginsberg read Howl.) Then he spent 1957 and 1958 in Paris where he said "things burst, and opened." Here he wrote Gasoline, his first collection of poetry.

Corso shunned public appearances later in life. In a film about his life he discussed his interest in finding the burial place of his mother in Italy. However, the filmmakerrr, Gustave Reininger, found Corso's mother alive and living in Trenton, New Jersey. Corso was reunited with his mother in the film. And he found that his teenaged mother, Michelina had been physically abused by his father (he had knocked all her front teeth out.) She gave the baby Nunzio to Catholic Charities as she had no skills for a job and the depression was at its height in 1930. She had tried to find her son through the years but lacked the means to pay for assistance. Gregory's father had blocked Catholic Charities from revealing the child's whereabouts. Corso said he felt his life had come full circle when he reunited with his mother. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with incurable prostrate cancer. Gregory Corso died January 17, 2001 . His ashes were scattered next to the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley as he had requested.

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Text of Poems:

Poets Hitchhiking on the Highway
http://www.terebess.hu/english/corso....

I Held A Shelly Manuscript
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-held...

A difference of Zoos
(not available on-line)

Reflection in a Green Area
(not available on-line)

But I Do Not Need Kindness
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=10...

Weblipgraphy:

Wikipedia: Gregory Corso
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_...

Poetry Foundation Gregory Corso
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archi...

Poets.org Gregory Corso
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/409


Of interest:
Modern American Poetry
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/...

Lit Kicks Gregory Corso reads Bomb
http://www.litkicks.com/Bomb