Allen Ginsberg, RIP

ODDLY enough, I first met Allen Ginsberg at NATIONAL REVIEW. I had just published When the Going Was Good, a book on the 1950s, and a merry book party was going on in the conference room at our old offices, when Ginsberg unexpectedly appeared with his companion, Peter Orlovsky, a blondish fellow with a ponytail. Ginsberg had two things on his mind. Relying on the testimony of Jack Kerouac, I had written that Ginsberg had burned an American flag, which he denied. He also knew that I was then on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities and he wanted a grant for a new book by Orlovsky, the title of which cannot be printed in a family magazine. I sidestepped this by explaining that he wanted the Endowment for the Arts, but he refused to understand the difference.

Anyway, we became friendly, had lunch now and then, talked about literature and reminisced about Columbia, Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren. Allen was surprisingly gentle, even sweet, virtually humorless, and learned about literature. He explained-against conventional opinion-that his “long line” came not from Whitman but from the “Jubilate Agno” of Christopher Smart.

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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ODDLY enough, I first met Allen Ginsberg at NATIONAL REVIEW. I had just published When the Going Was Good, a book on the 1950s, and a merry book party was going on in the conference room at our old offices, when Ginsberg unexpectedly appeared with his companion, Peter Orlovsky, a blondish fellow with a ponytail. Ginsberg had two things on his mind. Relying on the testimony of Jack Kerouac, I had written that Ginsberg had burned an American flag, which he denied. He also knew that I was then on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities and he wanted a grant for a new book by Orlovsky, the title of which cannot be printed in a family magazine. I sidestepped this by explaining that he wanted the Endowment for the Arts, but he refused to understand the difference.

Anyway, we became friendly, had lunch now and then, talked about literature and reminisced about Columbia, Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren. Allen was surprisingly gentle, even sweet, virtually humorless, and learned about literature. He explained-against conventional opinion-that his “long line” came not from Whitman but from the “Jubilate Agno” of Christopher Smart.