THE FALL OF AMERICA JOURNALS, 1965–1971

In the 1960s, the acclaimed poet saw America "teetering on the precipice of a fall."

Ginsberg biographer Schumacher, editor of the poet’s South American Journals and Iron Curtain Journals, now presents material that provides context for the National Book Award–winning volume The Fall of America (1973) as well as insight into Ginsberg’s creative process. Covering the period from 1965 to 1971, the journals contain “auto poesy” meant for publication, notebook entries, and transcriptions from tape recordings made on a reel-to-reel recorder gifted by Bob Dylan. Containing dreams, observations, political commentary, first drafts of poems, and travel writing, the journals document a turbulent period in American life—war, violent protest, assassinations—in addition to personal loss, including deaths of friends and an automobile accident that left Ginsberg hospitalized. He recalls in vivid detail dreams—sometimes erotic, often surreal—populated by a surprising cast of characters: Marianne Moore, Eleanor Roosevelt, and poet Mark Van Doren, his former teacher. Among encounters in real life, one of the most interesting is his extended visit to Ezra Pound in Italy in the fall of 1967. Ginsberg notes Pound’s “tiny pupils” and “silent calm” even when Ginsberg treated him to some popular music: “ ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ and ‘Yellow Submarine,’ and Dylan’s ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ and ‘Gates of Eden’ and ‘Where Are You Tonight, Sweet Marie?’ and Donovan’s ‘Sunshine Superman.’ ” Prominent among Ginsberg’s entries are sharp political critiques: “The newspapers are full of lies / Just like President Johnson’s eyes,” he wrote in 1967. In 1968, he grieved, “Kennedys dead, King dead, / Malcolm X Assassinated, /Andy Warhol lingering in hospital spleen / shattered by tiny bullets.” In another entry, Ginsberg decries the nation’s “vast police networks” and bellicose foreign policy: “Our quote ‘defense of the free world’ is an aggressive hypocrisy that has changed the very planet’s chance of survival.”

An effusive outpouring of reflections on a traumatic time, most appealing to Ginsberg fans.