Kaddish and Other Poems: 1958-1960 (City Lights Pocket Poets Series)
by Allen Ginsberg

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Book Reviews of Kaddish and Other Poems: 1958-1960 (City Lights Pocket Poets Series)

Book Review: On par with Howl
Summary: 5 Stars

The jewel amongst so many wonders in this collection is Laughing Gas, dedicated to Gary Snyder, whom Ginsberg informs - 'the red tin begging cup you gave me/ I lost it but its contents are undisturbed'. Here, before the poem even begins, we are given a charming little haiku (beat haiku did not always follow the 5-7-5 rule), moving in its simplicity. As for the poem itself, it charts his experiences under nitrous oxide with suitably hallucinatory imagery - 'mechanical voices over the radio singing Destination Moon'.

Ginsberg is a remarkable chronicler of the psychadelic experience and this theme comes full cycle on the trilogy of poems 'Magic Psalm', 'The Reply', and 'The End'. Ginsberg, calling on God to experience his real presence, and essentially become God, suffers under the influence of yage horrific consequences in imagery vivid with gruesome detail -'my visions falling over my eyes to cover them from sight of my skeleton'.

By time the reader finishes this collection he will feel exhausted, such is Ginsberg's affect. Yet it comes as credit to the man's talent that said reader will immediatly want to pick it up and start all over again. 'Taste my mouth in your ear' he implores. You'd be wise to do as he asks.

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