Allen Ginsberg (True)
Meryl Meisler, excellent photographer (and etc.) is publishing a NEW BOOK about the 70's, Jews, disco, Brooklyn and a few other things. Here's her site. http://www.merylmeisler.com She asked me for an Allen Ginsberg poem. Here it is for Meryl, for Allen G., and for you.
Allen Ginsberg or I Wanted to be Him
Part One
When I moved to New York City in the 70’s from Ansonia small factory town in Connecticut Allen G was who I wanted to meet. My friend Jean Boudin she was a Good Beat Poet she said Allen will see anyone if they’ll buy him breakfast. She found his number from Kenneth Koch and I, an office temp at Rochester Button had plenty of breakfast money. In the diner he was Allen Ginsberg. Ask me anything he said, in exchange for two eggs. How can I be a poet like you? Not having read even one word I wrote he said You Are a Poet, Esther Cohen. Can I quote you? I asked. You have my lifetime permission He said and all these years later, I am.
Part Two
A few weeks ago at a poet’s retreat in San Miguel de Allende the British Poet laureate, a Sir, he did not like my poems. You he said infusing the You with Ultimate British Disdain You He repeated are in the same category as that American poet Allen Ginsberg. At long last, I replied.