Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 200

406 MANDATE FOR CHANGE: “It was generally conceded that had an election been held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected Premier.” (p. 337–38) “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader. …” (p. 372) Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change (New York: Doubleday, 1963).

406 STENNIS: John C. Stennis (1901–1995) U.S. senator, Mississippi, Armed Services Committee man and “hawk,” urged nuclear war for Indochina, 1966.

407 AUNT BETTY: Highway billboard advertising bread.

407 RUSK SAYS TOUGHNESS … VIETNAM WAR BRINGS PROSPERITY: Literal headlines, Midwest newspapers February 1966.

407 BEATRICE: Nebraska town, Route 77.

408 HUTCHINSON … EL DORADO: Kansas towns en route between Lincoln, Nebraska, & Wichita.

408 ABILENE: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s hometown, site of his Presidential Library.

408 NATION “ OF THE FABLED DAMNED”: See concluding paragraphs of Whitman’s Democratic Vistas for prophetic warning against America’s hawkish materialism.

410 CLARK: Joseph S. Clark (1901–1990) U.S. senator, Pennsylvania, described Vietnam War at the time as “open-ended”—i.e., could go on forever, including war with China.

410 MORSE: Wayne Morse (1900–1974) U.S. senator, Oregon, outstanding legislative “dove” in active opposition to America’s undeclared war in Vietnam.

411 OR SMOKING CIGARETTES/AND WATCHING CAPTAIN KANGAROO: Pop song of the day referring to children’s TV program.

411 UNITED FRUIT: United Fruit Company’s law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, had employed State Secretary Dulles (see “Who Will Take Over the Universe?” note), whose brother, Allen, heading CIA, coordinated the 1954 then-covert overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, elected president of Guatemala. The event is notorious throughout Latin America as a mid-twentieth-century example of “banana republic” repression by North American imperium. By 1980, the U.S.-trained Guatemalan military had reportedly genocided 10 percent of jungle Indian population as part of “pacification” program to “create a favorable business climate.”

Birbhum yogi, likely Khaki Baba. Photographer unknown.

411 OAKLAND ARMY TERMINAL: California students had passed leaflets and picketed this Pacific war transshipment center. Gary Snyder & Zen companions had sat meditating at its gates.

412 MILLIONAIRE PRE SSURE: Refers to a Mr. Love from Wichita, second biggest backer of cold-war-conspiracy-obsessed John Birch Society.

412 TELEPHONE VOICES: When Peter Orlovsky and author came to read poetry, Philosophy Department hosts at Wichita’s Kansas State University received many crank phone complaints.

413 AGING WHITE HAIRED GENERAL: Lewis B. Hershey (1893–1977) Selective Service director since Truman appointment 1948, time of first U.S. peacetime draft.

413 REPUBLICAN RIVER: Runs from Kansas City to Junction City.

414 OLD HEROES OF LOVE: Neal Cassady, born in Independence, Mo.

414 MCCLURE: Michael McClure, American Romantic bard and playwright (b. 1932), Marysville, Kansas. See The New American Poetry, Donald M. Allen, ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1960), for McClure’s part as key biological philosopher-poet in 1950s “San Francisco Renaissance” and subsequent “generational” culture.

414 OLD MAN’S STILL ALIVE: Ex-President Harry S. Truman.

414 SHAMBU BHARTI BABA: A Naga (naked) saddhu the author often met at Benares’s Manikarnika Ghat cremation ground. See photographs, Indian Journals.

414 KHAKI BAB A: North Bengali (Birbhum area) 19th-century saint who, dressed in khaki loincloth, is pictured sometimes sitting surrounded by dog friends and protectors. (See photograph on page 786.)

414 DEHORAHAVA BABA: A yogi author met at Ganges River across from Benares, 1963.

414 SATYANANDA: Calcutta swami encountered by author 1962, had twin-thumbed hands, and said, “Be a sweet poet of the Lord.”

414 KALI PADA GUHA ROY: Tantric acharya or guru visited by author in Benares, 1963.

414 SHIVANANDA: Swami, teacher to Satchitananda, visited by author, Peter Orlovsky, Gary Snyder and Joanne Kyger, Rishikesh, 1962: “Your own heart is your Guru.”

415 SRIMATA KRISHNAJI: Contemporary Brindaban lady saint, translator of poet Kabir, advised author thus.

415 BRINDABAN: Holy town near Delhi where Krishna spent childhood in play as cow herder.

415 CHAITANYA: 16th-century North Bengali saint, founder of Hare Krishna Mahamantra lineage, pictured dancing, singing.

415 DURGA-MA: Mother Durga, aspect of Shiva’s consort Parvati emphasized in Bengali Hindu mythology, 10-armed goddess of war fields, who consumes evil through violence.

415 TATHAGATA: (Sanskrit) Buddha characterized as “He who has passed through,” or “that which passed.” (“Thus come,” and also “Thus gone”: “Thus come [One].”)

415 DEVAS: Indian gods, seen as aspects of human or divine being.

415 MANTRA: Sacred verbal spell or prayer composed of elemental sound “seed” syllables, used in meditative concentration practice. Literally, “mind protection” speech.

416 “KENNEDY URGES CONG GET CHAIR” …: February 14, 1966, news headlined Senator Robert Kennedy’s proposal that U.S. offer Viet Cong share of power in South Vietnam. This was major break with administration war policy.

416 CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE: In February 14, 1966, Wichita Eagle.

416 BONG SON: 100 Viet Cong soldiers were killed close to Bong Son and were reported struck by many bullets before falling.

417 LA DRANG: Vietnamese battlefield mentioned in news reports third week February 1966.

417 BURNS: Tiny Kansas town near Wichita.

418 KELLOGG: Main drag in Wichita.

418 HOTEL EATON: On Douglas Street, near local Vortex Gallery patronized by Charles Plymell and Kansas artists.

418 CARRY NATION: “(b. Garrard Co., 1846; d. Leavenworth, Kans., 1911), temperance agitator. An ignorant, unbalanced, and contentious woman of vast energies, afflicted with an hereditary paranoia, she was subjected to early hardships that fused all her great physical and emotional powers into a flaming enmity toward liquor and its corrupt purveyors. From her first saloon-smashing ventures at Medicine Lodge, Kans., she carried her campaign to Wichita (1900), where her distinctive weapon, the hatchet, was first used, and then on to many of the principal American cities. Arrested thirty times for ‘disturbing the peace,’ she paid fines from sales of souvenir hatchets, lecture tours, and stage appearances. Her autobiography was published, 1904.”—Concise Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1964), p. 721.

419 NIGGERTOWN: Area of Wichita between Hydraulic and 17th streets.

Kansas City to Saint Louis

421 CHARLIE PLYMELL: American poet, filmmaker and pioneer editor, accompanied author in Kansas-Nebraska travel.

421 THE JEWEL-BOX REVIEW: Transvestite club show, Kansas City.

421 SEX FACTORIES: Kinsey Institute, University of Indiana, Bloomington, gave birth to this jump-cut phrase.

421 BURCHFIELD: Charles Burchfield (1893–1967) American painter, best known for portraits of particular solitary gabled Victorian houses in bare U.S. regional landscapes.

421 WALKER EVANS: (1903–1975) Classic American photographer whose record of Boston houses, poets’ faces, Cuban visages, Southern agrarian scenes (for Farm Security Administration Project, 1930s), billboards, junkyards, main streets, subway riders, Chicago corners and train glimpses helped define a second generation of American photography, and influenced younger eyes, including Robert Frank’s.