The Happy Birthday of Death

I’ll be honest, I don’t know a lot of Gregory Corso’s work except for one book which I bought at a bookstore in Portland, Oregon years ago. This book, however, has had a tremendous influence on my poetry.

Gregory Nunzio Corso was born in 1930 in New York City to first-generation Italian parents. He was abandoned by his parents as a child and grew up in foster homes. He was in and out of jail as a juvenile and young adult for petty crimes. While incarcerated, the 18-year-old (the youngest in a state penitentiary surrounded by murderers), endeared himself to the powerful Mafioso inmates.

He learned to entertain the mobsters with jokes and ad lib entertainment in exchange for protection. He was jailed in the cell that was vacated only a few months before by infamous mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano who donated his extensive library to the prison which included numerous works of poetry. This special cell had a phone, self-controlled lighting and was the space where Corso began writing poetry.

Upon his release, Corso began working in a garment center by day, and at a bar at night. It was there that he met Columbia College student, Allen Ginsberg. Corso eventually joined the Beat circle, led by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who both saw Corso’s potential as a poet who was also completely detached from the generation he succeeded – the perfect Beat poet!

Which brings me back to his book. At the center of his book, The Happy Birthday of Death, is one of Corso’s epic poems called, Bomb, which is structured to be in the shape of a mushroom cloud. This was one of the first poems to explore the theme of nuclear bombs.

Memorable lines include:

Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you

Bomb you are as cruel as man makes you and you’re no crueller than cancer

Yes Yes into our midst a bomb will fall
Flowers will leap in joy their roots aching

As I continued leafing through the book, I came across another poem which made my imagination soar:

MEDIEVAL ANATOMY

Teeth are the castle gates of mouths
Tongues the dragons
Throats the dungeons

Noses the bowmen
Eyes the turrets of blonde maidens
Brains the lookout
 able to spot
 the treacherous Black Knight!

This poem, which connects completely different sets of things and gives them a new life, along with several other poems in his book, has substantially shaped my own poetry.

I am grateful to know Gregory Corso’s poetry and even though I only own one of his books, it sustains me.