Thursday, October 11, 2007

WBAI afraid to HOWL

Boing Boing reports that New York Public Radio Station WBAI Pacifica is afraid to air Alan Ginsberg's poem Howl for fear on being fined by the FCC...I got to hear Ginsberg read once, back in the day when Gary Snyder, Diane DiPrima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bob Kaufman, Michael McClure, Denise Levertov, Kenneth Patchen and LeRoi Jones were actually READ and TALKED ABOUT....Here's a few of the last (instead of the first) lines, in case you don't remember or have never had the pleasure...

I'm with you in Rockland
where there are twenty-five-thousand mad com-
rades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale
I'm with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under
our bedsheets the United States that coughs all
night and won't let us sleep
I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls col-
lapse O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're
free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

About HOWL and WBAI, WBAI is bankrupt. Dan Siegel of the Pacifica National Board is corrupt. He has been temporarily placed on the national board to sabatoge the Local Station Board elections and allow the wbai and Justice and Unity corruption to continue.