Illuminated Poems Book

I should dislike the artwork on principle, considering Eric Drooker is partially responsible for the unspeakably bad Ginsberg biopic HOWL. Fortunately, the artwork in Illuminated Poems isn't as objectionable as the animation in HOWL. I may even venture to say that some of the artwork is... good. But I can't say it adds much to Ginsberg's poems.

As Ginsberg explains in the introduction, the poems were selected by Drooker. They're not my favourite of Ginsberg's poems, but a decent selection regardless. The selection includes: "The Altering Eye Alters All", "An Eastern Ballad", "A Mad Gleam", "In Death Cannot Reach What Is Most Near", "Song", "Lay Down Yr Mountain", "Sunflower Sutra", "Manhattan Thirties Flash", "Morning", "Howl", "New York Blues", "Native New York", "On Neal's Ashes", "Punk Rock You're my Big Crybaby", "Get It?", "Capitol Air", "Pentagon Exorcism", "Love Forgiven", "War Profit Litany", "When the Light Appears", "Tears", "The Lion for Real", "I'm a Prisoner of Allen Ginsberg", "Fighting Phantoms Fighting Phantoms", "This Form of Life Needs Sex", "Birdbrain!", "America Again", "New Stanzas for Amazing Grace", "X-Ray Manhattan", "Jumping the Gun On the Sun", "Rock Song", "Gospel Noble Truths", "The Ballad of the Skeletons", "Father Death Blues", and "Confession Is Dream for the Soul"

From the Introduction:
Our collaboration volume began as byproduct of an illustration of my poem "The Lion For Real" for his St. Mark's Poetry Project New Year's Day 1933 Benefit poster. As I'd followed his work over a decade, I was flattered that so radical an artist of later generations found the body of my poetry still relevant, even inspiring. Our paths crossed often, we took part in various political rallies and poetical-musical entertainments, the idea of a sizable volume of illustrated poem-pictures rose. Eric Drooker himself did all the work choosing texts (thankfully including many odd lesser-known scribings) and labored several years to complete these Illuminated Poems.

Allen Ginsberg
Lower East Side
December 28, 1995

Prologue:
The Year was 1967 and I was an eight-year-old boy riding the crosstown bus with my mother. The bus stopped on Avenue A, and a man with black-rimmed glasses and a big black beard entered alone and sat down in front of us. My mother leaned over and whispered in my ear that the man in front of us was a famous poet. I didn't know what to think. What did this mean? What did a famous poet do all day...write poems? As the bus slowly moved forward I sat quietly, looking at the back of his balding head and wondering what he was thinking as we rolled west on 14th Street.

Eric Drooker
Lower East Side
January 15, 1996

The poems & artwork...
The Eye Altering Alters All

Many seek and never see,
anyone can tell them why.
O they weep and O they cry
and never take until they try
unless they try it in their sleep
and never some until the die.
I ask many, they ask me.
This is a great mystery.

East Harlem, June-July 1948

An Eastern Ballad

I speak of love that comes to mind:
The moon is faithful, although blind;
She moves in thought she cannot speak.
Perfect care has made her bleak.

I never dreamed the sea so deep,
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
I have become another child.
I wake to see the world go wild.

1945-1949

A Mad Gleam

Go back to Egypt and the Greeks,
Where the wizard understood
The spectre haunted where man seeks
And spoke to ghosts that stood in blood.

Go back, go back to the old legend;
The soul remembers, and is true:
What has been most and least imagined,
No other, there is nothing new.

The giant Phantom is ascending
Toward its coronation, gowned
With music unheard, yet unending:
Follow the flower to the ground.

New York, January 1949

Lay Down Yr Mountain

Lay down Lay down your nation Lay your foot on the rock

Lay down yr whole creation Lay yr mind down
Lay down Lay down yr empire Lay your whole world down

Lay down your soul forever Lay your vision down
Lay down yr bright body Down your golden heavy crown

Lay down Lay down yr magic hey! Alchemist lay it down clear
Lay down your practice precisely Lay down yr wisdom dear

Lay down yr skillful camera Lay down yr image right
Lay down your brilliant image Lay down light

Lay down your ignorance Roll yr wheel once more
Lay down yr empty suffering Lay down yr Lion's Roar

October 31, 1975