Reality Sandwiches: 1953-1960

By Allen Ginsberg

Book Overview

"Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages for yr own joy." Many of Ginsberg's most famous poems.

Wake-up nightmares in Lower East Side, musings in public library, across the U.S. in dream auto, drunk in old Havana, brooding in Mayan ruins, sex daydreams on the West Coast, airplane vision of Kansas, lonely in a leafy cottage, lunch hour on Berkeley, beer notations on Skid Row, slinking to Mexico, wrote this last night in Paris, back on Times square dreaming of Times Square, bombed in NY again, loony tunes in the dentist chair, screaming at old poets in South America, aethereal zigzag Poesy in blue hotel room in Peru--a wind-up book of dreams, psalms, journal enigmas & nude minutes from 1953 to 1960 poems scattered in fugitive magazines here collected now book.

". . .make no mistake, Reality Sandwiches, 1953-60 . . . is genuine poetry, and Ginsberg's commitment marks his superiority over more graceful and refined but tepid craftsmen." --Robert D. Spector, Poetry Quarterly

Famous Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926, the son of Naomi Ginsberg, Russian eacute;migr , and Louis Ginsberg, lyric poet and school teacher, in Paterson, N.J. To these facts Ginsberg adds: "High school in Paterson till 17, Columbia College, merchant marine, Texas and Denver copyboy, Times Square, amigos in jail, dishwashing, book reviews, Mexico City, market research, Satori in Harlem, Yucatan and Chiapas 1954, West Coast 3 years. Later Arctic Sea trip, Tangier, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, read at Oxford Harvard Columbia Chicago, quit, wrote "Kaddish" 1959, made tape to leave behind & fade in Orient awhile." His other famous poetry collections including The Fall of America, Howl, Mind Breaths, Plutonian Ode, Kaddish, and Reality Sandwiches are also published by City Lights Publishers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872860213
• ISBN13: 9780872860216
• Release Date: January 1963
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 98 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.8" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Reality Sandwiches, a beat generations must

In Allen Ginsberg's book "Reality Sandwiches" Allen takes you into his world of poetry when the beat generation was at it's peak. Ginsberg is one of the all time greatest poets of all time and this shine's clear in Reality Sandwiches. It's a must read if you love or admire, or are curious about the culture of the beat generation.