To Hart Crane

[billy]

I'm not sure what might be from Ginsberg. Most of the allusions are very subtle, and most are references to Crane's poems about other poets. The allusion to Dickinson is in only one word. Crane travelled to the places these people travelled, and wrote about them in an "epic" poem called "The Bridge". A new myth of America. And my poem is about my experiences in these places, compared to what he says in his poems. If anything, I hoped maybe I could get some people interested in Crane; other than a nearly obscure movie about him that came out last year, there's not much attention paid to him compared to the other American poets I mentioned.

non i was just reminded of A Supermarket in California, by the brooklyn bookstore line, (which isn't the same bit it set off a trigger. in his supermarket ginsberg spoke of wally whitman, wanting to poke grocery boys. he used the supermarket to portray whitman life i think, this seems to be doing the same for crane, but as i say, i can't tell how because i don't know crane. there was a jealousy, maybe even a physical one between ginsberg and whitman and i get a little of that here, though nothing as overt.

When I count, there are only you and I together
On those early autumn walks,
In green of late dusk evenings.
Nothing said, and less that’s promised;
Only cloak and dagger rambles.
Revels scored in scattered intervals…
—But who is that on the other side of you?