Hicks does Oscar Williams doing Ginsberg

Wed, 29 Sep 1999 21:43:53 PDT
From: "Lauryl Hicks" 
Subject: Re: Attica!!

Alberto wrote:
I wonder what Oscar Williams would have done with "Sphincter."


Hmmm... Just for funsies:



Oscar Williams does Ginsberg!

   "My Tooshie"
By Allen Ginsberg, as (may have been) edited by Oscar Williams

Although it's aging,
I will not fret
The old rear end's
Not failed me yet,

'Cept for some trouble
In Manila
(Hey, that rhymes with
Manzanilla!)

Receptive ever-
Who can blame him?-
T'all kinds of things
(But I won't name 'em.)

If anything, he's
More rapacious
Here's a bottle--
Goodness Gracious!

Through all the years
He's been my chum,
And I've been his.
"My dear, sweet bum,

I don't think my
Request's too taxing:
A few years more
Of bliss relaxing?"
----------------------------------------
I'm with el revolucionario and Justin, and all others who think Williams's 
watered-down Dickinson is inferior.  Makes the poem sound like an 
excessively-esoteric fantasy story rather than an important example of 
Dickinson's poetic radicalism.  The meter is particularly tedious w/out our 
friends, ------- and Capitalization.

And I'm at a loss about the manzanilla. What is that about???

Lauryl

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