On Sunday, April 13, a small group of Dartmouth students and faculty gathered in Sanborn to commemorate the passing of legendary counterculture and antiestablishment "beat" poet, Allen Ginsberg.
Wess Jolley, College Records Manager and longtime Ginsberg fan, created a World Wide Web page exclusively devoted to the poet. After his death, the web page was written up in the New York Times and mentioned on CNN.
With it's new-found fame, the page became a "clearinghouse for all things Ginsberg" and a meeting place where fans from around the world could share their thoughts and feelings on Ginsberg and his passing.
Jolley, inspired by the response, organized the "Allen Ginsberg National Day of Remembrance," a poetry reading/memorial service was held simultaneously in "town halls, poetry centers, cafes, street corners, classrooms" and other areas in locations ranging from Seattle to Jakarta.
The service, held at Dartmouth, was run by Jolley and attended by several prominent members of the English department including professors William Cook, Thomas Luxon and Ivy Schweitzer.
Student turnout was low. Luxon said "I was disappointed by the turnout, but found the event inspiring all the same."
Jolley began by reciting a poem from Ginsberg's "Cosmopolitan Greetings," and afterwards each person was encouraged to share their reasons for attending and to recite poems by and inspired by Ginsberg.
Only the professors participated in the event. In one of the highlights of the event, Luxon, who was visibly moved, recited "Elegy for Neal Cassady." The poem, written by Ginsberg after the death of his lover Cassady, was eerily appropriate and startlingly prophetic in light of his own death.
Ginsberg's poetry has had a deep and lasting effect on the culture, politics and art of the second half of this century.
His constant verbal and literary attacks against the stagnant moral rigidity that characterized American society helped usher in the era of "flower power" (a phrase he developed) and wider acceptance of alternative views, including those concerning homosexuality.
Schweitzer turned to these political aspects of Ginsberg's poetry by reciting "America," one of Ginsberg's angriest, but funniest, poems. In the poem, he expressed his outrage and defiance by concluding "America, I am putting my queer shoulder to the wheel."
The event ended with a moment of silence (held at exactly the same time across the country), and a viewing of a taped interview of a William F. Buckley, Jr. interview of Ginsberg.
The interview elicited bittersweet laughter from the viewers as Ginsberg, in typical fashion, shocked the conservative Buckley by reciting a poem written under the influence of LSD.
What happened in Sanborn at 4 p.m. this past Sunday was an inspiring, unusual and worthwhile event commemorating one of the brilliant poets and cultural icons of our day.
