White shroud : poems, 1980-1985

New York : Perennial Library, 1987, ©1986, 1987. Book. Good. Soft cover. xi, 89 pages : music ; 24 cm ; red and white stiff paper wrappers ; Includes melodies with chord symbols for some of the poems ; ISBN: 0060914297 ((pbk.)); 9780060914295 ((pbk.)) LCCN: 86-45104 ; LC: PS3513.I74; Dewey: 811/.54 ; OCLC: 17245175 ; Poems by a modern master. "[Ginsberg's] powerful mixture of Blake, Whitman, Pound, and Williams, to which he added his own volatile, grotesque, and tender humor, has assured him a memorable place in modern poetry."-- Helen Vendler ; "'White Shroud' is a mellow sampler of Ginsberg in his prime, autobiographical poems chronicling his travels, public appearances, emotions, dreams and reading over the last five years. During this time, he visited China, and 10 of the poems describe his experiences there, like his reflections in a hotel room recovering from a cold: 'So I lifted my head from my pillow and Woke / to find I was a sick guest in a vast poor kingdom / A famous visitor honored with a heated room, / medicines, special foods and learned visitors / inquiring when I'd be well enough to lecture my hosts on the musics and poetics of the wealthy / Nation I had come from half way round the world.' Even in dreams, Ginsberg is lucid and communicative, as in the title poem 'White Shroud,' its style reminiscent of the inspired, emotionally complex pile-up of images in 'Kaddish,' Ginsberg's elegy for his mother written a quarter century ago. Here the mood is less terrible, if no less loving, as he describes a recent dream about his mother living as a bag lady in the Bronx, 'saner than I/Laughs and cries/She's still alive.' The tender humor characterizing Ginsberg's best work permeates these poems, yet they are no soft sellout to the upbeat Muzak of Madison Avenue." -- Ann Charters, 1987 ; remains of label faintly visible on front cover ; stamp of the Carter Center in Atlanta on the inside front cover ; much wear to spine ; G.