An Accidental Autobiography: The Selected Letters

by Gregory Corso, Bill Morgan, Patti Smith (Foreword)

Fabulous letters from the vagabond Beat poet to his friends -- among them Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. For all his charm and intelligence poet Gregory Corso lived a vagabond life. He never held down a regular job. He rarely stayed very long under the same roof. He spent long stretches -- some as long as four or five years -- abroad. Many of his letters came from Europe -- France, England, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Greece -- as he kept in touch with his circle of friends -- among them his best friend Allen Ginsberg and a steady supporter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He left (or was left by) a number of girlfriends and he fathered five children along the way. He was apt to raise a bit of a ruckus at poetry readings and other public events. No one could be sure what he might do next except that he would write poetry and get it published and that it would be widely read. When the idea of a book of selected letters was first proposed, Gregory had some reservations about it. Would the book reveal too much of his private life? But then with typical hubris he said the equivalent of "let it all hang out" and "all" does hang out in An Accidental Autobiography. The book is indeed the next thing to an unplanned self-portrait and gives a lively sense of the life Gregory Corso led, marching to his own drummer and leaving in his wake such marvelous books of Beat poetry as The Happy Birthday of Death, Elegiac Feelings American, Long Live Man, and Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit.

Genres: Poetry, Biography

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

Gregory Nunzio Corso was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers.

Reviews

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey, you know this is a hidden masterpiece. Corso in all his mad glory, but with a pure heart despite his junkie's tendency to burn everyone and everything. Just his luck: almost no one seems to have heard of it. A treasure of literary and personal soul history.

[Edmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the letters are from 56-61. Nothing surprising in a way, but he's burning birghtly. Does anyone write letters like these anymore? The last generation of talkers and letter writers before the gradual dilution of mass media?

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.examiner.com/books-in-denv...

[Jamie Yonker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been chipping away at this book of letters for ages and I’ll be picking it up again and again and again in coming years. So many of Corso’s lines to his friends just SING.


“…my poetry means something because it isn't poetry but a precious little answer of things I discovered when I was born . . . fuck everything else, abuse it, curse it, love it, have joy in it, or destroy it, it means nothing. but please, my little answer, my own little personal answer, should not be abused, no matter how bad, at times, the answer may be.”

[James Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An accidental autobiobiography put together by means of letters from Corso to his peers, his publishers, amd his firends. What a sad life life Corso lived in his early years. From foster family to care home, from youth prisons to reform schools. His mother left him as a child, his father remarried the typical Dickens type woman who could not cope with Corso's bed-wetting and petty stealing. Corso was a true poet, educated in prison and on the streets, educated by Gingsberg and Burroughs he produced one of the 20th century's finest poems BOMB and went on to become a true BEAT figure. I await the LAST BEAT. Corso was really a one-off. After his birth they broke the mold. He is gone, dusted, baby. All that remains for a true glimpse of the man are these letters. Essential reading for any BEAT freak.