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Beatitude #6
beatitude 6
A portrait of Ginsberg
by Anitra Macinnas

B E A T I T U D E #6

published at 14 1/2 Bannan Alley
San Francisco, 11, California

NOTES ABOUT THE MAGAZINE AND THE POEMS
AND POETS IN THE PRESENT ISSUE

Beatitude started out as a weekly, and continued as such  for five issues. Owing maybe to lack of salesmen we  were slow getting rid of the last issue, and contributions  also were slow in coming. For this reason we are not  trying to make a weekly deadline, simply to get out every  issue as fast as we can, weekly if possible.

It is a portrait of Allen Ginsberg. We had much trouble with this cover. The stencil tore during the printing in the upper left corner. Had not Anitra most kindly volunteered to make another stencil, we should not have been able to get out our thousand copies for the week-end. As it is we apologize if your copy is splotched or blank on the corner, or on blue or green rather than pink paper.
Anitra's paintings by the way are now in the Anxious Asp, and well worth seeing.






CONTENTS:

( page 1 & 2)  MESCALINE by Allen Ginsberg who needs no introduction. The subject-- that we live in a slowly decaying body that will die-- is a common one. We continually see others die, but it is a rare and very sincere man who can contemplate his own death. Ginsberg has that rare courageous sincerity, to such a degree, that at times you would think it capable of overturning whole buildings.

(p. 3) A QUARTET by a Nameless writer.  A number of people think that Stephen Spender is the author, If so, we are honored.  Whatever happens, the author has a bet to win, and we hope he wins it.

(p. 4) EPITHALAMIUM by Jack Spicer and others, is a classical marriage song such as Catullus wrote, also as Jack Spicer himself said, a poem about language, reminiscent of Plato's Cratylus, where words are playfully dissected and fancifully derived.  Many reading will not exhaust all the wit tenderness and subtelty in this poem.  The "mistakes" and "corrections" are of course the authors' own.  We did our best to reproduce them faithfully.

(p. 5) ruth weiss's TWO POEMS were left out of #5 by mistake.  The second is really something, and will surely rank as a rare jewel when ruth's works are collected an assessed.

(p. 6) Richard McBride who works at City Lights, contributes THREE POEMS. He is the author of the controversial St. Francisco in #2. These poems will make his position more clear. At the bottom are Peter Orlovsky's two rainbow haikus, which he copied on a scrap of paper for us over beer in the coffee gallery.

(p. 7) Virginia Mc Grath lives in Pacific Grove. Nearby, another resort, Carmel-by-the-Sea, attracts many tourists. Tourists are also welcome here in N. Beach. They buy arts and crafts and steak dinners for the poor poets.  What a shame they carry stop signs in their pockets!  Abomunists of course carry green lights and tell everyone to GO.

(p. 8) AMONG THE ROCKS by Al Sublette has more or less the same setting and subject. The poet turns his gaze away from nature to the wonderful works or Man: missiles, jet airplanes and the like. Kinsey Gray is a painter, who had kindly done two covers for us. We are saving Charlotte Baldwin's monumental Ode to the Bean for a future issue, this little poem fits the surroundings.

(cont.)

(pp. 9 & 10) We hope you will have the patience to read aloud several times the short PERSIAN POEM by Hafiz one of the great Sufi poets of the 14th century. It is an object lesson showing how much poetry is pure sound. It is not necessary to know the language.  While Mohammed Karbassi was putting the Persian writing on the stencil, he was visited by a delegation of six Persian ladies, a most impressive sight.

(p. 11) Gene Wright lives above Cassandra's. On a Sunday at dawn, the cafe finally closed,  and all strangely silent, he heard the faint sound of one bongo drum, and remembered it was the ANNIVERSITY OF "D" DAY.  Vaugh Von Greene is a seaman.  Doubtless he composed FUGI on the way home from Japan.  We are wondering who the OLD MAN was whom Pierre Delattre describes so vividly.

(p. 12) AUJOURD' HUI by Jean Marie Deschamps a young (?) French poet now living in Sausalito. John Chance is said to be the greatest haiku writer in America. Nancy Flores, only 19 years old, also shows great promise in this direction.

(p. 13) Anabel Kirby's INTERIOR AND MUSIC seems evocative of an old Cape Cod house during a storm.

(p. 14) Francine Marshall and Alice Panovits have just graduated from high school. The is Lindsay's CONGO in North Beach setting, and you should compare this poem with its model so as not to miss all the exuberance and wit therein. (p.15) more funny poems by Alice alone, also one wry sardonic one by Ginsberg and another one by Po Li (not the classical poet)

(p,16) Sheri Martinelli (ON LOVING MANY) is only imitating Ovid and nothing personal is meant. Her paintings are on exhibit at City Lights, , , , (pg. 17) The mysterious Jo, evidently a poetess is the discovery of the week.

(pp. 18,19, 20) Bill Margolis and Bob Kaufman who have contributed generously to this magazine from the start, not only poetry, but time thought and effort, are becoming widely known to TV audiences and need no feeble praise from us.  Jack Kerouac in a recent post card to BEATITUDE said; "Bob Kaufman, I didn't know you could write so well."  He (Jack is editing an anthology of beat writing for Avon, and we will send him this and following issues, which we hope he continues to read with interest

PLEASE NOTE: Publisher does not necessarily endorse sentiments voiced in the New Abomunist Manifesto.


SPECIAL THANKS to RICHARD HARRIS for particapating in this project by sharing the above information from his rare copy of Beatitude #6.

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