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	Media & Democracy Congress II October 16-19 in NYC
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	The 1997 Project Censored Yearbook by Peter Phillips and Project Censored

"This poet sees through and all around 
  the horrors he partakes of in the
  very intimate details of his poem.  
  He avoids nothing but experiences it
  to the hilt."
  
          --William Carlos Williams, Introduction
                   to Allen Ginsberg's Howl, l956


"Who are you Nieman Fellows anyway,
are you for real?"
he asks in an angry aside,
evening reading with chemistry congealed,
Signet  Society, Harvard, circa '78,
as event organized to breathe poetry
on skeptical classmates &
elevate journalism with the
fire of prohecy misfires
Big journalism that night yawns back
empty faced, close minded, tanks on empty
while Ginsberg, with boyfriend Peter in tow,
spews words at unimpressed scribes,
as the chill of distance and disconnect
freezes conversation, precludes exchange,
stultifies debate, unleashes tantrum
Literary light flickers
with no one to change the bulb
It was clear:
he was from that other world
beat beatnik beaten down,
big deal dissident,
gay jew Buddhist crazy
playing Whitman to we
who fetishise facts
sometimes mistaking them
for truth.

None of us knew then--
Allen Ginsberg had 19 years
left to share our air
and fertilize fields of fury
a poet among us
heralded at last in death
front page,
New York Times,
his Howl hailed
verse of the century,
with obits across the
mediascape singing praise
for a gentle spirit and
kooky mind that
won legitimacy
only after final breath
in residence in this skin
Coming up at 11:
Heaven
He's off to Tibet
this American dreamer
who had Presidents in tears...
in Prague and wordsmiths
worldwide reaching for
thesauruses of acclamation
Hail and Farewell

But Wait
Journalists wait
Producers Wait
Op Ed columnists and
J School teachers, Wait
Editorial Writers and
NPR Radio editors, wait
Think Ginsberg anew
for a qwik minute
Think
of what he had to
say to us and for us
think of his question
that nieman night
who are you?
which is another way of asking
what do you see
& how do you see
Do you feel what you see
and say what you feel?
Ginsberg sang songs we sing
who what where when why how
Questions he asked too
another way
beyond headlines
burying the lead
on the jump page of
nuance way back
in the back of the book

Take a breath now and
see him-- that bearded wierdo
as one of our own
See his words erupt
only when you read them aloud
'negro streets at dawn'
'america I've given you all and now I'm nothing'
'Are you going to let your emotional life
 be run by Time magazine'
throughout the verses,
again and again,
reality sandwiches
commentary on media deceit
war and peace,
pentagon madness
souless politics
loveless culture
urging us on
take the leap
imagine other ways of being, doing, caring

Alan Ginsberg from lower east side ny
hipster and hopester
language provocateur
rock & roll with and without music
looking for detail in the details
looking for what's being left out
and finding it again and again
not in safe surfaces or
formula foolishness
not in official sources
or approved resources
rejecting all isms
not the least-journal-ism

And yet as he checked out
his facts checked out
yes, he could be a caricature
a contradiction, sometimes a clown
celebrity anti-hero
lecture bureau radical
listened to more than heard
an amusement more than a threat
in the beavis butthead dumb & dumber era
when nothing sticks, he stuck

Think of a life's causes and cares
chants for sane drugs and sane love
for an end to plutonium plutarchs
vietnam shame,lies in high places
Could he not have not been a regular
on  those pundit shows
with fred barnes and the boys
sunday mornings beat the press
could he not have out chancellored Chancellor
or done the weather with Willard on Today
balanced the unbalanced on Crossfire
and give PatB a run for his metaphors

There are other Ginsbergs out there, friends,
off the wall voices clear as a bell
oozing truth power's way without a
lousy cable channel to call their own.
Alan Ginsberg was a cable channel on his own
was a million poems
was one of the best minds of his generation
was an investigative reporter without portfolio
was a guide into the American darkness
without a press card
without an outlet
without a pulitzer prize
no network would have him
no magazine pension plan
no schoolyard of fact checkers
or control room of know it alls
no media merger
no beeper
no cellphone
no nieman
He was never
acquired or downsized
disneyed or murdoched
All he had was
a good jump on news
we never knew
He was GNN--Ginsberg News Network
a poet ahead of The News
with The Times never quite able
to catch
up.