Corso, Gregory

American writer, primarily of poetry, Corso was born in New York City in 1930. He worked as a migrant laborer, newspaper reporter for the L.A. Examiner, and merchant seaman before joining the English Department at SUNY Buffalo in 1965. In the mid-1950s he began to give public readings of his poetry, often sharing the stage with other Beat poets. His 1958 volume, GASOLINE, marks the beginning of his long association with San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore and the Bay Area in general, which figures prominently in much of Corso's work.

The Beat poet Gregory Corso (1930-2001), a native of New York City, taught intermittently at the State University of New York at Buffalo during the 1960s. Shelley was among his favorite poets.

American poet.

Gregory Corso (1930- ) was a poet of the Beat movement; he is often associated with Allen Ginsberg. Corso's published works include The Vestal Lady on Brattle (1955), Gasoline (1958), and The Happy Birthday of Death (1960).

Gregory Corso (1930- ) was a poet of the Beat movement; he is often associated with Allen Ginsberg. Corso's published works include "The Vestal Lady on Brattle" (1955), "Gasoline" (1958), and "The Happy Birthday of Death" (1960).

Poet.

Member of the east coast group of "Beat" writers, which included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Diane Di Prima.

Poet, associated with beat generation, of New York, N.Y.; b. 1930.

Gregory Corso was an American Beat novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright.

Born in New York City, American poet Gregory Corso (1930–2001) was a young associate of the Beat poets.

Corso spent his early years in and out of prison. During his five year sentence for robbery at Dannemora prison in upstate New York, he learned to read and developed a passion for Percy Bysshe Shelley and Homer. When he was released from prison in 1950, he moved to Greenwich Village and developed close friendships with Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac. In 1954, Corso moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and became a fixture of the literary underground. A group of Harvard students and intellectuals were so impressed with his poetry that they paid for the publication of his first collection, The Vestal Lady on Brattle . Corso's literary reputation was established in 1960 when he was included in the Grove Press Anthology The New American Poetry 1945–1960 . By 1963, however, Corso's career was beginning to falter because of his addiction to heroin and alcohol. Although he published two more collections of poetry ( Elegiac Feelings American in 1970 and Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit in 1981), his career never regained the momentum of his great period in the 1950s.

Corso's personal life was never as successful as his literary career. He abandoned and eventually divorced four wives and several children. From 1992 until his death, Corso was supported financially by a wealthy Japanese artist, Hiro Yamagata. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999, Corso died in 2001 and his ashes were buried next to the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Rome.

American National Biography . 24 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Gregory Nunzio Corso, born to very young Italian immigrants in New York's Greenwich Village, had a troubled childhood. His mother left Corso's father and her son within a year of Gregory's birth, and he spent most of his youth moving between different foster homes and orphanages or living on the street. As a teenager, he landed briefly in jail and spent three months under psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue, but it was his three years incarcerated in New York's Clinton State Prison (as a repeat offender for theft) that proved to be transformative for Corso. In the prison library he discovered Rimbaud and Percy Shelley and it was during this stint in jail that he began to write poetry.

In 1950, upon his release from prison, Corso again began to frequent the bars and cafés of Greenwich Village. It was here that he met Allen Ginsberg who introduced the young poet to Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and the rest of the original members of the Beat Generation. Corso's commitment to creating spontaneous poetry fit in well with the beats' "New Vision" for American poetry and Corso was quickly integrated into the group of friends, traveling with them to give poetry readings in San Francisco and collaborating with them on various creative projects.

Corso's first book of poetry, The Vestal Lady on Brattle was published in 1955 and gained Corso some critical acclaim and enough money to fund his travels through abroad. He traveled through Europe and set up residence in the Paris boarding house later christened the Beat Hotel and, along with Ginsberg, Orlovsky, and Kerouac, traveled to Tangier to help William Burroughs edit the Naked Lunch manuscript.

Corso returned to New York in 1958 in time to see his book of poetry, Gasoline, published as part of City Lights' Pocket Poet series. Though he did write some plays and some prose, most notably the novel The American Express, his prime focus was always on his poetry and he published a number of books of poetry throughout his career and lectured on creative writing and poetry.

Gregory Corso died of complications from prostate cancer in 2001. He was 70 years old.

Born Nunzio Corso in 1930 in New York City, Gregory Corso's life began inauspiciously. Abandoned by his mother when he was still an infant, he lived in a succession of foster homes, orphanages and reform schools, and only finished grammar school. Sent to prison for robbery in 1947, Corso educated himself, began reading widely in art and literature, and developed many of the themes he would later express through poetry, such as his vision of poetry as a means of societal change.

Shortly after his release from prison in 1950, he met poet Allen Ginsberg, and through Ginsberg began his association with the Beat Generation poets. Gregory Corso has published several books, primarily poetry but including a novel and plays.

Gregory Corso was born 26 March 1930, in New York, NY, the son of Fortunato Samuel and Michelina (Colonni) Corso . His career included working as a writer, manual laborer in New York City (1950-1951), and employee of the Los Angeles Examiner ( Los Angeles, CA, 1951-1952), a merchant seaman on Norwegian vessels (1952-1953) and in the English department of the State University of New York at Buffalo (1965-1970). He appeared in Peter Whitehead 's film, “Wholly Communion” and in Andy Warhol 's “Couch.” He wrote novels, short stories, plays, screenplays and poetry. Corso was awarded the Longview Award for poem, “Marriage”, $1,000 Poetry Foundation award, the Jean Stein Award for Poetry, and is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1986).

Published Works: Writings by the Author R. Brukenfeld The Vestal Lady on Brattle , and Other Poems, (Cambridge, MA) , 1955 . “This Hung-Up Age” (play) produced at Harvard University, 1955 . Bomb (poem; broadside), [San Francisco] , 1958 . introduction by Allen Ginsberg , Gasoline (poems), City Lights , 1958, new edition, 1992. (With Henk Marsman ) A Pulp Magazine for the Dead Generation: Poems , Dead Language , 1959 . (With William S. Burroughs , Brion Gysin , and Sinclair Beiles ) Minutes to Go , Two Cities Editions (Paris) , 1960 . Happy Birthday of Death (poems), New Directions , 1960 . (Editor with Walter Hollerer ) Junge Amerikanische Lyrik (anthology), Carl Hansen Verlag , 1961 . The American Express (novel), Olympia Press , 1961 . (With Anselm Hollo and Tom Raworth ) The Minicab War , Matrix Press , 1961 . Find It So Hard to Write the How Why & What... , Paterson Society , 1961 . Long Live Man (poems), New Directions , 1962 . Selected Poems , Eyre & Spottiswoode , 1962 . (With Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg ) Penguin Modern Poets 5 , Penguin , 1963 . The Mutation of the Spirit: A Shuffle Poem , Death Press , 1964 . There Is Yet Time to Run Back through Life and Expiate All That's Been Sadly Done (poems), New Directions , 1965 . (Contributor) Paris Leary and Robert Kelly , editors, A Controversy of Poets , Doubleday Anchor , 1965 . The Geometric Poem: A Long Experimental Poem, Composite of Many Lines and Angles Selective , [Milan, Italy] , 1966 . (Contributor) Bob Booker and George Foster , editors, Pardon Me, Sir, But Is My Eye Hurting Your Elbow? (screenplays), Bernard Geis , 1967 . 10 Times a Poem: Collected at Random From 2 Suitcases Filled With Poems—the Gathering of 5 Years , Poets Press , 1967 . Elegiac Feelings American , New Directions , 1970 . Gregory Corso , Phoenix Book Shop , 1971 . Egyptian Cross , Phoenix Book Shop , 1971 . The Night Last Night Was at Its Nightest... , Phoenix Book Shop , 1972 . Earth Egg , Unmuzzled Ox , 1974 . Way Out: A Poem in Discord (play), Bardo Matrix (Kathmandu, Nepal) , 1974 . The Japanese Notebook Ox , Unmuzzled Ox , 1974 . Collected Plays , City Lights , 1980 . edited by Michael Andre , Writings from Ox , Unmuzzled Ox , 1981 . Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit , New Directions , 1981 . Mindfield: New and Selected Poems , Thunder's Mouth , 1989 .

Also coauthor of screenplay “Happy Death”, 1965; contributor to periodicals, including Evergreen Review and Litterair Paspoort.

Source: Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 1999.

Gregory Corso (1929–2001) was an American poet, the youngest of a group popularly known as the "Beat Generation" writers, in company with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs.

Corso was also the first of the group to be published ("The Vestal Lady on Brattle" and other poems, in 1952). Writer Ted Morgan said of them, "If Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs were the Three Musketeers of the movement, Corso was their D'Artagnan."

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Gregory Nunzio Corso, born to very young Italian immigrants in New York's Greenwich Village, had a troubled childhood. His mother left Corso's father and her son within a year of Gregory's birth, and he spent most of his youth moving between different foster homes and orphanages or living on the street. As a teenager, he landed briefly in jail and spent three months under psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue, but it was his three years incarcerated in New York's Clinton State Prison (as a repeat offender for theft) that proved to be transformative for Corso. In the prison library he discovered Rimbaud and Percy Shelley and it was during this stint in jail that he began to write poetry.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED In 1950, upon his release from prison, Corso again began to frequent the bars and cafés of Greenwich Village. It was here that he met Allen Ginsberg who introduced the young poet to Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and the rest of the original members of the Beat Generation. Corso's commitment to creating spontaneous poetry fit in well with the beats' "New Vision" for American poetry and Corso was quickly integrated into the group of friends, traveling with them to give poetry readings in San Francisco and collaborating with them on various creative projects.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Corso's first book of poetry, The Vestal Lady on Brattle was published in 1955 and gained Corso some critical acclaim and enough money to fund his travels through abroad. He traveled through Europe and set up residence in the Paris boarding house later christened the Beat Hotel and, along with Ginsberg, Orlovsky, and Kerouac, traveled to Tangier to help William Burroughs edit teh amnuscript of The Naked Lunch.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Corso returned to New York in 1958 in time to see his book of poetry, Gasoline, published as part of City Lights' Pocket Poet series. Though he did write some plays and some prose, most notably the novel The American Express, his prime focus was always on his poetry and he published a number of books of poetry throughout his career and lectured on creative writing and poetry.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Gregory Corso died of complications from prostate cancer in 2001. He was 70 years old.