Corso, Gregory

Gregory Corso, 1930-, one of the original Beat poets, was born to Italian parents in Greenwich Village. His mother returned to Italy shortly after his birth, and he spent his first thirteen years living in various orphanages, foster homes, and reform schools. At thirteen he began living on the streets, sleeping in subway stations, and resorting to petty thievery to eat. At sixteen he participated in an organized robbery which netted $21,000, was caught, and sentenced to three years in Clinton State Prison.

Corso used his time in prison to good advantage, reading the better part of the prison library and studying a 1905 English dictionary inherited from a fellow prisoner. It was in the prison library that he discovered Shelley and developed a life-long enthusiasm for the poet. It was during these years in prison that he began to write.

Released from prison in 1950, Corso met Allen Ginsberg in the Pony Stable, a Greenwich Village bar. Ginsberg took an interest in Corso's poetry and introduced him to Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. Over the next several years Corso eked out a living doing manual labor and other marginal jobs. During 1954-55 he sat in on classes at Harvard where his one-act farce In This Hung-Up Age was performed, and his first volume of poetry, The Vestal Lady on Brattle and Other Poems (1955), was privately published. In 1956 he moved to the West Coast following Ginsberg and Kerouac. He met Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg's publisher, who published a volume of Corso's poems, Gasoline, in 1958. Corso also joined Ginsberg in literary events where Ginsberg preformed his long poem Howl . In 1957 he joined fellow Beats Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Peter Orlovsky on a trip to Tangier to visit William Burroughs.

Over the next five years Corso traveled throughout Europe, returning occasionally to the United States for poetry readings. He supported himself with royalty and advance checks and loans from friends. His anxious moments at the American Express offices, waiting for checks, provided material for his only novel, American Express (1961).

Since 1961 he has alternated residences between New York City and the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. During his stays in New York he has taught occasionally at the State University of New York, Buffalo.

From the guide to the Gregory Corso Collection TXRC00-A15., 1890-1978, (1950-1976), (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin)