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Dec. 25--This is one in a series of vignettes celebrating Kansas history. The series' name comes from the state motto, Ad astra per aspera: "To the stars through difficulties."
"Thy sins are forgiven, Wichita!
Thy lonesomeness annulled, O Kansas dear!
as the western Twang prophesied
thru banjo, when lone cowboy walked the railroad track past an empty station toward the sun sinking giant-bulbed orange down the box canyon --
Music strung over his back
and empty handed singing on this planet earth
I'm a lonely Dog, O Mother!"
--Allen Ginsberg,
Wichita Vortex Sutra
Wichita was once hip with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Beat Generation and counterculture pioneer.
A homosexual. Known to use illegal drugs. An anti-war activist.
The raw language of his poems shocked and repulsed Bible Belt America.
He came to Wichita in 1966 and wrote one of his most famous and critically acclaimed works, "Wichita Vortex Sutra," in opposition to the Vietnam War.
He read his works at Moody's Skid Row Beanery at 627 E. Douglas and Wichita State University and, when interviewed by The Wichita Eagle, told a reporter: "The city imposes a dark night on the soul of its youth."
Ginsberg was born in 1926 in Newark, N.J. His father was Jewish, his mother active in the Communist Party USA. Growing up, he was inspired by the works of Walt Whitman.
During the 1950s, Ginsberg rose to national prominence as a counter culture beat generation writer along with Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. He later helped influence cultural icons such as Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary and Bob Dylan. In 1956 his legendary poem "Howl" was published. It began:
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked... "
Ginsberg is crediting with the term "flower power," the phrase that helped identify the hippie generation.
In the early 1960s, Ginsberg became friends with Charles Plymell, a Wichita beat writer. While in Wichita, Ginsberg would frequent the Beanery, a gathering place for the homeless, down-and-out and far-out beatniks. The Beanery had a sign: "Through these doors pass the greatest bums on Earth -- our customers."
The original version of "Wichita Vortex Sutra" was created in February 1966 as Ginsberg rode in the back of a VW bus, speaking into a tape recorder blending his impressions of the landscape and news of the day.
He would write in the poem:
"Napalm and black clouds emerging in newsprint
Flesh soft as a Kansas girl's
ripped open by metal explosion
and
Three five zero zero on the other side of the planet
caught in barbed wire, fire ball, bullet shock, bayonet electricity..."
Ginsberg would describe the straight highway, dipping downward through low hills, black cows.
He mentions Kansas City, Marysville, Wichita, Junction City, Independence, El Dorado, Salina, Hutchinson, Abilene and Florence.
He writes of Wichita where there were "police dumbfounded leaning on their radiocar hoods."
He refers to The Wichita Eagle and how he walked "past the newspaper language factory" and "under Union Station railroad bridge on Douglas
to the center of the Vortex."
The Beanery was eventually closed and razed in a downtown urban revitalization project. Ginsberg died in 1997, at age 70.
Reach Beccy Tanner at 316-268-6336 or btanner@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:btanner@wichitaeagle.com].
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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