29 May (1967): Allen Ginsberg to the General Public

In May of 1967 the editors of the Portland State University newspaper The Vanguard ran a nude photograph of Allen Ginsberg on their front page. This promptly caused an uproar, with college administrators demanding that all existing copies of the paper be destroyed. The Oregonian ran thirteen stories on the issue, including an update from the State Legislature, who “abhorr[ed] such misuse of public monies and commend[ed] the recent action whereby a college administrator saw fit to remove an offending publication and it’s obviously incompetent staff.” In an editorial someone stated: “What puzzles us about the Allen Ginsberg fuss at PSC is why students who must scratch for money are… willing to spend it to support a weirdo who makes a good living by substituting depravity for talent…The filthy free verse Ginsberg read for the students was about as meaningful as adolescent scribbling on a toilet wall.” Ginsberg, of course, had something to say about all this, and wrote the following letter to The Oregonian.

Allen Ginsberg [New York, NY] to Whom it May Concern [Portland, OR]

May 29, 1967

Dear Sirs, Journals, Committees, Presidents and Other Poetry Lovers,

Such a great nonsensical flap has been made over the circumstances attending a poetry reading I gave at Portland State University on May 27, 1967, that I would like to add a few clear words and perhaps calm those curious who are calmable.

I arrived in Portland after a reading tour of various respectable universities throughout the nation—private and state supported colleges where I had been invited by student organizations often but mostly by English departments many of which include texts by me in their academic curricula—and had thus visited U of Texas, Iowa State, Kenyon, U of Southern California, Nashville’s Vanderbilt, U of New Mexico, U of Colorado, etc. as well as U of Oregon and Oregon State and Reed, the later Portland State’s near neighbors.

Monies gained from these poetry readings are all turned over to a pleasant tax exempt educational foundation and redistributed among poets and artists whose work has not been properly rewarded otherwise by larger institutions.

Portland State’s student newspaper published a photo story prior to my reading. The text included an inaccurate report that the school had requested and I had complied with a request to behave at Portland State with some especial “propriety.” Fortunately for everybody’s sanity no such request has been made. It would have been a provincial and ill-educated request: it remains a provincial and ill-educated fantasy.

The fantasy was complicated by the student newspaper’s printing a photograph of me by the celebrated photographer Richard Avedon, originally printed in his book on American persons, Nothing Personal. The book has been reprinted nationally in paperback, has sold calmly in Portland for a year. The photograph, a remarkable one, is of myself as a poet mostly naked, except that the controversial groin is modestly covered by the left hand with a Buddhist mudra (hand gesture) signifying contemplation. The right hand is raised palm out in Abhya Mudra, gesture of reassurance.

There is nothing in the picture to offend, unless one is offended by the sight of not quite naked person, in which case any slick magazine or local newspaper carrying bathing suit or shower soap advertisements might be found offensive, but they are not.

The fantasy was complicated further by an inaccurate, that in college “performances” I remove my clothes. It is not generally known that I am initiated into a school of Hinduism some members of which do go abroad in the city ash-smeared and naked; this is Shivaite Hinduism but I am not a practicing Naga (naked) holyman. So I have not removed my clothes at a public reading for, alas, ten years. The one occasion in 1957 on which I did remove my clothes is, as an anecdote, too oft repeated (as in an issue of Life magazine a year ago) to be worthy of further repetition; but since such a small tale has never reached Portland in an accurate form, apparently, I do bear witness that in a private house once upon a time a red haired lush from Hollywood interrupted fellow poet Gregory Corso in the midst of his long poem Power and shouted “Whatter you guys tryna prove?” and I spontaneously shouted back “Nakedness!” and he shouted back “Whadya mean nakedness?” and so thinking over my own language I silently disrobed, and then clothed myself again, and then Corso continued the reading of Power.

All this has very little to do with Portland State, except that I do find it surprising that educated journalists would expect me to give the same answer twice.

The Portland State College Fantasy over my body was further complicated by President Millar’s late discomfiture over the Avedon photograph. I explained to President Millar that, as far as I was concerned, the photograph was representative of my own self; I had stood still for it, and certainly had no objection to seeing it in the newspaper reproduced. It had been reproduced in various student papers before, for that matter. So there was nothing unusual there. Yet I found a Portland newspaper supposedly quoting President Millar days after my arrival and departure from Portland to the effect that the Avedon photograph was mis-representative of the invited poet and some sort of insult. I therefore hasten to reassure President Millar, and Portland media, and the State Legislature itself if necessary, that I am not one to be insulted by my own physical image, especially photo’d in the act of making religious hand signs.

All gossip I have heard to date emphasizes the fact that all this great flapping and fantasy are traceable back to groups of ladies and gentlemen over college age who neither attended the poetry reading nor understood the significance of the photograph, and who assume that I am some sort of obscene quack ripping off my clothes in public mouthing four letter words exclusively and mouthing them exclusively at Portland State, all this supposedly done for my private financial gain or in an un-American attempt to subvert our tender youth who should be in training to die in Vietnam rather than listening to filthy poetry readings. This mentality has invaded the editorial columns of local and supposedly serious Portland newspapers; and in fact, one hears, it is a similar opinionation held by various State Legislators that has caused President Millar to take rash action, issue statement about my nudity to newspapers, suspend and burn the Portland State student newspaper, etc.

Reviewing the entire situation, I judge that there is a sickness of language and opinionation in Portland, a clear lack of basic information, a failed sense of humor, overwhelming anxiety for no real reasons—almost all official persons concerned seem subject to nineteenth century fainting spells, the official kind that our Eastern grandmothers complained of.

Thank you for your attention,

Allen Ginsberg, poet

FURTHER READING