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Description
Gregory Nunzio Corso - referred to as the "Urban Shelley" of the Beat Generation - lived a life as explosive and controversial as his poetry. Growing up in Greenwich Village, New York, his youth consisted of foster homes, prison, and a brief stay in Bellevue Psychiatric ward. In his twenties, he moved to Paris, France, and founded the Beat Hotel in 1957. While there, he published his poetry through correspondence with City Lights Books in San Francisco via Lawrence Ferlinghetti. His most memorable poem "Bomb" was written in 1958 and provoked mixed reviews when first read in England. Corso was the most Eurocentric of the Beat poets. Living a waif life, he traveling around Europe and the United States, never truly settling down. He was married three times and had five children. In the last thirty years of Corso's life, he slowly retreated into solitude and drugs. He lived his last months in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, where he passed away of prostate cancer at the age of seventy.
Publication Date
5-3-2016
City
Logan
Keywords
beat, Gregory Corso, beat movement, beat poetry
Recommended Citation
Beckstrand, Erika, "Gregory Corso" (2016). ENGL 6350 – Beat Exhibit. 1.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/beat_exhibit/1