New Year Blues by Allen Ginsberg is our featured book for the first month in this new year, January 2017.
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (1926 – 1997) was an American poet and a pivotal figure of the Beat Movement of the 1950s. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he was one of many influential American writers of his time known as the Beat Generation, which included famous writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, who he befriended while studying at Columbia.
Visit the Allen Ginsberg Project to learn more about him
New Year Blues contains the works “Christmas Blues” and “MacDougal Street Blues.”
“Christmas Blues” starts with:
CHRISTMAS COME BACK
NEW YORK CITY DIED LAST YEAR
NEW YORK COME BACK
BIG CITY DIED LAST YEAR
DEAD ON HER BIG STONE FEET
LIGHT BULBS SHED NO TEAR
“MacDougal Street Blues” starts with:
SITTING INNA BASEMENT
MACDOUGAL ST. GUITAR FACTORY
SITTING INNA BASEMENT
MACDOUGAL STREET GUITAR FACTORY
EVERY BOY HERE’S A GENIUS
PLAYS THE GUITAR EXCEPT ME
Binghamton University Libraries’ copy of New Year Blues is a first edition, copy No. 81, and signed by Allen Ginsberg. The work is sewn into blue wrappers, has white laid paper and black endpapers.
You can see New Year Blues in Special Collections located on the second floor of the Bartle Library (off of the North Reading Room).