SOURCE: “Gregory Corso: Sources,” in Athanor, Vol. 5, Winter 1973, pp. 1–6.

In the following interview, Corso discusses the differences between the 1950s and 1960s, his opinions of other Beat writers, and sources for his writing.

Gregory Corso gave a reading at SUC Cortland in the Spring of 1971. During the reading he made several references to the need to know sources. The following are side notes from the reading.

After reading “Boticelli's Spring”¹ (which he called a childish poem because it had so many painters all together in it), Corso said, “See, you would all understand that poetry if you had your sources. That's what I'm trying to say. Facing college kids, they don't know their sources. They go far backwards in time when they got some kind of illumination through music. Rock and things like that, they picked up. It's very odd.

“I had a more derogatory name than most...