Ego Confession

Ginsberg, Allen, Chicago Review

"Ego Confession" was inspired by a Cecil Taylor concert in San Francisco which Allen Ginsberg attended with Anne Waldman. As the jazz pianist played, Ginsberg wrote the first line into his journal: "I want to be known as the most brilliant man in America." He later said of the episode, "I was so ashamed of what I wrote down that I wouldn't let her see it. I hid my notebook from her with my hand Within a month I realized that the poem was funny. It's obviously a great burlesque, a take-off on myself, shameful, shocking. "(*) The poem was solicited by the editors of the "Talking American Poetry" issue, which appeared in Summer 1975. It has since appeared in his Mind Breaths: Poems 1972-1977 …

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Publication information: Article title: Ego Confession. Contributors: Ginsberg, Allen - Author. Journal title: Chicago Review. Volume: 42. Issue: 3 Publication date: Summer-Fall 1996. Page number: 186+. © 1999 University of Chicago. COPYRIGHT 1996 Gale Group.

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