El último traductor de Ginsberg

"Aullido", el mítico poema que este año cumple medio siglo, fue traducido por un poeta chileno, Rodrigo Olavarría, que a los 14 años fue cautivado por la literatura anglosajona y el espíritu rebelde que caracterizó a la generación beat. Su versión del poemario es la editada recientemente por Anagrama en el aniversario.

Publica El Mercurio, Mayo, 2006

Por Álvaro Matus

El árbol genealógico de los beat, ese grupo de muchachos revoltosos que escribían al ritmo afiebrado de las anfetaminas y del jazz envolvente de Charlie Parker, ha extendido sus raíces hasta lugares insospechados. Los hippies, los punks, los raperos. Todo lo que tenga un toque de disidencia, aventura y excesos huele a beat, a Kerouac, a Burroughs, a Cassady, a Corso pero, sobre todo, huele a Ginsberg.

"Aullido", un extenso poema que es todo vísceras y desparpajo, se sigue leyendo como una crítica furibunda al american way of life. "Vi las mejores mentes de mi generación destruidas por la locura, hambrientas histéricas desnudas", dice el primer verso de este poema que ha nutrido también la obra de autores nacionales como Bolaño, Lira y Bertoni.

Más al sur, en Puerto Montt, las raíces del árbol beatnik alcanzaron a un inquieto muchacho que comenzó a leer, tanto para acelerar las tardes de verano como para mejorar su inglés, la novela “On the road” (En el camino) de Jack Kerouac. "Me volví loco, no hallaba qué hacer, sonreía leyéndolo, qué felicidad", recuerda Rodrigo Olavarría, que ya no tiene 14 años, claro, sino 25.

La música inédita de Arthur Russell.

Excelente artículo sobre la música de Arthur Rusell que aun no se ha hecho pública, lo que queda en los archivos y sobre la posible edición de un disco dedicado a su lado más bailable. LÉALO AQUÍ. Dejo también un extra del DVD del documental 'Wild Combiation', la canción se llama 'Soon to be innocent fun" de 1985.

What Went Into William Burroughs Coffin With His Dead Body

About ten in the morning on Tuesday, August 6, 1997, James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg came to William's house to pick out the clothes for the funeral director to put on William's corpse. His clothes were in a closet in my room. And we picked the things to go into William's coffin and grave, accompaning him on his journey in the underworld.

His most favorite gun, a 38 special snub-nose, fully loaded with five shots. He called it, "The snubby." The gun was my idea. "This is very important!" William always said you can never be too well armed in any situation. Of his more than 80 world-class guns, it was his favorite. He often wore it on his belt during the day, and slept with it, fully loaded, on his right side, under the bedsheet, every night for fifteen years.

Grey fedora. He always wore a hat when he went out. We wanted his consciousness to feel perfectly at ease, dead.

His favorite cane, a sword cane made of hickory with a light rosewood finish.

Sport jacket, black with a dark green tint. We rummaged through the closet and it was the best of his shabby clothes, and smelling sweetly of him.

Blue jeans, the least worn ones were the only ones clean.

Red bandana. He always kept one in his back pocket.

Jockey underwear and socks.

Black shoes. The ones he wore when he performed. I thought the old brown ones, that he wore all the time, because they were comfortable. James Grauerholz insisted, "There's an old CIA slang that says getting a new assignment is getting new shoes."

White shirt. We had bought it in a men's shop in Beverly Hills in 1981 on The Red Night Tour. It was his best shirt, all the others were a bit ragged, and even though it had become tight, he'd lost alot of weight, and we thought it would fit. James said, "Don't they slit it down the back anyway."

Necktie, blue, hand painted by William.

Moroccan vest, green velvet with gold brocade trim, given him by Brion Gysin, twenty-five years before. In his lapel button hole, the rosette of the French government's Commandeur Des Arts et Lettres, and the rosette of the American Academy Of Arts and Letters, honors which William very much appreciated.

A gold coin in his pants pocket. A gold 19th Century Indian head five dollar piece, symbolizing all wealth. William would have enough money to buy his way in the underworld.

His eyeglasses in his outside breast pocket.

A ball point pen, the kind he always used. "He was a writer!", and wrote long hand.

A joint of really good grass.

Heroin. Before the funeral service, Grant Hart slipped a small white paper packet into William's pocket. "Nobody's going to bust him." said Grant. William, bejewelled with all his adornments, was travelling in the underworld.

I kissed him. An early LP album of us together, 1975, was called Biting Off The Tongue Of A Corpse. I kissed him on the lips, but I didn't do it. . .And I should of done it.

- John Giorno, The Wisdom of the Witches. (Audio: AQUÍ)