ne would be hard pressed to find an Allen Ginsberg work more disparate in nature from his many other, highly-heralded works, than his new chapbook, Mind Writing Slogans. We anticipate more of his gutsy, brawling, street-centered, rugged, spilling style like that of "Howl," or the matter-of-fact, uncluttered directness of "A Supermarket in California". Instead, Ginsberg has taken a fascinating and certainly erudite departure. He treats us to an exposition of wise and often surprising snippets of literary, philosophical and religious thought, the conscience/subconscious discovering verities and writing them down in brief mottos, with scarcely a poem among them:

"My writing is a picture of the mind moving." (Philip Whalen);

"Sight is where the eye hits." (Louis Zukofsky);

"What's the face you had before you were born?" (Zen Koan).

The eighty-four mottos are pulled together under three headings: I. Ground (Situation, or Primary Perception); II. Path (Method or Recognition); and III. Fruition (Result or Appreciation), and are from such differing sources as Basho, Reznikoff, Plato, Kerouac, Shakespeare, Casteneda, Blake, Plotinus, Ginsberg. A few are expressed in a single word (Gregory Corso's "Tailoring", Walt Whitman's "Candor"); a few are as long four and eight lines (Blake), and six-lines by Ginsberg. If one were to wonder what impelled/compelled Ginsberg to compile such a collection as this, one need only read the closing paragraph of his forward, "Definitions, a Preface":

Two decades' experiences teaching poetics at Naropa Institute, half decade at Brooklyn College, and occasional workshops at Zen Center and Shambhala/Dharmadhatu weekends have been boiled down to brief mottos from many sources found useful to guide myself and others in the experience of "writing the mind".

Ginsberg just wanted to, and that is reason enough.

In all, Ginsberg's book is penetrating and reflexive material. Mind Writing Slogans is a handsomely printed book sprinkled throughout with graceful ampersands, giving an added touch of fineness. Limberlost Press is publishing some of the most classy, important chapbooks to be found. For Ginsberg followers, this book is a collector's treasure.