Gregory Corso
Shortstop
1997 Paradise Pisces
American Poet
Gregory Corso
Shortstop
1997 Paradise Pisces
American Poet
Born March 26, 1930
Corso met Kerouac in 1951. They were friends despite the fact that Corso slept with Kerouac's girlfriend in 1953. The details are described in Kerouac's novel The Subterraneans. Years later the two friends went out drinking together. They ended up at a working-class bar called "The Kettle of Fish", and proceeded to antagonize the clientele. Kerouac got the shit kicked out of him and Corso "befuddled and appalled", according to Kerouac's girlfriend, Joyce Glassman Johnson, managed to get his bloodied friend over to her house.
With regard to Corso as a poet, his peers have commented:
"Gregory is a gambler. He suffers reverses, like every man who takes chances. But his vitality and resilience always will shine through with a light that is more than human. The immortal light of his muse. Gregory is indeed one of the Daddies." (William Burroughs)
Corso was an original Dharma Beat. Although
Kerouac compares him to the incomparable
Joe DiMaggio, "who can play faultless
ball without appearing to try or strain",
Corso is an infielder.
309
Died January 17, 2001
Gregory Corso is one of the original Beat poets. He met Allen Ginsberg in 1950 just after his release from prison where he served a three-year sentence for committing a robbery when he was 16. In prison he had begun writing poetry, some of which he showed Ginsberg. Ginsberg liked the poetry and was also attracted to the dark, Italian Corso who, at 20 years of age, had already experienced the underworld of the underclass. Born in New York City, his mother had died and his father had abandoned him, Corso was a product of the very environment the more middle-class Kerouac and Ginsberg exalted.
"Corso is a poet's poet, his verse pure velvet, close to John Keats for our time, exquisitely delicate in manners of the Muse." (Allen Ginsberg)
YEAR TEAM POS BA AB H HR RBI
1983 Beats ss .208 592 123 14 65
1995 Beats ss .347 346 120 11 55
1996 Pisces ss .243 152 37 2 13
3 Seasons .257 1090 280 27 133
1997 Paradise Pisces Roster
Capone- Cosmic Baseball Player Plate
URL http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/corso7.html
Published: October 30, 1996
Updated: January 18, 2001
© 1996, 1997 by the Cosmic Baseball Association
Email: editor@cosmicbaseball.com
