Peter Orlovsky
Peter Orlovsky (born July 8 1933 on the Lower East Side, New York City) is an American poet best known for being the lover of Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg.
A high school drop out, he served as a stateside medic in the US Army during the Korean War. He met Ginsberg through the painter Robert La Vigne in San Francisco in December 1954. Orlovsky served as Ginsberg's secretary, traveled the world with him, and was his lover in an open relationship for four decades.
Orlovsky's publications include the poetry collection Clean Asshole Poems & Smiling Vegetable Songs, number 37 in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series which includes:
Second Poem
Thank god I have an innocent eye for nature.
I was born to remember a song about love - on a hill a butterfly
- makes a cup that I drink from, walking over a bridge of
- flowers.
Bibliography
- Dear Allen, Ship will land Jan 23, 58 (1971)
- Lepers Cry (1972)
- Clean Asshole Poems & Smiling Vegetable Songs (1978) (reprinted 1992)
- Straight Hearts' Delight: Love Poems and Selected Letters (with Allen Ginsberg) (1980)
- Dick Tracy's Gelber Hut (German translation) (1980)
References
- Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-01-5102-8 (pbk)