Jeff Clark
.
In 1960, Allen Ginsberg traveled alone in South America. Bored by the literary conferences, the poet lit out through several countries in search of experience and ayahuasca or yage, a plant-based brew used by shamans. As always, he kept a journal— transcribed now by Kenosha author Michael Schumacher and presented in a handsomely produced volume. One of the guardian editors of Ginsberg’s legacy, Schumacher adds explanatory footnotes where necessary and inserts the occasional [?] to indicate a missing or illegible word. Poetry good and indifferent emerges on the pages, along with recordings of dreams and remarks about his surroundings. Even without the yage, many passages are visionary and multi-dimensional as he seeks God in unity and diversity and muses on time, consciousness and death.
