SOURCE: "Reflections on Allen Ginsberg as Poet," in Concerning Poetry, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring, 1969, pp. 21-24.

[In the following essay, Parkinson considers whether Ginsberg is truly a poet, centering his discussion on Planet News.]

Allen Ginsberg is a notoriety, a celebrity; to many readers and non-readers of poetry he has the capacity for releasing odd energetic responses of hatred and love or amused affection or indignant moralizing. There are even people who are roused to very flat indifference by the friendly nearsighted shambling bearded figure who has some of the qualities of such comic stars as Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. And some of their seriousness.

His latest book Planet News grants another revelation of his sensibility. The usual characteristics of his work are there, the rhapsodic lines, the odd collocations of images and thoughts and processes, the occasional rant, the extraordinary tenderness. His poetry resembles the Picasso sculpture...