Allen Ginsberg: to Jonathan Ned Katz re Gavin Arthur, August 8, 1990

On November 15, 1989, Jonathan Ned Katz was contemplating a historical essay about Gavin Arthur's claim to have had sex with Edward Carpenter. That essay is republished on OutHistory.org at: Jonathan Ned Katz: "Gavin Arthur Recalls Edward Carpenter," 1967).

Arthur had written his sexy version of his encounter with Carpenter, including Arthur's claim that Carpenter had said he'd had sex with Walt Whitman, at the urging of poet Allen Ginsberg. The poet had seen to the publication of Arthur's memoir after his death.

Katz therefore wrote to Ginsberg, asking several questions about the evidence for Arthur's claims, and about what Ginsberg thought about that evidence.

Ginsberg answered Katz on August 8, 1990, apologizing for not responding sooner: "Catching up with letters -- months delayed, piles two feed high." He signed himself: "Allen". (Katz's actual letter, with Ginsberg's handwritten response, is reproduced below.)

Katz had said he was interested in establishing "the accuracy of some of the historical and biographical details cited by Arthur--so as to lend credence to the accuracy of Arthur's comments on Walt Whitman." To this Ginsberg responded:

His text is exactly presented as I got it --

Katz asked Ginsberg, "do you think that Gavin Arthur might have invented the sexual encounter with Carpenter, and Carpenter's with Whitman, perhaps to impress you?"

To this Ginsberg wrote in the margin of Katz's letter: "No", underlined twice for emphasis. But next to the "No" is a large question mark. The question mark might have been written first, as Ginsberg considered Katz's question. Or the question mark could have been added by Ginsberg after the "No", as a way of questioning its emphasis. Ginsberg's meaning here is ambiguous.

At the bottom of this letter, Ginsberg wrote to Katz:

8/8/90

2 AM

Dear J.N.K.--

Arthur told me the story, I asked him to write it out, he gave me I think a typed [insert] unsigned [end insert] original page close writ [insert] in his idiosyncratic handwriting [end insert.] I reproduced it in Straight Heart's Delight (Gay Sunshine) exactly as writ. But I can't find his paper now, among 200,00 indexed items at Columbia U. Library Special Collections.

Ginsberg added:

Whitman scholar Miller asked for Arthur's original letter 10 years ago, I searched then, no luck. I suppose it'll turn up, hope so -- Allen Ginsberg

Here is Katz's letter to Ginsberg, with the poet's notes: See also: