32. Gregory Corso. "Bomb," 1958.
Published here in: Gregory Corso and Walter Höllerer, editors. Junge amerikanische Lyrik. München: Carl Hanser, 1961. With accompanying 45 r.p.m. 7" record featuring Corso reading "Bomb" on side B..
Rare Book Collection Beats. Presented by the William A. Whitaker Foundation.

In defiant response to the traditional forms of shaped poetry like the egg, the altar, and the axe — all spiritually uplifting and/or in praise of great deeds — Gregory Corso's Bomb detonates on the page in the shape of a rising atomic mushroom cloud, sarcastically singing its praises. After the rolling cap, the "stem" of the poem is monolithic, relentless, and seemingly endless, echoing a question alluded to in the text of the poem: once nuclear destruction is unleashed, does it ever end, or does it march on forever? This particular printing of the poem, a collection of Beat poetry curated by Corso and translated for a German audience, also includes a recording of him reading the poem, showing further disintegration of the boundaries between different media, as visual poetry has already done.