Reading Tonight of Beat Alice's Poetry!

Tonight at 7PM I will be reading the poetry of Elise Cowen, also known as Beat Alice, at the Beat Museum in San Francisco. More information about the event can be found on the Museum website. For now, I would like to talk about Elise herself.

Elise Cowen, though dead more than a quarter century, is in many ways more tangible than many of the other Beat women. She is alive in the pages of Joyce Johnson’s Minor Characters and in the memories of many of the survivors of the Beat Generation whom she marked forever with her generous friendship. Janine Pommy Vega, with whom Elise lived for a time, says, “I still think about her every day. She was the smartest person I knew.”

Elise was born to a relatively well-off family on Long Island who were given to high-strung histrionics interspersed with brittle attempts at normalcy. Her parents had achieved the American Dream with the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood and the perfect job. More than anything, they wanted the perfect daughter to complete the ensemble, and Elise became the focus of their rages.

Although Elise didn’t make good grades, she was extremely bright and read extensively. Poetry, especially the works of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, were particular favorites, and she could quote them at will, just at the right moments. She favored the darker poetry most of all, suggesting a shadow side to the good-friend persona she kept on display.

She attended Barnard in accordance with her family’s plans, but didn’t flourish in the ways they had hoped. Instead, she met Joyce Johnson and Leo Skir, among other Beat players, and got involved with her philosophy professor. Elise doted on the professor, who led an exciting life and had a child but no apparent wife. He also had lots of friends traipsing in and out of his messy apartment while Elise cleaned up and baby-sat for his two-year-old son.

This relationship proved the portal to Elise’s future; when his friend Allen Ginsberg arrived on the scene, Elise recognized a twin soul. (Joyce Johnson mentions how they even looked alike during that time.) They slept together for a while, but when Allen moved on, Elise was never quite able to let go. Ironically, Allen and Elise both met Carl Solomon (for whom Ginsberg would eventually write “Howl”) in separate stays at mental hospitals, which Elise took as a sign that they should be together. Allen went to a psychiatric ward instead of jail after the infamous wreck in the stolen car with Herbert Huncke, Vickie Russell, and Little Jack Melody. Elise was in Bellevue Hospital during one of her episodes of depression. When Allen became lovers with Peter Orlovsky, Elise took a woman lover named Sheila and, at one point, the two couples even shared an apartment.

After her graduation from Barnard, Elise became depressed more often and was never completely free of the shadows. She took a job as a typist and had a dismal career, typing at night, drinking red wine, and writing poetry in secret. After being fired from her job, she ran away to San Francisco, disappearing from view. The Elise that returned to New York a year later was changed: thinner and quieter, she seemed even more haunted than before.

Elise was admitted to Bellevue for infectious hepatitis. Her parents had her transferred to a psychiatric facility in Queens and signed her out against doctor’s orders after a few months even though Elise was suffering auditory hallucinations and paranoia. Their plan was to take Elise with them on a Florida vacation, but Elise never made the trip. On February 16, 1962, she jumped out of the window of her parent’s living room in Washington Heights. She died instantly. The police noted that the window was still locked—Elise had jumped through a closed window.

None of her poetry was published in her lifetime, but eighty-three poems have rested in a box in her friend Leo Skir’s apartment in Minneapolis; her remaining poems and journals were destroyed by her family after her death. Over the years, Leo, a still-loyal friend, has sent some of Elise’s poems to The Ladder and several small literary magazines.

Sitting

Sitting with you in the kitchen

Talking of anything

Drinking tea

I love you

“The” is a beautiful, regal, perfect word

Oh I wish you body here

With or without bearded poems

This is believed to be the last poem that Elise Cowen ever wrote:

No love

No compassion

No intelligence

No beauty

No humility

Twenty-seven years is enough

Mother—too late—years of meanness—I’m sorry

Daddy—What happened?

Allen—I’m sorry

Peter—Holy Rose Youth

Betty—Such womanly bravery

Keith—Thank you

Joyce—So girl beautiful

Howard—Baby take care

Leo—Open the window and Shalom

Carol—Let it happen

Let me out now please—

—Please let me in