I never went to Naropa, Brooklyn College, never met Ginsberg. I suppose like all too many poets, I loved certain crucial poems, movements, and moments he was involved with, but felt like I was never the audience. I spent time in India in a Buddhist Vihar, etc., but remain put off by the westernization of Tibetan B'ism.

I remember when he had a public access show in New York, and it was a tune in, see Ginsberg in his sweats rummaging through the fridge (looked pretty squalid), see Ginsberg meditate, hear him ramble on about something show. We got submissions he wrote with his students at Brooklyn, and they were pretty blechey list poems. His 45s against censorship in the 80s were pretty cruddy, but, I suppose, he did them, and they were slightly better than "We Are the World." But I don't know -- my experience with other Beat writers is they weren't the best teachers either, just enthusiastic.

I think it was something by Snyder when Ginsberg died that really made Ginsberg make more sense to me. Something about the time they both had land and housing in a similar area of the High Sierras.