It’s 30 years to the day since Alan Ginsberg wrote “Burlington Snow” a poem inspired by Bernie Sanders, the socialist mayor of Burlington Vermont. It’s a snapshot of the wonder and contradiction of socialist government. And now Bernie is running for president.
Burlington Snow, February 21, 1996 by Alan Ginsburg.
“Socialist snow on the streets. Socialist talk in the Maverick Bookstore. Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops. Socialist poetry in socialist mouths — aren’t the birds frozen socialists? Aren’t the snow clouds blocking the airfield social bureaucratic apprentices? Isn’t the socialist sky owned by the socialist sun? Earth itself socialist, forests rivers, lakes, furry mountains, socialist salt in oceans? Isn’t this Poem socialist? It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
Dr. Robert Buxbaum, February 21, 2016. If anyone would write a poem about me, or water commissioner (I’m running) or pollution or drinking water, or anything like that, I’d be awfully honored. It doesn’t have to be complimentary, or even particularly good.
Oh, it’s actually 30 years ago – that’s 1986:
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/allen-ginsbergs-handwritten-poem-for-bernie-sanders-burlington-snow-1986.html
Good luck on your run for Commish.
Thanks Terry. I looked closer and it was an “8”. Thirty years.
Thanks, Robert. I have lived in the Burlington area for 38 years, and know many Bernie stories, but never saw this poem. I once saw a Ginsberg live in a Patterson, NJ high school gym where he read and sang using a squeeze-box for accompaniment, to an audience of about a dozen people. That was more than forty years ago.