Corso, Gregory |
| POET (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) |
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BORN 26 Mar 1930, New York City, New York: St. Vincent's Hospital, Greenwich Village, Manhattan - DIED 17 Jan 2001, Robbinsdale, Minnesota: North Memorial Medical Center BIRTH NAME Corso, Nunzio CAUSE OF DEATH prostate cancer GRAVE LOCATION Roma, Lazio: Cimitero Acattolico, Via Caio Cestio 6 (Zona Vecchia, 15.18 (ashes buried in front of Shelley's grave)) |
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Gregory Corso was abandoned by his sixteen year mother a month after he was born and he lived in foster homes for the next eleven years, his father refusing to visit him. After that time he went to school bit he lived on the streets in Little Italy, Manhattan. When he was thirteen he was arrested after he had stolen a toaster. When he was sixteen he was arrested again for a robbery and he was sent to hail for three years. In prison he studied Greek and Roman classics and started writing poetry. He also studied "A Defense of Poetry" by Shelley. After his release he was discovered by the Beat poets Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. In 1954 he moved to Boston and in 1955 his first poetry was published. In 1957 he was in Paris with Ginsberg and William Burroughs and there he wrote his poem "Bomb", an ode to the atomic bomb. In 1958 he returned to New York. In his youth he was told that his mother had returned to Italy, but after he tried to find out where she might be buried in Italy she turned out to be living in New Jersey. His father had prevented her from finding him in earlier years. From then on they were in contact and in "Corso: The Last Beat" he stated that meeting his mother had healed him in a certain way. In 2001 he died from prostate cancer. According to his own wishes he was buried close to Shelley in the Cimitero Acattolico in Rome. Related persons • admired Shelley, Percy Bysshe |
| Images |
 The grave of Gregory Corso at the Cimitero Acattolico, Rome. Picture by Androom (23 Jan 2010) |
Sources • Gregory Corso - Wikipedia |
