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JOAN_HERSELF

                                             July 29, 2007



  A letter by Joan Vollmer
  to Allen Ginsberg, 1949:           Published in
                                     "Women of the Beat Generation" (1996)
                                     ed. Brenda Knight,
                                     Conari Press, Berkeley

    "I was not much surprised to hear of your
    hospitalization, as I've been claiming for
    three years (today being my third anniversary          This may be
    from Bellevue) that anyone who doesn't blow his        a momentary
    top once is no damn good.  I'd had feared at           sophistry to
    one time that you'd never see the light, but           make a friend
    when I saw you at Atlantic Beach I had some            feel better,
    hope for you, when you asked Bill in a letter          but here at
    once to refer to me to Blake's sick rose, whose        least we have
    worm I'd been sharing for months, I had more           Joan Vollmer
    hopes and lately they have been amply                  herself talking
    fulfilled.  When I refer to it as top-blowing,         about an idea:
    I'm sure you know what I mean.  No percentage
    in talking about visions of super-reality or             Vision ==
    any such lay-terms. "                                    Madness,
                                                             drug-induced
                                                             if necessary.
    "...  I shant attempt to describe my suffering
    for three weeks, but with thyroid tablets,
    Reich and faith I made it ..."                           And she's
                                                             another fan
              -- p. 56                                       of Willhelm
                                                             Reich (as
                                                             was Bill
I sometimes wonder how many of her notes                     Burroughs
and letters might exist... There's a                         and Kerouac).
published volume of Neal Cassady
letters, why not Joan Vollmer's?

                LOOKING_FOR_JOAN_VOLLMER




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