University of Virginia Library

Allen Ginsberg In First Unicorn

By Corbin Eissler
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Amid the signs posted
around The Grounds, advertising
everything from newspapers
to the United States
Army, are a series of posters
heralding the arrival of The
First Unicorn.

What this is, is a new
literary magazine that should
come out September 27, and is
projected to be published four
times a year.

The magazine is a collection
of poetry, prose, and artwork
collected from the undergraduate
and graduate schools
of the University and various
outside sources. For example
in the first issue most of the
writing is done by University
students, but an original Allen
Ginsberg poem is also offered.

It is difficult to review the
magazine as a whole, since the
contents are so diversified.
Perhaps the best place to start
is with the Ginsberg poem,
which is untitled.

It is always dangerous to
compare Ginsburg to Whitman,
but in this case it seems at least
a plausible way for the reader
to get at the poem. It seems to
be concerned with eyelets of
existence, going from a rebirth
of "planet's reborn ashes"
from an "atomic cinder," to a
kind of philosophical vision of
"myriad reversals" as "Populations
eat their own meat."

From this vision of a kind of
cosmic oneness where "flowers/are
the rock's excrement," Ginsberg
turns back to himself "Lying in bed
body" in a specific place and time.
The conclusion that is drawn seems
to be that in a place where
"worlds/change, Heavens turn/inside
out," the individual's salvation
is in his oneness with the change, as
perceived through his eyes in a
specific vision.

Perhaps the second most important
contribution, at least in terms
of size, in The First Unicorn is a
play by Michael Madach entitled
The Chameleon Pedestal.

Magic Well

This play is set in Scotland, as
an American returns to the meeting
place of his parents, a magic well,
to ask the lady of the well his own
fortune.

The play is heavily allegorical,
and at least in form is much in the
style of a medieval morality play. A
man no longer young returns to his

past or that of his parents looking
for hope in the form of a girl-dream
of his lost innocence and youth
called Helen.

The lady of the well does appear-to
the man as a guide, and proceeds
to grant his wish for a view of
himself "he doesn't even know
himself." This is achieved as the
lady appears to the searcher in the
form of various women he has
known. Each woman is a stage in
his life, and fairly clearly an
allegory of a life style. But each one
is rejected as the searcher holds on
to his vision of Helen.

Finally Helen does appear, and
is a monster that as his goal has
kept him from life. But even this is
erased in his search and his
innocence is returned.

But with the restoration the
man realizes that innocence in itself
is stagnant and prevents development
and growth. The innocence,
he sees, must be sacrificed to make
room for a continuing process of
life. And with this observation the
man is freed.

The First Unicorn also contains
a very short short story by Dennis
Covington called Salvation On Sand
Mountain that is one of the best
works in the magazine. It is an
ingenious story of a religious revival
and the conversion of Simon Clapp
and his brother-in-law, John. The
reasons for this conversion are
examined in a very interesting and
worthwhile story.

In addition to these works The
First Unicorn contains many poems
by graduate and undergraduate
students. One of the best, I think, is
by M.W. Walsh and is called
"Atropes Near Bay Ridge." This is
essentially a recollection of an
Italian knife grinder in Brooklyn;
and an examination of the man
himself, "gentle, an old man," and
the conflict with "the music of the
knives."

Good Idea

On the whole, The First Unicorn
is a fairly good literary magazine,
very good when one realizes that it
is a first issue. The second issue
promises to be as good, with not
only poetry and prose, but also a
sheet of experimental music.

The editors of the magazine
must be commended on the very
wise idea of opening up the
magazine to the whole University
and even outside sources. This
allows the magazine both a tone
and an inventiveness very difficult
for a simple undergraduate magazine
to achieve. This magazine is a
very welcome addition to the
University, and it will be interesting
to see where it goes from here, in a
community traditional in its rejection
of things of this sort.