Allen Ginsberg Remembered Jack Kerouac's Death in Verse

On the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's death, the New Yorker has published some of Allen Ginsberg's original journal entries (replete with footnotes for context)—thoughts the poet had recorded about the loss of his friend. "Ginsberg and Kerouac had grown distant," writes Michael Schumacher, so Ginsberg "recalled the joyful, enthusiastic, ambitious, prodigious writer whose work influenced his own."

Ginsberg also wrote a long poem from the moment, “Memory Gardens,” published in 1973. From this piece:

Oct 22—

Memory Gardens

Covered with yellow leaves

in morning rain

Oct 24 — Quel Deluge

He threw up his hands

& wrote the universe dont exist

& died to prove it.

For the full experience, check it all out at the New Yorker.