Scowl II

The other half of a poem about generational disaffection by a gay Jew

One of the last known photos of Frumkin, taken on a 1963 trip to Nepal, where he’d traveled in hopes of “finding himself.”

You’re unlikely to know this unless you’ve really plumbed the depths of the archives, subscriber, so I’ll let you in on a little secret: the least-known Beat was a young man(-ish) by the name of Rafael Frumkin (1931-??). Frumkin’s poetry wasn’t passed among study carrels at Barnard or applauded in East Harlem dive bars; it wasn’t vibed to in the revolutionary bookstores of the Haight, nor quoted by Jerry Garcia while tripping on acid. Short and patchy-bearded, better suited to eating jammy eggs in Hobbiton than stoking a revolution through verse, Frumkin went largely unnoticed on the scene, and his writings were forgotten to time.

Until now.

The emergence of such important cultural phenomena as the NFT museum and the twelve-foot Home Depot Skeleton has resulted in a resurgence of interest in Frumkin’s work. In 2021, scholars unearthed a file folder of his poems that included “Scowl,” a gender-embattled screed published mere weeks before Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and to significantly less acclaim.

Now for the first time, the curious reader can listen to “Scowl” in its entirety. Part I is at the link below, and Part II is just beneath the paywall, which is beneath that picture of Allen Ginsberg anxiously building his brand.

Scowl

What’s become of you, Allen? It used to be about the poetry, and now all you care about are the faves!