Carl Solomon (March 30, 1928 – February 26, 1993) was an American writer. One of his best-known pieces of writing is ''Report from the Asylum: Afterthoughts of a Shock Patient''.

Biography

Solomon was born in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

borough of the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. His father's death in 1939 profoundly affected his early life. Solomon later said, "I drifted into indiscipline and intellectual adventure that eventually became complete confusion." Graduating from high school at 15, Solomon attended the City College of New York (CCNY) for a short time before joining the

United States Maritime Service The United States Maritime Service (USMS) was established in 1938 under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 as voluntary training organization to train individuals to become officers and crewmembers on merchant ships that form the ...

in 1944. In his travels overseas, Solomon was exposed to Surrealism and

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

, which inspired him throughout his life. In Paris, he witnessed Antonin Artaud give a screaming poetry reading. This so impressed him that he remained a disciple of Artaud for much of his life. It was shortly after this period that Solomon was voluntarily institutionalized, a gesture he made as a Dadaist symbol of defeat. Solomon first met Beat poet

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

in the waiting room of the

New York State Psychiatric Institute The New York State Psychiatric Institute, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was established in 1895 as one of the first institutions in the United States t ...

. Ginsberg dedicated his 1955 poem ''

Howl Howl most often refers to: *Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species *Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg Howl may also refer to: Film * ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film * ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...

'' to Solomon. The poem's third section uses the refrain "I'm with you in Rockland", an institution Solomon never attended. Solomon had many complaints about Ginsberg and ''Howl'', including that he was "never in Rockland" and that the third section of the poem "garbles history completely". The reference to Rockland appears to be a poetic fabrication. Ginsberg likely used the name because it was more appropriate and emphatic than "New York State Hospital" or "Pilgrim" (

Pilgrim Psychiatric Center Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, formerly known as Pilgrim State Hospital, is a state-run psychiatric hospital located in Brentwood, New York. Nine months after its official opening in 1931,the hospital's patient population was 2,018, as compared with ...

, another psychiatric hospital to which Solomon was admitted). The poem's first section immortalizes a few of Solomon's personal exploits, such as the line "who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy." It was at Ginsberg's insistence that

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

's first novel, '' Junkie'' (1953), was published by Ace Books. Solomon's uncle, Aaron A. Wyn, owned Ace Books, a purveyor of

pulp fiction ''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Vin ...

and nonfiction paperbacks. Solomon worked for Ace and was responsible for the Publisher's Note in the first printing of ''Junkie'', as well as the Introduction to the 1964 reprinting. One of Solomon's best-known pieces of writing is ''Report from the Asylum: Afterthoughts of a Shock Patient''. It is an account of the

electroconvulsive therapy Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive th ...

used to treat patients in asylums, drawn directly from personal experience. It was written with Artaud somewhat in mind, because he had received the same treatment while unjustly institutionalized by the French government. The piece was included in the 50th-anniversary ''Howl'' facsimile, in an appendix. In the late 1960s, Solomon published two

chapbooks A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklet ...

prose poetry Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks assoc ...

with Mary Beach's ''Beach Books, Texts & Documents'', distributed by

City Lights Books City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ti ...

: ''Mishaps, Perhaps'' (1966) and ''More Mishaps'' (1968). ''Emergency Messages'' (1989) features selections from the two books along with some of Solomon's other autobiographical, critical and poetic writings. He was a frequent contributor to '' New Directions Annual'', ''

American Book Review ''American Book Review'' is a literary journal operating out of the University of Houston-Victoria. Their mission statement is to “specialize in reviews of frequently neglected published works of fiction, poetry, and literary and cultural critic ...

'', and ''

The New Leader ''The New Leader'' (1924–2010) was an American political and cultural magazine. History ''The New Leader'' began in 1924 under a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, such as Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas. It was ...

''.

References

* Collins, Ronald & Skover, David, ''Mania: The Story of the Outraged & Outrageous Lives that Launched a Cultural Revolution'' (Top-Five Books, March 2013). {{DEFAULTSORT:Solomon, Carl Beat Generation writers Jewish American poets 1928 births 1993 deaths 20th-century American poets People from the Bronx 20th-century American Jews