Correspondence #70: Jim Cohn
Taylor's tack on Rosenbaum applauded
Post-Beat poet and Allen Ginsberg collaborator Jim Cohn, who has contributed often to Rock and the Beat Generation’s coverage and whose Collected Poems was favourably reviewed here back in 2024, finds Steven Taylor’s reaction to Ron Rosenbaum’s controversial Bob Dylan biography a refreshing counter…
Email: February 24th, 2026
Dear R&BG,
I really appreciated Steven Taylor’s response to a few points made by Ron Rosenbaum. To be a multi-decade cultural influencer of the magnitude of Ginsberg or Dylan is no easy feat. Most people seem oblivious to it, in fact. It involves creative and artistic reinvention at a scale that few can sustain for very long, let alone imagine.
And it involves forming deep connections with an ever-changing audience, appealing to multi-generationals on an ongoing basis, despite aging, illness, infirmity, material and emotional losses.
While I was producing a 70th birthday version of ‘Lay Down Yr Mountain’ with Allen as the artist, unwell and using a walker, a song he wrote for Dylan near the beginning of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour, I asked Allen what the song was about. He told me it was about ‘proclaiming and renouncing ego simultaneously’.
This statement has deep implications as to how a performing artist might endure and survive either or both the music and publishing industries over many decades. This society deems professional artists as worth more than artists who do not sell well at all. To have the moral and ethical ability to survive the business with one’s creativity intact can only happen over friendship – a core Beat value.
When Jerry Garcia died, Dylan said, ‘To me he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know.’ This was rare homage, but attests to the human interactions perhaps out of public view between artists.
Allen traveled through the Iron Curtain countries in 1965, at his own peril, and brought three vinyl records with him that he played for anyone who would listen. One was by the Beatles. Another was by Ray Charles. The third was Bob Dylan. Thank you, Steven.
Best,
Jim
See also: ‘Kissass? Dylan, Ginsberg and the critic’, February 24th, 2026; ‘Book review #28: Treasures for Heaven’, August 3rd, 2024; ‘Anne Waldman #2: A poetic discography’, July 13th, 2024; ‘Anne Waldman #1: Talking to Jim Cohn’, June 23rd, 2024; ‘Beat Soundtrack #28: Jim Cohn’, March 13th, 2023