Gregory Corso wrote the Beat Generation poem “Marriage,” published in his 1960 collection The Happy Birthday of Death.
“Marriage” is one of Corso’s best-known poems and uses a lively, surreal stream of possibilities to consider domestic life, social expectations, and the idea of settling down. Its comic, imaginative tone helped distinguish Corso from the more overtly political or confessional work associated with other Beat writers.
Corso was born in New York City in 1930 and became closely associated with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and other central figures of the Beat movement. The Happy Birthday of Death was published during a productive period in his career and helped establish his reputation as an important Beat poet. “Marriage” is sometimes confused with poems by Ginsberg because both writers were prominent in the same literary circle, but the poem belongs to Corso.