In 1988 he was living in suburban Atlanta, just another isolated gay teen who spent much of his free time dreaming of a way out. Unlike other boys in his predicament, though, the then-17-year-old was ambitious and strategic. He was desperate to immerse himself in the literary scene, and being a fan of the beat writers, he zoned in on two of its most prominent figures: Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.
“Allen and Burroughs were still alive and they were both gay, and in their work it was pretty explicit that they liked teenage boys,” says Ewert, now 43. “Allen has all these poems about sleeping with boys in Naropa, which is where I realized I could go to meet them. So, I was like, Perfect, I know what to do. ...Allen and Burroughs teach there? You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Every year since 1974, the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado—then known as the Naropa Institute—has flown in scores of guest faculty for a month-long summer program of lectures, workshops and readings. Though he had attended many years previously, Burroughs sat out the summer of ’88. But, luckily for Ewert, Ginsberg was still slated to appear. Having stashed away the Christmas and birthday money he’d received from his relatives, Ewert ignored his father’s concerns and paid for his own tuition and plane ticket to Colorado.
As was custom, there was a party the first night so that students and staff could mingle and get to know one another. Working under the assumption that “hordes of gay teens” might have had the same idea, Ewert was surprised to find that he was the only one who appeared ready to make a move on the then-62-year-old Ginsberg. He spotted him among a sea of less-amorous devotees and waited patiently to approach him with a pickup line he had prepared.
“I’d worked out this little phrase that I wanted to say to him: ‘Hello, Mr. Ginsberg, my name is Mark Ewert, and I would like to make you breakfast, lunch or dinner sometime,’” he says. “The idea was, Oh, that’s cute, I’m going to be making him a meal. That’s nice, everyone likes that. It sounds very sweet and devoted, and kind of implies that I’m going to make you a meal the morning after.”
When he finally delivered his proposition, Ginsberg blinked and asked Ewert to repeat himself. He did. The poet then asked him if he could cook, to which Ewert sheepishly replied that he could not. “I hadn’t thought it through that far, apparently,” he says. “When I said that he did a double take and looked at me, like, What is this kid’s deal? I think he was kind of charmed that I was being so direct.”
His receptiveness shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Though there were 45 years separating them, in a 1994 essay Ginsberg controversially declared he was an active member of NAMBLA, or North American Man/Boy Love Association—a group that advocates for the abolishment of age of consent laws. And Ewert, at the time a slim, eager teenager with long, boyish brown hair and a light dusting of freckles across his cheeks, was just the type likely to enchant the critically lauded poet.
And charmed he was. Ginsberg took his young charge by the hand and led him to a bank of tables specifically reserved for star faculty. In the dimly lit gymnasium that housed the party, beams of the few available lights intersected at this row of tables, and Ewert took it as a sign. “It was very metaphorical that he was holding me by the hand and taking me into the light, into the rarified realms of the faculty tables,” he says. “In my head I was like, Awesome, this is what the whole rest of my life is going to be like. It’s done, my fate is sealed and I made it. Phew.”
In a way he was right. This was just the beginning. Though they only talked that night, the two agreed to meet the next morning at Ginsberg’s sparsely decorated apartment at Varsity Townhouse—glorified dorms that housed the participants of the summer program. Ewert’s own room was just three floors down. Ginsberg made him a breakfast of oatmeal with chopped bananas, and they sat eating while he quizzed Ewert on his love life: Was he into women? Men? Both? They agreed to meet back up and continue the conversation after the day’s classes.
Later that afternoon, Ewert arrived and was led to the upstairs bedroom. Though he’d fooled around with one or two neighborhood kids when he was 12 or 13, it would be his first “adult” time; this underage boy direct from the Bible Belt was about to lose his virginity to a much older Allen Ginsberg. “I was happy to find that I saw him handsome in a certain light,” he says. “I was never super physically attracted to him, but he’s got this Grecian, bearded Poseidon profile, you know? That’s k