In America, Allen Ginsberg yearns to pay homage to the country he dearly loves, but due to the nation’s political and social shortcomings, he is resigned to address his homeland with an air of dissidence, as the following line epitomizes: “America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?” The poet’s disdain for the ever-increasing trend of conservatism and industrialization endemic in his contemporary America is unmistakable throughout the poem. Above all, however, Ginsberg is of the wary of the war-driven politics and xenophobia threatening the fabric of American society. Further, in America Ginsberg’s sympathetic outlook towards Communism is present. Though most appropriately categorized as free verse, the poet ironically employs the classic form of litany throughout America to reflect his desire to draft a patriotic celebratory poem, one in which he would laud the liberties and expansiveness of the United States of America.
“America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing,” Ginsberg states in the opening line of America, reflecting the exhausted outlook that defined the writers of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg’s claim a few lines down of not being in the “right mind” (Ln. 7) can be attributed more so to the country’s deficiencies and faults rather than his own madness. In telling America to “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb” (Ln. 5), as well as pleading to “end the human war,” Ginsberg’s pacifistic attitude is evident. In asking, “When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites,” it is clear that this poem, published amid the Cold War and the McCarthy trials, caused a great deal of controversy when it was written.
On the second page of the poem, beginning with the line “Are you being sinister or is this just some sort of practical joke?” Ginsberg’s gripes about America are less specific, but no less apparent. Clearly, Ginsberg has major ethical concerns regarding the build up of artillery, perhaps more specifically nuclear artillery, thus questioning those in charge as pulling a “practical joke”. The line “America stop pushing I know what I’m doing,” serves to elucidate Ginsberg’s fear and rejection of conformity, driven by the American media. Ginsberg’s rebellious attitude is furthermore apparent in divulging both his marijuana usage, and previous association with the Communist party.
In juxtaposing the lines “My psychoanalyst thinks I’m perfectly right” with “I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations,” Ginsberg celebrates his sagacity as a poet—or perhaps, in irony, questioning his own sanity. The latter would seem more accurate considering references on this page of “sit[ting] in my house for days on end and star[ing] at the roses in my closet”.
The next stanza, still on the second page, continues to address Ginsberg’s fight against conformity, in condemning America for letting its “emotional life be run by Time Magazine.” In irony, however, Ginsberg divulges that he is “obsessed by Time Magazine.” Ginsberg addresses to the magazine’s call for responsibility, concluding, “Everybody’s serious but me.”
In the next line, (“It occurs to me that I am America,” and the following, (“I am talking to myself again,”) a shift in speaker takes place, in which Ginsberg, seemingly believing himself to be a microcosm of America, begins in the next stanza to speak from America’s point of view. “Asia is rising against me./I haven’t got a chinaman’s chance,” he writes, elucidating a common fear of the growing superpowers in the East. As America, Ginsberg concerns himself with more than just foreign affairs: “I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.” A clear criticism of American society regarding poverty and the prison system, Ginsberg’s championing of the poor and the working class throughout the poem further punctuate his connection to Communism.
On the following page, within the same stanza, the voice shifts back to exclusively Ginsberg’s. He satirically compares himself to Henry Ford and in mocking capitalism, further confirms his support of communism or socialism: “America I will sell you strophes $2500 a piece $500 down on your old strophe.” This sentiment is echoed in the lines that follow, offering support to Tom Mooney, a socialist and labor union figure from San Francisco, as well as to Spanish Loyalists, opposed to the Fascist regime of Franco. Ginsberg’s support for communism is never clearer in the extended line enjambment in which he recalls attending a communist meeting with his mother, and he jokingly concludes, “Everybody must have been a spy.”
In the last twelve lines of the poem, Ginsberg concerns himself with the prospect of war with the Soviet Union, and the xenophobia that accompanied with this possibility. “America it’s them bad Russians,” Ginsberg writes, “The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to take out cars from out our garages.” If there are two things to notice from these lines, it is the use of improper grammar and irrational fear. When coupled together, it is clear that Ginsberg is expressing the irrational fears of the uneducated regarding the Soviet Union. This fear is the kind that would drive people into wanting to go to war, rather than work out the differences with the Soviet Union diplomatically. “America is this correct?” Ginsberg asks, wary of the ignorance he perceives and what it might lead to.
One cannot help but notice the differences between reading Ginsberg’s America, and hearing the poem read to a live audience. In reading the poem, Ginsberg’s tone is accusatory and serious, in spite of the ironies dispersed throughout. In listening to Ginsberg perform the poem live, particularly a version I found from March 18th, 1956, the comic elements of the poem come to light. One line in particular, “America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?” engenders two vastly different connotations when read in the book, compared to hearing Ginsberg performing it live. When read in the book, it appears as a sad statement, as if something a parent would say to a child when they have done something wrong. By contrast, when Ginsberg read the line on March 18th, 1956, the crowd erupted with effusive laughter. Perhaps the comedy that arises in this line, or any line, within the poem does not take away from the seriousness that Ginsberg is trying to convey in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment