Tag Archives: Allen Ginsberg

The Broken Body Politic

My paper topic has proved quite perplexing. While relating Whitman and Ginsberg in class didn’t seem so hard, there is surprisingly little literary criticism is done comparing the two men. Whitman’s legacy is complex and multifaceted to say the least; … Continue reading

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Whitman’s Cameos

I love it when Walt Whitman makes a cameo in a poem. Reading about Whitman’s skills on the b-ball court in Sherman Alexie’s “Defending Walt Whitman” reminded me of Allen Ginsberg’s trip to the grocery store in “A Supermarket in … Continue reading

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Carl Solomon, 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.”

I missed “Howl” day. Did anyone wonder who Carl Solomon was? I am not sure who he is. All that I know is that I read a book of small writings he did about his life a few years ago … Continue reading

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So what was Ginsberg doing with his queer shoulder?

I cannot stop thinking about it. I read “America” a few semesters ago and took it for what I thought it was: a big “Eff You, America!”, a lamentation, and then a moment of realization that spikes action where Ginsberg … Continue reading

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Credit Where Credit’s Due

Having never been exposed to a great deal of poetry in my private Christian high school, it would be an understatement to say that Allen Ginsberg’s Howl made an ‘impression’ on me the first time I read it at college. … Continue reading

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“the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep”

Channeling Anarchy after Whitman Poets to Come “Arouse! for you must justify me.” “One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,/ yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.” One’s Self I Sing “A new race copiously appears, with resolute tread, … Continue reading

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“Indescribable Magnetism”: Allen Ginsberg, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman

A lot has been said about Walt Whitman’s influence on Allen Ginsberg, but who would have thought that Whitman could perfectly capture the future characteristics of Ginsberg so eloquently in his depiction of Edgar Allan Poe? In “Edgar Poe’s Significance,” … Continue reading

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Ginsberg’s Sunflowers

Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” is definitely a poem of crisis and recovery. Ginsberg’s sunflower suggests an America that has been tarnished and polluted by the carelessness of modern society. In observing the “dead gray shadow” that is the sunflower Ginsberg … Continue reading

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Whitman’s Beard: Ginsberg’s Compass

“Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. / Which way does your beard point tonight?” I cannot help but laugh aloud at this particular line from Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California”. As readers of … Continue reading

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