More Poetry

Launched amid great fanfare, promised as the greatest cultural event of our young century, Poetry Monday went flat after a single installment. What can I say? It was a bank holiday. There was snooker on. I was watching my pick, Oulart, lose the Grand National by a mere length. Must try harder.

A piece in Slate on his famous epic “Howl” brought Allen Ginsberg to mind today. Ignore the Hippie trappings and the mysticism: this man was one the great American poets. He combined, amongst others, the shaggy-dog story tradition of Twain and the earthy, democratic spirit of Whitman with a touch of smart-ass Jewish stand-up comedy. The result is a quintessentially American mix, creating an atmosphere in which his anointed successor Bob Dylan could reasonate. Like Dylan, he was subversive but inclusive. Not for him the “counterculture”, a sort of “I’m all right Jack” evasion of responsibility. Ginsberg loves America with an intensity that fires his anger at its failings. Here’s some of “America” (too long to reproduce in full, you can get it all here)

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don’t think he’ll come back it’s sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I’m trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.

He refuses to give up his obsession, refuses to simply slink off into exile and let America take care of its self. No-one can cast him out of his promised land for being communist or gay. He argues with his country as if it were his spouse (“I don’t feel good don’t bother me…..I’m sick of your insane demands”). There can be no divorce for these two lovers – Ginsberg will not abandon America, even as it tries to abandon him. Rather, he will fight to make an America large enough to encompass it’s rebels, it’s “million Trotskyites”, and its queer commie jew poets. It’s no easy task, more of a vocation, but Ginsberg finishes the poem with a stoic, sturdy statement of intent “America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel”.