I quite like this poem which utilises simple language yet manages to pack different layers of meaning concerning identity and transition. The following lines of the poem start Ginsberg's conversation with this personified America. Most of the arrests were not unwarranted. His derogatory use of Native Americans and African Americans here is a palpable display of their fear: the Russians, these ignorant populists believe, will elevate these minority groups to a status equal to their own. He asks if America is being "sinister" or if the country, through is artistic suppression and police-like state, is simply playing some kind of twisted practical joke on him and those like him. This is patriotic optimism that Ginsberg writes about here, though as the rest of the poem attests, there has been a definite break in the relationship. Ginsberg acknowledges that he doesn't have "a chinaman's chance" of avoiding this collision of values. Ginsberg sets a more "serious" tone for the end by telling America upfront that "this is quite serious" (87). As if to counter the damning claims of injustice that Ginsberg levels against America in the previous lines, he then begins to cite historical socialist and communist leaders who he felt worked for justice and peace, not for war and violence which were the charges leveled against leftists during this period of American history. Chazelle, Damien ed. These lines make America seem like a lost lover, someone that Ginsberg once loved and saw great promise and potential in; it was a potential for salvation. Aug. 22, 2020. In Eastern culture, the plum blossom is a symbol of peace. Ginsberg then makes an admission that changes the tone and focus of the poem: he suddenly realizes that "I am America" and that "I am talking to myself again" (49-50). The Question and Answer section for Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry is a great Context here is key: during the 1950's there was a strong anti-communist attitude in the nation, exemplified by Senator Joseph McCarthy's congressional hearings in which many Americans were accused of communist activities, often ruining their careers. Naomi Ginsberg held strong Communist views throughout her life and, during Allen's childhood, often took him and his brother to meetings of the local Communist Party. The reason that he doesn't read the newspapers is not only because the news will only tell more of how his country betrays him, but because it will also tell of how his own friends and colleagues become a part of the cycle of violence and rage. But this line also has personal resonance for Ginsberg. Ginsberg started the stanza by telling America that "I'm addressing you," (41) and ends the stanza by realizing that the "you" is really himself. This it he American way, Ginsberg suggests. He tells America to "Free Tom Mooney" (65), a labor leader in the early twentieth century who had been falsely imprisoned for a San Francisco bombing in 1916. October 19, 2014 November 3, 2014 / theawarrior. Ginsberg here critizes America, not just for seeing all events through the lens of the media (represented by Time) but also for letting its "emotional life" be effected by the magazine. "America you don't really want to go to war. He uses wrong pronouns and incorrect verb tenses, suggesting the ludicrousness of the populist fears of people who have not even learned to read correctly. Ginsberg, for his whole career, was strongly in support of legalizing drugs and his warning to America in this line is that if the country continues to prosecute for such petty crimes, the country will loose their "best minds." He wants the country to remember that there is great injustice in its work as well. Everything is done for profit and nothing valuable comes without business sense. Ginsberg then makes a plea to America in line 77. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Although her first languages were Malay and the Hokkin dialect of Chinese, she was able to read English by the time she was six. This naturally meant that China would become a ally of the USSR, a setback for US foreign relations in that part of the world following the allied victory in World War II. Creating community for online students He tells America that he never "told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia." These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Allen Ginsberg's Poetry. He begins with a tone of reconciliation, trying to find commonality amongst himself and his country. While Ginsberg realized that he himself was America, and then began to introspectively examine his complicity in the America that he was attacking, he has given up this line of thought and returned to conversation with a separate personified America. Even though his ambitions took him in a different direction - that of a poet instead of a lawyer - Ginsberg admits that he cannot "give up my obsession." Ginsberg then decides that he had "better consider my national resources." This is both a lament at the violence, or threat of violence, that was increasingly a part of American culture. He then qualifies what he can do: he cannot join the Army and he cannot work in a factory, both because of his political and social beliefs but also because he's "nearsighted and psychopathic anyway," two conditions that would preclude him from this kind of service. Here, he explains his earlier statement about how he was a communist as a child and how he was not sorry for this fact. He laments the cultural poverty of the time, equating it to only a few dollars and cents, and finds that he is not even able to be himself in such a culture. Ginsberg then shifts his focus away form politics - for the moment - and to the media. The poem is filled with cultural and political references as well as references to incidents and events in Ginsberg's own life as well as the lives of his friends and fellow Beat writers. But as he noted before, he will never be in his right mind. It is the East - both in its culture and its politics - that show the way to a better world. He is almost in disbelief over all that he has just accused the country of. The poem is about learning to love a … This stanza serves as a kind of confession for Ginsberg. Ginsberg himself was Jewish, but he makes this point because during this time it was widely assumed that a Catholic could not be elected President, though this assumption would fall only a few years later with the election of John F. Kennedy. But Ginsberg makes a surprising turn in the next few lines of the poem. He says that he wants "to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic." He accuses America of being in a "silly mood" and that this prevents him from writing a true "holy litany" of the country's faults. Ginsberg, being coy, proclaims that "Everbody must have been a spy" (75-76), a sarcastic comment on the government's paranoia over all Socialist or Communist activity during this period. Such a statement risked not only government interrogation but possibly criminal charges brought against him for treason.
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