"A Supermarket in California" Summary and Analysis. Ginsberg suggests here that the country is really being run by the media, who can effect the emotional outcry of citizens who can then strike fear into their elected representatives. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe The poem is a statement of those times of political unrest and urges positive change by shedding the veil of national inactivity. I can't stand my own mind. He wants to stop the conversation before it even starts, making excuses that he doesn't want to be bothered with such a conversation (ignoring that he was the one who started it) and declaring that he won't write until "I'm in my right mind" (7). It is included in his collection ‘Howl and Other Poems’ published in November 1956. I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they’re all different sexes. He tells America that "Burroughs is in Tangiers," a reference to William S. Burroughs' time spent in Tangiers, Morrocco where he was in a kind of exile from the United States because of legal problems related to the transport of illegal drugs from Mexico. She teaches English Language and Literature to the ESL students of tertiary level. 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. Yet this is contrasted by Ginsberg's use of the word queer, a word that then denoted softness and an effeminate style. As in jazz, the point that Ginsberg hoped to get across was not narrative or beauty but spontaneity, human expression, and reaction. 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 laments that the libraries of America, representing the potential of free information and free expression, are "full of tears" (12), and he denounces the corporatism of American life symbolized by "the supermarket" and how those with "good looks" are given easy entry into American wealth (15-16). Instead, they are being made by leaders who are more afraid of how the media might portray them for their decisions. He is almost in disbelief over all that he has just accused the country of. Allen Ginsberg’s ‘America’ deals with the turbulent times in America during the time post Second World War. A persons emotion was to rise and build just as the long lines themselves built upon the emotion contained within. A poem by Allen Ginsberg—Beat writer, Howl author, visionary, imp, hedonist, Buddhist, troublemaker, friend of Dylan, and poetic inheritor of Walt Whitman. He compares his poems to the assembling of automobiles. The poem is basically divided into three tonal and attitude verses. His profit motive will make him "$2500 a piece $500 down" for his poems, as if he were selling used cars. He ends the stanza with another example of discrimination. I am talking to myself again. 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. It’s always telling me about responsibility. America this is quite serious. Similar poems of Ginsberg include ‘A Supermarket In California‘, ‘Howl,’ ‘Homework,’ ‘An Eastern Ballad,’ ‘A Western Ballad,’ and ‘Death & Fame.’. In spite of his desire to see changes in society, he has not revealed, how he would attain it. When will it become "angelic" (8), when will it see the death and destruction that it has caused, when will it understand that its own political oppression is greater than the political oppression of the "Trotskyites" (communists) that it denounces and goes to war with (11)? By claiming that "Asia is rising against me," Ginsberg is relating how the tenets of Buddhism - peace, love, transcendence - testify against the America that he himself claimed identity with in the previous stanza. America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? Allen Ginsberg [1926-1997], born in Newark, N.J., is an American poet and leading apostle of the beat generation. In Eastern culture, the plum blossom is a symbol of peace. 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. Movie producers are serious. These lines function on several levels. These lines begin by attacking America's economic modes of production and ends with a political rant on communist Russia. He begins with a tone of reconciliation, trying to find commonality amongst himself and his country. “First thought, best thought” is the attitude of writing Allen Ginsberg and his fellow beat poets followed. He quotes his psychoanalyst’s opinion, who thinks he is perfectly right in thinking, to reiterate that he is aware of all that he is doing and speaking. Ginsberg says that he will "continue like Henry Ford" with his poetry, writing it not from an emotional and artistic point of view but instead with an eye towards profit. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. The following lines of the poem start Ginsberg's conversation with this personified America. Buddhism would be an important religious outlook for many of the Beat writers, including Kerouac and Neal Cassady, as they sought to reach higher levels of consciousness using drugs like LSD. He has "two joints of marijuana millions of genitals / an unpublishable private literature..." (54). Hymmnn and Hum Bom! Ginsberg relates the poem to music, saying that the key to understanding the structure of the poem is "in the jazz choruses...." Sentences often run on without punctuation and the poem skips from subject to subject with little relation to each other. Every single person that visits PoemAnalysis.com has helped contribute, so thank you for your support. “Personification” is the other technique the poet has used in the poem. He writes that it is "you and I who are perfect" and insinuates that the longing for the "next world" is pointless. 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. Communism will make all persons equal and these populists want only to maintain the discriminatory status quo. Even the stanzas of the poem are also irregular and unplanned. It also makes fun of the people who blame every mishap on Russia. The comparisons here are stark. Ginsberg accuses the country of "pushing" him and he asserts that he knows "what I'm doing" (25). He writes that "the plum blossoms are falling." 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. Lines 54 to 61, begins with the poet’s question and his commands to America. In, line 33, he highlights his support for socialism “You should have seen me reading Marx” the leading figure of socialism. Not affiliated with Harvard College. He also makes use of sounds, a part of the poem that can only be accurately assessed through a verbal reading. He acknowledges that his every action effects other's lives in some way or another. Ginsberg uses Time magazine as his example, here. The purpose of the device switches depending on the mood of the poet from the question to the country, to a detailed description of his perspective on the country. He expresses his despair about his financial situation and the way the country is engaged in the war. They believed that all wages should be abolished and that all workers should be united as a class of persons. The problems that have been plaguing the United States are associated with his attitudes … 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. America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. The sounds are meant to be primal, again suggesting that these ignorant populists are only a little above animals and certainly not as advanced as those that they fear. In the lines that follow the comments on the “insane demands” of America that affect even the trivial acts of life. America you don’t really want to go to war. Allen Ginsberg was one of America’s greatest citizen, and hero. Allen Ginsberg: Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was an American author and intellectual. Ginsberg, one of the primary figures of the counterculture of Beat Writers during the 1940s and 50s, presents America as a land in the grip of a capitalistic conglomerate which smothers the individual spiritually, artistically and economically. Ginsberg tells America that he smokes "marijuana every chance I get," that he gets drunk in Chinatown, and that he has read the writings of Karl Marx. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. He, who hopes to hold himself to a higher standard of justice and love, cannot escape the way his own perception of events is clouded by media interpretation. 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. It was written on January 17, 1956, while he was in Berkeley, California. He says that he wants "to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic." The poem carries a reference to the meetings of the communists, yet he knew that the era is long gone. On the whole, the poet expresses his view on the present condition of meaningless inactivity that cannot go on forever. He tells America that "...Sacco & Vanzetti must not die" (67), a reference to a famous legal case in which two men, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian born laborers with anarchist political views, were accused of murder and tried without due process. Ginsberg seems here to be self-deprecating, noting how the lifestyle that he lives (drugs, sex, art) is a poor resource for the monumental challenge to his identity and the political identity of the country. The Fall of America: Poems of These States, 1965–1971 is a collection of poetry by Allen Ginsberg, published by City Lights Bookstore in 1973, for which Ginsberg shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry. The final four lines are Ginsberg's statement of action. Ginsberg uses all of these historical examples to demonstrate to America that is is not the country that it presents itself to be in patriotic statements like the National Anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance. Line 61, describes the happy memory of a communist meeting Ginsberg attended as a child. The stanzas of the poem are also irregular and spontaneous. Their writings were poetically experimental and politically rebellious, as we see in ‘America’. He is referencing two particular events here: the first is the rise of China as a communist power in the East. Write a note on the elizabethan sonnet tradition. 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, of course, goes against the values of worker rights and unionizing that Ginsberg says he once adhered to. It is an obsession with the promise of America, with the things that he once believe deeply in: justice, tolerance, freedom, and acceptance. He is partly dissatisfied with the militarism of the country and he tells America to "go fuck yourself with your atom bomb" (5). Like other Ginsberg poems, the structure is really meant to be heard rather than read. The closing lines of the poem abandon the sarcasm and playful language of the previous lines. Ginsberg expresses his own hopelessness that his life or work, or anyone's life, would mean anything within a culture of censorship and oppression. Line 53 is an allusion to John F. Kennedy, whose Catholic faith caused the American people to doubt his political standing prior to his election. Ginsberg begins to make demands of America for justice, using historical examples to make his case. By using this imagery from another country and culture, Ginsberg is attempting to tell America that its essence as a benevolent leader of the world is in decline. Please log in again. Him need big black / niggers. Miz Alb received her MA in English Literature. Copyright © 1999 - 2021 GradeSaver LLC. After logging in you can close it and return to this page. Ads are what helps us bring you premium content! Allen Ginsberg “America” Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem called “America”.This poem is very long and typical of Ginsberg.He breaks the poem up into two stanzas with 40 lines in the first and 60 lines in the second. Yet, while he often appeared in the media, he also often took the opportunity to criticize the media as well. Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb I don't feel good don't bother me. Further, he ridicules the people for being ignorant through the phrases like “Russia wants to eat us alive” and “She wants to take our cars from out our garages” and “Her wants to grab Chicago”. America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. "America" was written in 1956 during Ginsberg's time in Berkeley, California and was included in the original publication of "Howl and Other Poems." Ginsberg felt that this was a validation of his feelings, and uses this stanza of the poem to show that the therapists opinion of his lifestyle means that he is justified in shirking responsibility. Ginsberg begins by claiming that "Asia is rising against me" (51). This confession demonstrates the love Ginsberg once felt, and the hope and optimism he felt in his own earlier life. We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously. The job the poet indicates here is to take up his own way to bring changes to the social situation. The final stanza is an amalgamation of rhythms and stream of consciousness writing. 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. In the lines follow, from his accusation on the government, the poet redirects his perspective towards people, their nature, and possibly the justice system of America post World War. Line 26 uses imagery from Eastern influences, a region of the world whose religion and culture would fascinate Ginsberg throughout his life. I’m obsessed by Time Magazine. One of the most respected Beat writers and acclaimed American poets of his generation, Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey and raised in nearby Paterson, the son of an English teacher and Russian expatriate. Ginsberg uses sarcasm to accuse America of attempting to divert responsibility for the Cold War ("America you don't want to go to war/ it's them bad Russians / Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. Nov. 21, 2020. What's your thoughts? He disapproves of the human and nuclear warfare present in America at the time of war. Ginsberg is perhaps remembering the great promise that America offered his own family as immigrant to the land. 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. To be on the cover of Time magazine was to grab the attention of the nation and of the world. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. 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