The Beat Generation di Loredana Di Francesco

ALLEN GINSBERG: the Beat bard

Allen Ginsberg

Biographical infos

Ginsberg [E2] [ES1] [F1] was the major poet of the so-called Beat Generation: he was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1926. His father was a Jewish Socialist, a poet and a teacher, and suffered from depression; his mother's health, wasn't good,either, she  had frequent nervous breakdowns and was later committed to a mental hospital. Since high-school, Ginsberg developed a deep interest in poetry and read the works of Walt Whitman [F1] ; but despite his literary inclinations, he studied Law at Columbia University.  Among his fellow students were  Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, William Burroughs, who were obsessed  with drugs, crime, sex and literature.
In 1948, Allen began to hear the voice of William Blake [ES1] while he was reading some of his poems: so he decided to become a poet. Then, he moved to San Francisco, where he felt freer to express his homosexuality.
In 1955, he attracted public attention by reading aloud his poem Howl  (the Manifesto of the Beat Generation)at the legendary Six Gallery; in 1956 the collection Howl and Other Poems was published by Ferlinghetti's publishing house City Lights Books, but was brought up on obscenity charges. In 1959, Kaddish and Other Poems followed, a sentimental elegy in memory of the poet's mother.
Ginsberg was very active in antiwar protest and supported the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He traveled the world, on the trail of his beloved Buddhist philosophy, which helped him overcome drug addiction. He showed interest for all arts including pop music, and often took part in public readings and multicultural gatherings until his death in 1997.

A supermarket in California A Supermarket in California

In this poem, written in 1955, Ginsberg imagines to meet Walt Whitman's ghost as he wanders through an all-night supermarket: the poet is perplexed by present day excesses and meditates on the anaesthetized  consumer paradise America has become. The initial landscape (night, trees and moon) seems to evoke Whitman, the singer of nature. But in the XX century the only place a poet can go "to shop for images" is the supermarket, where people go on buying all night under the artificial neon light.Whitman and Garcia Lorca are there, though. The end of the poem is an aknowledgment of the way history moves on and forgets. Ginsberg notes how Whitman's own vision of America - the lost America of  love - has been forgotten and can only with great difficulty be imagined back into existence.
Mingling a lyric and a comic strain, the poem is a good example of the author's use of long lines: in each line ("ideally a breath unit"), written to be read aloud, unexpected images and associations are kept together by their rhythm.
Poetry to Ginsberg was communication, needing direct contact with an audience: that is the reason for his choice of  strong, violent images (as in Howl) and for the use of simple and colloquial language. The repetition of words and sentences make his poetry a kind of collective ritual. As a stylistic note, for example, in A Supermarket in California, we can notice the strong allitteration ( What ... Walt Whitman.... I walked....What peaches... Wives... what were... watermelons...etc.) and repetition of the name of the addresse.
Like the other "American bard", Ginsberg used open forms and stressed the value of free and spontaneous expression; like  Whitman, he was restlessly searching for illumination and new and direct experiences. The only thing that mattered to him was to live each moment as intensely as possible.



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