Allen Ginsberg Essay -- Biography Bio Poet

Allen Ginsberg, Covert PatriotAllen Ginsberg is, without a doubt, most famous for his poem howling which he published in October of 1956 through City Lights Books in San Francisco. scream, like much of his other poetry, is an intensely personal and also very complex poetic expression scatty rhyme and, to many people, also lacking reason. In actuality, however, Howl serves as an autobiographical sketch and it acts, in some ways, as a precursor to his lesser known poem from the same publication, America, which is his lowest articulation of his love for his country and his disillusionment with its current state of affairs. Together, both of these poems form a culmination (as of 1956) of the journals he had been keeping throughout his life-time and ar the final howl of the simultaneous love and discontent with his situation as well as that of his country. Through Howl and America Ginsberg is expressing his disillusionment with American acculturation and his own life by retelling h is own life experiences however, he is also demonstrating a love of America and American culture that he has held throughout his life and which he, finally, was able to put down in poetic verse in his compilation Howl and Other Poems.From a very early age, Ginsbergs life was chaotic, and that, in turn, produced a disenchanted view of society. His parents were both extremely politically active and were not in political agreement. As a result government was a subject to which he became accustomed rather early because his mother, Naomi, was a member of the Communist part and his father, Louis, was a Democratic Socialist (Miles 6). Naomi and Louis fought often about politics and the situation, no doubt, left Ginsberg both passionate and confused about poli... ...sberg as a cynic, it is crucial to remember that, both as a poet and as a person, he is much more complex, as is his view of the country. Ginsberg was not anti-American, he loved a great deal about America and felt awestricke n about its situation in the 1950s. Ginsberg was simply another man who wanted change.ReferencesCaveney, Graham. Screaming with Joy the Life of Allen Ginsberg. New York Broadway Books, 1999.Foster, Edward Halsey. Understanding the Beats. Columbia University of South Carolina Press, 1992.Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. 57th printing San Francisco City Light Books, 2001.---. Journals Mid-Fifties 1954-1958. Gordon, Ball Ed. New York HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.Merrill, Thomas F. Allen Ginsberg Revised Edition. Boston G.K. Hall & Co., 1988.Miles, Barry. Ginsberg A Biography. London Virgin create Ltd., 2000.