Howl
Howl By Allen Ginsburg
"Howl" By Allen Ginsburgh is a long poem, well worth the read, dedicated to former Beats Generation Writer Carl Solomon. This specific poem has a theme of darkness that runs through it and is only illuminated by the the darkest of lights such as fire, street lights. This poem also highlights the main themes of the Beats era highlighting music, poverty, and the affects of drugs sucking in human life until they suffer miserable deaths. One other main subject is the subject of opposing what is right in society as well as what happens to those who oppose it such as, "scholars of war who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes."
Civilization |
Those are the people who do complicated things.
they'll grab us by the thousands and put us to work. World's going to hell, with all these villages and trails. Wild duck flocks aren't what they used to be. Aurochs grow rare. Fetch me my feathers and amber A small cricket on the typescript page of "Kyoto born in spring song" grooms himself in time with The Well-Tempered Clavier. I quit typing and watch him through a glass. How well articulated! How neat! Nobody understands the ANIMAL KINGDOM. When creeks are full The poems flow When creeks are down We heap stones. |
Analysis: This poem takes Snyder's view of the environment and portrays the harm that people are doing to the environment. In a time where nobody really cared where they dumped their garbage or swage, Snyder saw this as an opportunity to speak out against environmental abuse. "When creeks are full/The poems flow/When creeks are down/We heap stones", with this statement he reveals that humans have nothing without their environment and if they destroy it future generations will ever get to experience it.
Snyder, in many of his writings addresses worldly issues, and political issues which highlighted the Beats Generation. |
How To Meditate
How to Meditate By Jack Kerouac
fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine, the gland inside of my brain discharging the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as i hap-down and hold all my body parts down to a deadstop trance-Healing all my sicknesses-erasing all-not even the shred of a 'I-hope-you' or a Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought comes a-springing from afar with its held- forth figure of image, you spoof it out, you spuff it off, you fake it, and it fades, and thought never comes-and with joy you realize for the first time 'thinking's just like not thinking- So I don't have to think any more' |
Analysis: "How to Meditate" by Jack Kerouac is inspired by his drug addictions to heroin and morphine. Drugs served as Kerouac's peaceful remedy saying that they "discharged the good glad fluid". As a historically dark and dreary individual Jack wrote often about his struggles and escapes from his struggles like most of the "Beat Generation" authors. Kerouac's writings are full of emotion and personal thoughts and writing about these personal issues are what helped break the traditional ways or writing.
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