Allen Ginsberg:
Social Activist and Passionate Poet of the Beat Generation
Jade Tassey
Saugus
High School AP US History and AP English Language
and Composition Team Term Paper
Allen Ginsberg:
Social Activist and Passionate Poet of the Beat Generation
Thesis: From attending communist
parties at a young age to attacking the American government through
confession-like poetry, Allen Ginsberg, of the Beat Generation, inspired his
generation’s society to question American government conspiracies in such a way
to promote anti-war protests and broaden social tolerance of personal emotions.
His blatant, challenging writing style awakened America’s so-called “ignorant
conformists”, and left the world with a controversial attitude towards social
involvement with war, confidence of self-entitled opinions, and the opposition
of political imperialism.
I.
Introduction
II.
Biography and shaping forces
of Allen Ginsberg
A. Early life and influences:
Born into Jewish family, taken to communist parties by mother (Naomi) and very
active in U.S.
political problems, Walt Whitman
enthusiast
B. Education and the Beat
Generation: From Colombia University joined Beat Movement (‘50s), saw
potential of American youth outside confines of post-WWII (NYC), opposition to
racial brutality
C. Sexual orientation influences works: Open homosexuality, led
openness among others, early
proponent of freedom for homosexuality, graphically sexual in works, mass
consumer culture
D. Political standpoint and war: Vietnam War role: protested against
(‘65), peace with ‘Hell’s Angels’, admired past communist quasi-Marxist
figures, non-conformist attitude
III.
Predominant arguments and
rhetorical/style analysis of Allen Ginsberg’s writing and arguments
A. Allen Ginsberg is best known for his blunt opinion
on the American government’s methods of rule, stances on acceptance of
homosexuality and anti-war, and social restrictions that constricted America’s
youth during the fifties and sixties. In his poetry, he uses graphic diction
and overwhelming staccato-like syntax to expose the conformist American
society.
B. Howl
1. Strategy: bold statements
challenge American conspiracies, explicit language
2. Strategy: sarcastic stanzas
create a questioning image on government
C. America
1. Strategy: simply lists what America did
wrong, underlying wake up call message
2. Strategy: unorthodox confession
screams desperately for society to wake up
IV.
Discussion of the legacies and
impact of Allen Ginsberg’s rhetoric: analysis and criticism
A. Popular culture: open
sexual orientations, ‘60s hippy era, influences peace activists
B. Literary impacts:
censorship, explicity, bold statements of mind, new
wave of poetry, inspired writers
C. Political imperialism:
anti-war, “flower children”, exposure of corruption and conformity
D. Social ideology: modern Whitmanism, pro-communism, sexual orientations accepted,
anti-war
V.
Conclusion
VI.
Works Cited
VII.
Annotated Bibliography
With the
attitude of the world blindfolded from equality and just with the lust for
power, wealth, and control, and the American government moving its citizens
like naïve pawns on a chessboard, out stepped Allen Ginsberg: equality advocate
and outspoken political activist. Worldly influential, Ginsberg was “a great
poet who spoke for the right and need of Americans to express personal and
universal truth,” (Bawer 62), explicitly explaining his
views via poetry, public readings, and world travels to reveal the corrupt and
secretive plague that swept most of the world-wide nation’s governments in the fifties
and sixties. Through a rather depressing life, he used the experiences like a
schizophrenic mother to suppressed homosexuality to help animate his works in a
ground-shaking way. From attending communist parties at a young
age to attacking the American government through confession-like poetry, Allen
Ginsberg of the Beat Generation, inspired his era’s society to question
American government conspiracies and social conformity in such a way to promote
anti-war protests and broaden social tolerance of personal emotions. His
blatant, challenging writing style awakened America’s so-called “ignorant
conformists” who were willing to listen, and left the world with a
controversial outlook towards social involvement with war, confidence of
self-entitled opinions, and the opposition of political imperialism.
“Who presented themselves on the granite
steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and a harlequin speech of suicide,
demanding instantaneous lobotomy” (Ginsberg,
Howl 66).
Allen Ginsberg’s early
life was a rather depressing and pitiful narrative, and often thought of as
the tragic tale describing a very troubled mind that eventually mirrored his
alternatively profane poetry regarding his political and pessimistic views on
humanity in his latter years. Born into a very politically active family in
1926, Ginsberg’s Russian mother took him to numerous Communist Party Jewish
camps in New York, being the factor for many
of his future political standpoints and views on the U.S. government. As time progressed
his mother, Naomi, was plagued with multiple mental illnesses including
schizophrenia and dementia. Haunted by loneliness and neglect, in addition to
wresting with questionable homosexuality, Naomi’s curse seeped into Allen’s
personal life, triggering him to constantly write his feelings and unwanted
memories. It could be said that “by writing everything [to] what happened in
the world around him and what happened as responses inside him could be treated
as if it were part of the external phenomenal world” (Heims 8-9). In high school, he was described as “the
philosopher and genius of the class” (12), and he was the
head of the debate club against isolationism.
After high school,
Ginsberg attended the Columbia University, studying economics and politicized the debating
society (Klawans 37), where he
met Lucien Carr. The rough frame of the “New Vision” was then created between
the two— the “most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited
expression of art” (Caveney 35). As Ginsberg was introduced to scholars and
followers of the “New Vision” in the summer of 1944, the Beat Generation of
Kerouac, Carr, and Ginsberg started to pulsate. Being exceptionally explicit
with his works and mindset, he was expelled from Columbia University for
scrawling obscenities in the dust of the windowpane, being “convinced that his
cleaning lady was an anti-Semite” (41), although he did
re-apply to Columbia University in 1946.This stimulated the Beat authors’
activity, although was not long lived after an unusual case that shook the
Beat’s stability: a fellow author, Kammerer was murdered by Carr in a plea of
sexual assault, and “the murder showed that the Bohemianism that Ginsberg had
begun to value had a troubling and dangerous side” (24).
Soon after this incident, Ginsberg traveled to San Francisco in the 1950’s, where he met
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassidy, and Gary Snyder— fellow Beat authors.
Allen Ginsberg’s
homosexuality differentiated and expanded the American view of acceptance;
at the time, his homosexuality “made him a criminal in the eyes of the law” (McQuade 2445), further fueling his fight for sexual
equality throughout his life. His father wrote, “It seemed natural and
reasonable to him to place homosexuality and insanity in the same category. The
psychiatric profession did” (Heims
31). Allen Ginsberg was an early proponent of freedom for homosexuality,
and over time he became more and more explicit with his sexual orientation. In
the latter years of his education, he in fact returned to the Columbia University
to read his poetries where “homosexuality would be more than just
rumored/obscenities more purposely defiant” (41). His
works became more and more sexual as he gained confidence of his sexual
orientation, as if he knew it would cause some sort of attention to his works: “I’m with you [Carl Soloman]
in Rockland/ where we hug and kiss the United States under our/ bedsheets…” (Ginsberg,
Howl 63). As time passed on, “the uninhibited poetry readings Ginsberg has
given—which have included occasional nakedness… the readings of sexual
diaries…--immensely changed the nature of the poetry reading as a communal
occasion” (McQuade 2446).
Allen Ginsberg’s
political standpoints and war views could be portrayed in one simple quote from
an analytical biography: “[American government is] destructive of the best
qualities of human nature; such elements are predominantly identified as
materialism, conformity, and mechanization leading to war” (Heims 87). The Beats rose to the opposition of the Cold
War, repressive Puritanism, racial brutality, and mass consumer culture, but
Ginsberg fought for personal reasons, such as the legalization of marijuana and
the acceptance of homosexuality, which “reinforced his belief that the legal
system was unnecessarily oppressive, directed by American fundamentalist morality
rather than by a concern for public disorder” (McQuade 2445).
Ginsberg was “that human voice and body [that] had been hurled against the
harsh wall of America
and its supporting armies and navies and academies and institutions and
ownership systems and power-supporting bases” (Klawans 76). He embodied and expressed sexual,
political, and artistic dissidence in a non-violent and almost in a pompously
intelligent manner while active in issues such as the stockpiling of nuclear
bombs and the Korean and Vietnam wars (McQuade 2445),
which in turn made him a threat to the government’s reputation and surface
image. Allen Ginsberg was forever married to the freedom of sexuality and
expression, defending them through laws and shocked American citizens, as well
as people around the world.
“Who burned cigarette holes in their arms
protesting the narcotic/ tobacco haze of Capitalism, /...” (Ginsberg,
Howl 47).
Allen Ginsberg is best known for
his blunt opinion on the overall efficiency of American government, stances on pro-homosexuality
and anti-war, and social restrictions of individuality and free speech that
constricted America’s
youth during the fifties and sixties. Openly declaring his views and
challenging authority made him a bold author who encouraged rebellion against
conformity to oppressive rule. In his poetry, he uses graphic diction and
overwhelming staccato-like syntax to expose the conformist American society.
Howl, Allen Ginsberg’s most famous piece of poetry, “threw a rock
into the pool of American culture and set off a historical chain reaction
of enormous transformative power” (Heims
2). Written in the fury of socialist suppression in 1955, Howl was first written regarding
Ginsberg’s personal struggles with his loved friends and family, but it soon
changed to the reflection of the conformist society that the mind-warping
American government has instilled. Howl
is recognized “not only for its pivotal role in the making of the Beat
Generation, and the counterculture of the sixties and seventies but also for
the poets own explosive language and his innovative sense of form” (Raskin 229). At the time,
Ginsberg’s famous poem was underground poetry, on top of outlawed poetry, for
it openly challenged almost all aspects of government and chastised conformity.
With his short, bold statements and his rather explicit language, Ginsberg
impacted America
in such a way that he himself explained “to appeal to the secret or hermetic
tradition of art” (xii). Ginsberg’s sarcastic stanzas
create a questioning image on America
and its political views was also viewed as an “incantation-a defiant
celebration of the madman who had been destroyed by corporate America” (74).
By using blatantly open syntax, conjoined with straight-to-the-point couplets, Howl opened the eyes of American society
in the fifties, although not always in a positive way, for Howl was put on trial for offense against American government and
excess obscene language. Judge Clayton Horn openly expressed that he “does not
believe that ‘Howl’ is without even
the slightest redeeming social importance. The first part of ‘Howl’ presents a picture of a nightmare
world…It ends in a plea for holy living” (Caveney 87). The “lists and cumulative rhythms” showed
the “democratic spirit of Walt Whitman and the street-slang cadence of Carlos
Williams” (74). Among the followers of Ginsberg’s
legendary Howl, many thought “it gave
us [Beat authors] a sense of identity as members of a new generation that had
come of age in the wake of WWII and the atomic bomb, a generation that lived in
the shadow of nuclear apocalypse” (Raskin
xi).
Another powerful
politically ice-breaking piece of Ginsberg’s is America, which literally listed and mocked the
fallacies of American society. Lines like “America I’m putting my queer
shoulder to the wheel” (Ginsberg 1)
foreshadowed the gay liberation movement of the late sixties and seventies,
making America yet another
politically pro piece that affected American society almost as much as Howl. Some anthologists refer to America
as an underlying mirror of Ginsberg’s deranged mother, and others refer to America
merely as a list of what America
has done wrong within the fifties.
“Ginsberg hurls […] everything his
own paranoid memories of a confused, squalid, humiliating existence in the
‘underground’ of American culture, mock political and sexual ‘confessions’,
literary allusions and echoes, and the folk-idiom of impatience and disgust”
(Rosenthal 6).
An analysis that could not have been written any better,
Ginsberg truly reflected his resentment of the system America calls its government, listing the flaws
and lies America
has showed, and still shows. Ginsberg also alludes to its past, whereas “it [America]
has never fully been the kind of liberal and democratic country that it likes
to portray itself” (Ginsberg 2). America was a powerful and influential wake up
call message, almost an unorthodox confession that begs desperately for society
to wake up out of the brain-washed coma the government has seduced upon them.
Ginsberg mocked the Cold War, and his “line-breaks serve an emphatic, syntactic
purpose, in which the slight hesitancy at the end of the line provides for
unexpected semantic conjunctions and emphases, while at the same time they
direct the reader’s voice into the nervous rhythm and rhetorical inflection of
the verse.” (Quartermain
3). A perfect example of the nervous and almost sarcastic tone, “America
this is quite serious. /America
this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. /America
is this correct? /I’d better get right down to the job” (McQuade
2454). Further into America, the
listing of events where peoples’ rights were abused hinted at slight comic
relief when Times Magazine was referenced, “based on conviction that in poetry
the strongest and most important points must be made through using direct and
easily accessible speech” (Ginsberg 3).
The satirical tone of portions in America,
“Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? / […] It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are
serious. Movie/producers are serious. Everybody’s serious but
me” (Ginsberg, Howl,
McQuade 2453). To further analyze the predominant arguments and
rhetorical purposes for America, it can be merely suggested that America’s
instability within the government of the fifties and sixties led to false hopes
and lies, ever so recognized by Allen Ginsberg.
“America this is quite serious. /America this is the impression I
get from looking in the television set. /America is this correct? /I’d
better get right down to the job.” (Ginsberg, America 2454).
Ginsberg inspired a
whole generation; seen as the new “hippy” era, or a
new movement of peace from suppressive government forces, as well as
further open the eyes of the world to unsuppressed literature and equality. “In
the Washington Post, Henry Allen also pronounced him ‘a great poet’ who spoke
‘for the right and need of Americans to express personal and universal truth’”
(Podhoretz 49). This analysis deemed Ginsberg a
personal freedom advocate; proudly showing America that they need not the
government to make their choices, or tell them how to live their lives.
Influencing the popular culture with open sexual orientations and catalyzing
the growth of peace activists, “Clines, for example, described Ginsberg as ‘the
celebrity poet who once piped a flood of hippy, humanity into Golden Gate Park
in the 1960’s on the strength of ‘flower power’.” (Bawer 62). Spurring the nationalistic peace movement
against unnecessary war, Ginsberg was well known through word of mouth, media,
and publishing. Ginsberg was accepted throughout the conservative society more
than expected, and was seen as “the symbol of social iconoclasm and the
doctored mind expansion, one of the first to sing brazenly beyond the closet of
homosexuality” (62). Tearing at the “irksomeness of the
closet”, Ginsberg created a new ground for sexuality, opening the door into the
free and liberal American culture, which still shuns some aspects of
homosexuality (Klawans 71).
Some critics of Ginsberg oppose his bold statements and influence, saying that
“it is just plain wrong to judge Ginsberg’s poetry qua poetry” (Bawer
40). Altogether, Ginsberg combined “writing brilliantly”, setting “good
moral example”, and serving “as an important political figure”, which at the
time was not common to combine (Klawans
89).
Ginsberg’s literary
impacts changed the writing styles of the fifties and on, creating bold statements
of mind while facing censorship for explicity to born
a new wave of poetry. He inspired a new wave of free speech that left society
more open, and less suppressed. Ginsberg knew he would impact literature in
such a way that he himself intended: “I was curious to leave behind after my
generation an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in U.S.
consciousness in case our military-industrial-nationalistic complex solidified
into a repressive police bureaucracy” (Ginsberg, Dreisinger 2). Being a breakthrough in literary norms,
“the unabashed frankness of his words and the declarative nature of much of his
writing have made the work accessible to the casual reader, and have thus given
Ginsberg a wide following” (Quartermain
6). His wide following made him popular not only in America, but around the world.
Ginsberg idolized authors like Whitman and Blake, “appealing to the young, to
those who do not think that poetry and the business of daily life are
essentially grave matters whose language have to be separated from another” (1). Ginsberg’s work was highly accepted by many, and
highly opposed by many, to where it has been “anthologized, lionized,
internationalized, and scrutinized by everyone from Whitman scholars to
gay-rights activists to spoken-word performers and public prosecutors” (Dreisinger 2). Ginsberg’s
contribution to literary legacies can be summated into one quote: “people will
often go back to Ginsberg’s poetry in order to learn about generational
conflicts, social, sexual, and political issues that were at the forefront in
the mid-twentieth century” (Ginsberg 3).
Ginsberg’s most
recognizable contribution to America was his political opposition towards the
government, where his writings challenged almost every face of politics. He
“wasn’t tearing down the fortress of established culture—he was marching in the
front door, which had long been open for him” (Klawans 15). To many, “Ginsberg’s humorous and candid
poetry suggested that self-revelation need not be shaming or self-abasing and
that political protest need not be dour or hateful” (McQuade
2446). Ginsberg’s anti-war stance spurred an exposure to corruption and
conformity, and he was never once regretful of his words and political views,
proving a courageous idol for future political legacies. His attitude towards
Vietnam “was never that American Military involvement in that part of the world
was a bad idea, and that it would be in the best interests of the U.S. and the ultimate cause of democracy
to withdraw” (Bawer 35). His political views “provided him
with an occasion, a focus, and a wider audience than ever for the anti-American
anarchism, that he had been peddling for a decade”, and it showered the world
with a fresh taste of freedom without the pressure of the government (35). His works, like Howl
and America especially exposed the
lies of the government and the president, creating a widespread questioning of
conformity.
The social ideology of
Allen Ginsberg can be varied from a modern Whitmanist, one who was virtually pro-communist, and a sexual, social, and
peace advocate of the mid-twentieth century. Some critics called “him the
Atomic Age Whitman, but sidestep, as much as possible, the question of whether
his poetry makes the grade” (Bawer, 41). He changed the
opinion on communists in Vietnam,
changing the views of Americans to less hostile and more open-minded. Ginsberg
supported everything that made today’s modern freedom: homosexual acceptance,
pro-American peace, free speech, and con-tyranny of the government.
Allen Ginsberg, a renounced and internationally famous American
writer, has affected society through the Beat Generation through anti-war
protests and through broadening social acceptance of sexuality. Breaking the
chains of American suppression, he convinced many citizens to question and
ponder the corrupt and conformist ways of politics, and the instilment of false
hopes upon life. His writings and provocative poems instilled social
acceptance, creating a new reality check within his peers and followers. Up
until his death, Ginsberg continued to inspire America with powerful words that
shocked, scared, inspired, and challenged American society to take a stand for
human rights, for human freedom from tyrannical power. “I’m trying to come to
the point. /I refuse to give up my obsession. /America stop pushing I know what
I’m doing” (Ginsberg, Howl
2452).
Works
Cited
Albany Times Union (Albany, NY).
“Allen Ginsberg.” April 8, 1997. 7 Sept. 2009.
<http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/hits?docNum=CJ15695037>.
Bawer,
Bruce. “The Phenomenon of Allen Ginsberg.” Prophets & Professors: Essays on the Lives and
Works of Modern Poets. Brownsville:
Story Line Press, 1995. 193-214. Literature Resources from
Gale. Gale. Los Angeles
Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009.
<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl>.
Caveney, Graham. Screaming
With Joy: The Life of Allen Ginsberg. New York: Broadway Books, 1999.
Dreisinger, Baz. “’Howl’, Ginsberg’s Time Bomb, Still Setting off New Explosions.”
The New York Observer (New York, NY).
April 10, 2066. 7 Sept. 2009.
< http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/hits?docNum=CJ144491426>.
LitFinder
Contemporary Collection.
“Explanation of: ‘America
(Ginsberg, Allen)’ by Allen Ginsberg.” Detroit:
Gale, 2000. Literature Resources from Gale.
Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009.
<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl>.
Ginsberg, Allen. Illuminated Poems.
New York:
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1996.
Heims, Neil. Gay and Lesbian Writers: Allen
Ginsberg. U.S: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005.
Klawans, Stuart. “The Beat Goes On: Allen
Ginsberg, All American.” Voice Literary Supplement. 21-23.
Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009.
<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
McQuade,
Donald. The Harper Single Volume American Literature.
New York:
Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.
Podhoretz, Norman. “My War with Allen
Ginsberg.” Commentary. 104.2 (Aug.
1997): 27-40. Library Resources from Gale.
Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009.
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Quartermain, Peter. “Allen Ginsberg: Overview.” Reference Guide to American Literature. Ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit:
St. James Press, 1994. Literature
Resources from Gale.
Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009.
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Raskin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen
Ginsberg’s “Howl” and the Making of the Beat Generation. Los
Angeles: University
of California Press,
2005.
Rosenthal, M.L. “Poet of the New Violence.” The Nation. 184.8 (28 Feb. 1957): 162. Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Sheppard,
R.Z. “Mainstreaming Allen Ginsberg.” The New York
Times on the Web. Feb. 4, 1985. 7 Sept. 2009.
< http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/hits?docNum=A3632099
>.
Annotated
Bibliography
Campbell, James. Syncopations.
Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 2008.
Campbell analyzes the Beat Generation and its
influences. He discusses the attributions several authors, including Ginsberg,
made to the Beat Generation.
--- This is
the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris. London: Secker & Warburg, 1999.
Discussion of how the Beat
Generation influenced the specific cities, also gives locations of important
landmarks made by the Beat Generation.
DISCovering U.S. History.
“The Beat Movement, 1950-1959.” Gale Research, 1997. Reproduced
in History Resource Center.
Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.
<http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/>.
Generalizes the outcomes and
impacts of the Beat Generation, also specifies each contribution Beat authors
have imputed.
French, Warren.
“Howl: Overview.” Reference Guide to American Literature.
Ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit:
St. James Press, 1994. Literature
Resources from Gale. Gale. Los Angeles
Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Analysis of Howl and the rhetorical strategies that
Ginsberg uses. It also explains some reasons of the verses in the poem.
Ginsberg, Allen. Allen
Ginsberg: Death & Fame, Last Poems. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.
A compilation of
Allen Ginsberg’s poems, which he wrote in his latter years.
--- The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice. Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2006
A collection of
Ginsberg’s early journals and thoughts.
McBride, Dick. Cometh
with Clouds (Memory: Allen Ginsberg). Rochester:
Writers & Books, 1982.
McBride discusses his experiences
and thoughts on Ginsberg, and how he affected his life.
Merrill, Thomas
F. “Chronology: Allen Ginsberg.” Twayne’s
United States Authors Series 161. Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1988. Literature Resources from Gale.
Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Chronological notes on the significant events
in Ginsberg’s life.
Morgan, Bill. The Beat Generation in San Francisco. San Francisco: City Lights
Books, 2003.
An analysis of
the significant events of the Beat Generation specifically in San Francisco.
Portuges, Paul. “Allen Ginsberg’s Vision and the Growth of
His Poetics of Prophecy.” Poetic Prophecy in Western
Literature. Ed. Jan Wojcik: Fairleigh
Dickinson University
Press, 1984. Literature Resources from Gale.
Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Rhetorical
analysis of Ginsberg’s poetry and analysis of his motives.
Ruby, Mary K.
“Overview: ‘A Supermarket in California’.”
Poetry for Students. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999.
Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 7 Sept. 2009
< http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lapl
>.
Analysis of
Ginsberg’s poem A Supermarket in California.
Will, George. “Ginsberg A Howlingly Successful
Marketing Product to the End.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle,
WA). April 10, 1997. 7
Sept, 2009
< http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/hits?docNum=CJ64622662>.
Newspaper article on the success of
Howl and Will’s input on the poem.
Links
