Allen Ginsberg Essays (Examples)

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Essay
Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Reflects
Pages: 2 Words: 667

The Buddhist practice of "just sitting" while in meditation also emerges in Ginsberg's poem when he writes, "I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet."
The narrator also likens himself to Buddha by saying, "You made me want to be a saint." The Buddha abnegated his wealth to pursue a path of total transcendence. Dissatisfied with asceticism, however, the Buddha pursued a middle path. The narrator in Ginsberg's "America" admits "I smoke marijuana every chance I get." Antithetical to formal Buddhism, which denounces mind-altering substances, the assertion nevertheless echoes the idea that total abstinence is not the spiritual goal. Honesty and respect for human life, on the other hand, are the goals of spiritual practice.

Thus, Buddhism is like communism in their mutually egalitarian philosophies. Both Buddhism and Buddhism affirm similar social values. "No political system, no matter how ideal it may…...

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Works Cited

Ginsberg, Allen. "America." Retrieved Nov 13, 2007 at  http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html 

K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera. "Buddhism and Politics." Buddhist Study and Practice Group. Retrieved Nov 13, 2007 at  http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/229.htm

Essay
Allen Ginsberg Biography the Poet
Pages: 5 Words: 1571

This reading also featured Ginsberg's "Howl."
Along with the rest of the world, the attendees at the reading also provided wide acclaim to this particular work. Indeed, the poem was seen as groundbreaking in the struggle against the destructive American powers that be at the time. Indicative of this is the fact that Howl and Other Poems was banned for obscenity shortly after its publication. Despite this, the work was translated into more than twenty-two languages, and became one of the most widely read poems during the 20th century.

Ginsberg furthermore showed his allegiance to the Beat movement by being involved in protests against the Vietnam War, as well as other political activities and speaking opportunities, as mentioned above. The most important issues for the poet included free speech and gay rights.

For his work in both politics and poetry, Ginsberg received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (the Order of…...

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Sources

Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems Online. Poemhunter.com, 2008.  http://www.poemhunter.com/allen-ginsberg/ 

Books and Writers. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). 2003. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ginsberg.htm

Poets.org. A brief Guide to the Beat Poets. Academy of American Poets, 2008.  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5646 

The Poetry Archive. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). 2005.  http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1547

Essay
Allen Ginsberg Was Born to
Pages: 2 Words: 817

hen he left home for Columbia in 1943, he remembered his past and was happy to leave his problems -- his mother's insanity especially -- behind him. Later, he noted that he had lost quite a bit by distancing himself from her. He wrote that he lost the ability to become close to "later friendly girls" (35). He believed that he had denied his feelings toward women out of fear of what happened to his mother (35). However, he was on a path to become a lawyer, although this path would change his sophomore year when he changed his major to English literature (35).
At the end of his second term at Columbia, Allen met Lucien Carr, who thought Ginsberg to be, a "shy little Jewish boy" (Morgan 37). Paul Roth had left for the war and Lucien became Allen's first serious "crush" (37). They two built a strong friendship…...

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Works Cited

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. City Lights Publisher; Reissue edition, 2001.

Jackson, Kenneth T., Markoe, Karen., & Markoe, Amie. The Scribner Encyclopedia of American

Lives, Volume 5.

Morgan, Bill. I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. Penguin (Non-

Essay
Allen Ginsberg Beat Poet Extraordinare
Pages: 16 Words: 4846

Not long after meeting Carr, Ginsberg wrote to his brother and said, "I plan to go down to Greenwich Village with a friend of mine who claims to be an intellectual, and knows queer and interesting people. I plan to get drunk, if I can" (Hyde, 89).
It was while Ginsberg was attending Columbia University that he realized, for the first time as an adult, his sexual orientation as a homosexual. In a letter to his brother Eugene, Allen stated that he had "accumulated a modest number of close friends, some neurotic, some insane, some political." He placed these friends in categories of social standing -- "the madmen and artists from Greenwich Village and Columbia," such as Kerouac and Carr; the "sensitive youths and young intellectuals," mostly composed of his "normal" classmates at school, and lastly, a group of other classmates whom he had daily contact with, such as his…...

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Bibliography

Hyde, Lewis, Ed. On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984.

Merrill, Thomas F. Allen Ginsberg. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978.

On Howl." Modern American Poetry. Internet. Accessed October 18, 2005.  http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/ginsberg/howl.htm .

Portuges, Paul. The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg. New York: Ross-Erickson, 1978.

Essay
Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Howl Alen Ginsberg Lived
Pages: 1 Words: 391

Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg Howl

Alen Ginsberg lived a colorful life in which he participated in many of the contemporary periods subcultures. He believed that the United States had evolved into something of a materialistic society that demanded conformity and submission to cultural norms. The radicals that resisted the mainstream culture were what Ginsberg referred to as the "best minds" and they were fallen heroes in his view. The group experimented with drugs, sex, Eastern religions, anti-consumerism, and a general opposition to any kind of expression through materialism.

The poem Howl uses intense symbolism, imagery and word play throughout. The central theme of the poem seems to incorporate madness. The best minds that he envisioned were considered mad and only allowed to move freely at night. He uses a lot of variations of words to describe various aspect of the underground society that he relates to. The addicts chase a "fix" that is…...

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Works Cited

Burt, S. "The Paradox of Howl." 19 April 2006. Slate. Online. 21 April 2013.

Essay
Allen Ginsberg Compared to Other Poets
Pages: 2 Words: 559

Whitman in the Supermarket
Considered by many to be the father of free verse, Walt Whitman was a19th century American poet, essayist, and journalist. In his poetry, Whitman often incorporated aspects of realism -- presenting things as they are -- with transcendentalism, which seeks to transcend things as they are.

In Allen Ginsberg's poem, "A Supermarket in California," Ginsberg encounters "Wives in the/avocados, babies in the tomatoes!" And "Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,/poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery/boys" (7-8, 10-12). Whitman was also an open bisexual who never married, never had children, and was one of the first American poets to incorporate homosexual eroticism into his work, though he is most famous for his semi-tragic depiction of American ideals -- just as Ginsberg himself is. In "A Supermarket in California," Ginsberg not only encounters Whitman but actually follows him, which is symbolic of Ginsberg's work following…...

Essay
Political Statements and Forms of Expression Poetry and Painting
Pages: 10 Words: 3122

Art
"Howl" and "Guernica" Outline

The paper demonstrates the ways in which both pieces of art contemplate and express multiple themes, including those of religion, morality, happiness, life-affirmation, and freedom.

"Howl" is a poem that is both a mourning and a celebration of life.

"Guernica" is an expression of pain and war.

oth works of art have many themes and many of the same themes.

Ginserb, the 1950s, and "Howl"

He composed the poem in the middle of the 1950s, one of the greatest decades in history for mainstream America.

He is heavily influenced by previous poets and by his own lived experiences.

Howl" shows readers how they can be connected to spirituality, religion, and what is sarcred or holy with, and without the use of the formal church.

Poetry is another form of storytelling that is best when read/performed aloud.

Howling, Expression, and Jazz

A. If we are howling, either out of pain or out of pleasure, we are alive and…...

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Bibliography:

1. Raento, P., & Watson, C.J. "Gernika, Guernica, Guernica?: Contested meanings of a Basque place." Political Geography, Vol. 19, Pgs 707 -- 736, 2000.

The authors discuss the many ways to interpret "Guernica." The authors focus upon why and how Picasso created such a dense work of art. The authorts furthermore explore and offer various ways for readers to interpret the painting from a historical and contemporary perspective.

2. Ginsberg, Allen. Howl. City Lights Books: San Francisco. 1956. Print.

This is the entirety of the poem. There is a foreword, preface, and afterword. The majority of the book consists of the poem "Howl," although there are other poems. Some of the other poems in the book are directly related to "Howl" in subject and style, and some are more obtusely related to the title poem.

Essay
Beat Generation the Beats
Pages: 18 Words: 5341

beat generation are several strong principles, the most notable is associated with the founder, Jack Kerouac and his definition of the generation as a whole.
The road" has been a powerful metaphor for freedom from the constraints of ordinary life, ever since Jack Kerouac's On the Road became the Beatnik Bible in the 1950's. Kerouac saw beauty in gas stations and freedom on the road. The metaphor caught the imagination of a generation. Many of the key phenomena of "the Sixties" developed in coherence with this metaphor... getting high on psychedelic drugs was called "taking a trip."

Jack Kerouac and others developed through his mostly autobiographical works the "positive" concept or purpose of the retaliatory generation of the beats.

ithin the works of the small elite group of writers associated with the beat generation there are many messages about, life, the world and rejection of conformity. There is little doubt that one…...

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Works Cited

Burroughs, William, Naked Lunch. Grove Press, New York, NY 1992.

Esler, Anthony. 150 Years of Youth in Revolt. New York: Stein and Day, 1972.

Giamo, Ben. Kerouac, the Word and the Way: Prose Artist as Spiritual Quester. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.

Gozzi, Raymond. "From "The Road" to "The Fast Track" - American Metaphors of Life." ETC.: A Review of General Semantics 50.1 (1993): 73+. Questia. 10 May 2004  http://www.questia.com/ .

Essay
Old When the Music of
Pages: 3 Words: 1069

For me, that afternoon was like a raid siren in the dead of the night as I could see Allen Ginsberg's poetry come to life in front of my eyes; also, I am positive that afternoon changed my perception not only of poetry, but of art in general. I became interested in the life of the artist, and the period of time a particular piece of art was created.
I can now look back and attempt to accurately evaluate the impact of Ginsberg's work on my life. Nonetheless, I am not sure how objective I can be in this assessment. Since Ginsberg has become an integrated part of my system of thought and belief, it is quite difficult to separate myself from what I believe in, and evaluate my own mind. What I can say though is that thanks to his poetry, I was able to get a more profound…...

Essay
Lights Up to Reveal a
Pages: 7 Words: 1858


AUDRE: I still say I'm the only one who even comes close to understanding the struggle Obama has gone through, even though he is a man

ALLEN: And heterosexual

ADRIENNE: And alive

WILLIAM: Let's just take a step back and look at this objectively. Scientifically. Medically.

AUDRE: I think you've got the wrong hat on, doc. Figuratively speaking.

ALLEN: No, no, this could help. William, you want to right it because your sense of rhythm is uniquely American, right?

WILLIAM: Well, more or less -- m rhythm is the unique American rhythm, I would say

ALLEN: OK, buut close enough. And Adrienne, you think that because you're alive

ADRIENNE: And for other reasons, like, uhh...subjectivity, and er

ALLEN: Right. And Audre

AUDRE: The subjugation of this society which has made me an outcast in every

ALLEN: Yeah, yeah we know. Those are all some pretty valid reasons. As for me, I don't really care about writing the poem, I just want…...

Essay
Works of Art Speak to Different People
Pages: 2 Words: 580

works of art speak to different people in different ways. Explore and explain which performances and which ideas from the course that you have seen and heard this semester have "spoken" with most impact…how and why?
Works that Speak to Me

The quote by poet Allen Ginsberg made a big impact on me. He says, "Whoever controls the language, the images, controls the race." (Maser 180). This means a lot to me because I am international student from Korea. I am trying to understand a new culture through its theater. Theater to me is like breath of fresh air when visiting other country like the United States because it gives culture and meaning to the world within it. The theater is a place where "language, images" are shown.

Everything on the stage has a meaning. It is there for reason. It serves a purpose. The lighting is put upon others to shine…...

Essay
Viderunt Omnes by Protin
Pages: 4 Words: 1850

Perotin's "Viderunt Omnes"
My fascination with Perotin's "Viderunt Omnes" -- the aspect of the piece which intrigued me enough to select it for this exercise -- begins and ends with one name -- not that of Perotinus Magnus (as you might suspect) but that of contemporary composer Steve Reich.[footnoteRef:0] My own interest in musical analysis very often involves the question of what composers are doing now. If we approach the aesthetics of music from a perspective that is informed by Harold Bloom's approach to the aesthetics of literature, a critical approach that has been exemplified by (for example) John Fallas suggesting that the creation of Schoenberg's Serial Technique was a sort of Modernist revolutionary break with past aesthetics[footnoteRef:1], on the order of Bloom's description of the invention of "Romanticism" in literature, whereby we analyze any composer by means of his sense of "the burden of the past" and his own approaches…...

Essay
Corrections in Blue Suggestions
Pages: 12 Words: 3480

His own work was also published in a wide variety of literary magazines several of which were prestigious and nationally respected. His publication and involvement in publishing impressive accomplishments for an African-American man in the United States in the 1960's (Woodward, 1999).
In 1957 he moved to Greenwich Village in New York and became interested in both in jazz and the Beat Movement. he following year he began the otem Press (I have seen this referenced as Yugen).

he Beat Generation -- later just "he Beats" or the beatniks -- were a collection of writers centered first in New York and later in San Francisco. While there was a great deal of variation among the artists, they were joined to each other by a common rejection of mainstream American culture and some dabbling in Eastern religious ideas. hough counter culture and alternative religion was their focus, they became at least as…...

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The entire above section is unrelated to your paper. You are discussing LeRoi Jones / Amiri Baraka. Though the trials of his wife and writers like her are an interesting cultural reference to the time period they ultimately detract from your paper. A more effective segue into the topic of modernism is (continuing from the last segment in red):

As Jones's views became more radical so too did his writing. One feature that remained consistent however was Jones's distinctive highly personal voice (Harris, 1991). This characteristic of his writing would always physically connect him to the idyllic bohemian roots of his success. Modernism, a style of writing which emphasized the awareness of the author that he, was writing something which represented himself, is evident throughout the body of Jones's work. But It is important to remember that Modernism itself was in many ways revolutionary. And is more connected to Postmodernism than adherents of either school would generally like to admit. (post modernism has nothing to do with your paper. It is unclear why you chose to discuss it here) Modernism (like Postmodernism) rejected the over-arching coherence that had been the provenance detachment of art and literature prevalent since the Enlightenment. Modernist prose and advocated an insistence on were defined by self-awareness, a sense that the author was intimately and immediately aware of their position as the author, the purveyor of their own voice. The author of the Modernist text is always very much aware of the power of authorship and of his or position of authority (in both a limited and a broader sense) within the text. As the literary world shifted into Postmodernity, the sense of suspended reality rationality and coherence which that had marked earlier artistic schools was discarded in favor of meta- literature, or literature immediately aware that it is literature. fragmented even further so that not only did the center not hold in terms of art and discourse but also in terms of the artist's own sense of self. When we contrast Modernism and Postmodernism, it is clear that Baraka is a Modernist author because we are always aware, as is he, of a clearly of his clearly defined sense of self and authorship within the text. We always know who is speaking to us.

Following an unsuccessful attempt at developing a youth theatre in Harlem Jones moved back to Newark NJ. There he became involved in a number of activities and organizations generally focused on the development of the "Black Arts Movement." Among the most personally important of Jones's efforts was Spirit House which was described as a community center intended to be "whatever the community wanted it to be." It was in this period of his life when Jones was first

Essay
Homelessness in America Especially Looking at Children
Pages: 4 Words: 1380

homelessness in America, especially looking at children and families who are homeless. Homelessness has always been an issue in America, but today, there are even more homeless people in the country because of the economic crisis. People have lost their jobs and their homes, and have nowhere to go but the streets. Homelessness used to be viewed as an often solitary issue, but today, many families with children are homeless, and that leads to a dim view of the future for these families.
First, it is important to define homelessness. Two authors write, "It is usually accepted that those who sleep in public places or squat in derelict buildings are homeless" (Chamberlain, and Johnson 35). However, there are many other ways to define homelessness. Families living temporarily in shelters are homeless, and so are people who are hospitalized or institutionalized that have nowhere to go on their release. So are…...

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References

Chamberlain, Chris, and Guy Johnson. "The Debate about Homelessness." Australian Journal of Social Issues 36.1 (2001): 35.

Latham, Buffalo. "The Art of Homelessness." The Humanist Jan.-Feb. 2002: 20+.

Nunez, Ralph Da Costa, and Laura M. Caruso. "Are Shelters the Answer to Family Homelessness?" USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education) Jan. 2003: 46+.

Essay
American Jazz in Jack Kerouac's
Pages: 4 Words: 1262

Obviously, Sal Paradise, much like Kerouac himself, loves American jazz music, especially played on the acoustic guitar by an African-American jazz/blues giant like Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly.
As Mark Richardson sees it, writing in "Peasant Dreams: Reading On The Road," "The strain of the basic primitive," in this case jazz, ". . . is what Sal and Dean listen to in order to hear" what they call "wailing humanity" (Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Internet) or, in other words, the vocals of someone like Leadbelly wailing out the blues, another original form of American music with roots sunk deep in the elements of jazz. For Richardson, it seems that Kerouac's application of jazz in the text of On The Road serves not only as a theme but also as the basic framework for the personalities of Sal and Dean, two rebels "on the road" and "on the…...

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kernfeld, Barry, Ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. New York: St. Martin's Press,

1996.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition. New York: Viking Press, 2007.

Liukkonen, Petri. "Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)." Books and Writers. Internet. 2008. Retrieved May 16, 2009 from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kerouac.htm.

Q/A
How does Walt Whitman utilize free verse and unconventional syntax to enhance the themes of individualism and democracy in his poetry?
Words: 669

Walt Whitman's Pioneering Use of Free Verse and Unconventional Syntax

Walt Whitman, the celebrated American poet of the 19th century, was a pioneer in crafting a distinct poetic style that transcended conventional verse forms and syntax. His innovative use of free verse and unconventional syntax served as a powerful medium through which he explored profound themes of individualism and democracy.

Free Verse and the Liberation of the Individual

Whitman rejected the rigid confines of traditional poetic forms, such as sonnets or iambic pentameter, in favor of free verse. Free verse, with its irregular line length and unrhymed lines, allowed Whitman to express his....

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