The Beat Generation Poem Meaning

This paper examines the perspective of Langston Hughes and how his style of writing is. It looks at how several interrelated themes run through the poetry of Langston Hughes, all of which have to do with being black in America and surviving in spite of immense difficulties. Langston Hughes is one of the most influential writers because his style of work not only captured the situation of African Americans; it also grabbed the attention of other races with the use of literary elements and other stylistic qualities. Langston Hughes became well known for his way of interpreting music into his work of writing, which readers love and enjoy today.

Throughout the poem, the author chooses simple diction. This makes the tone straightforward and blunt, like a black America who simply expresses himself instead of sermonizing about discrimination. Thereby, readers can accept the poem’s argument more easily. Furthermore, the author writes the poem mostly in long sentences to emphasize on short yet important sentences such as “That’s America.”, “Be we are. That’s true!”

In the end, the poem offers more than the personal perspective of a Black poet. It speaks not just of the Black condition but of the human condition. All humans feel the irony of a life filled with petty cares, with mysteries, with struggle and with death, but a life brimming with the marvel of God's great deeds, with the excitement of divine inspiration, and with an appreciation for the beauty of a poem well made.

Allen Ginsberg’s revolutionary poem, Howl, is a powerful portrayal of life degraded. It represents the harsh life of the beat generation and chronicles the struggles of the repressed. Howl is a poem of destruction. Destruction of mind, body, and soul through the oppression of the individual. Using powerful diction, Allen Ginsberg describes this abolition of life and its implications through our human understanding of abstractions like Time, Eternity, and self. The poem’s jumbled phrasing and drastic emotion seems to correspond with the minds of the people it describes. Ginsberg uses surprisingly precise and purposeful writing to weave the complex

Allen Ginsberg was one of the greatest admired Beat Generation poets, who particularly used free flowing, aggressive and occasionally a discourteous style of language to show that the rule and social structure over heterosexuality can be filled with opposition, so he decided to release queerness. Ginsberg strongly disputed capitalism and conformity that notably consisted of sexual repression, so he incorporated in the development of counterculture and challenged the heteronormative, procreation-driven society and was done with living at society’s limits. The idea of beat literature has a capricious form, although, also considers the customary narration techniques, and indeed masculinist and heterosexist prospects. The Beat generation indicates an individual that has been put down, or has been oppressed around with deviated norms. Therefore, this impression of queerness is a representation of him being an activist in society and used to take action to encourage his differences, which contributes to strange and prohibited behaviours. In this essay, being central to vicious and pleased queer performative spaces in the city and embodying sexuality, it will examine Allen’s, ‘Howl’ and ‘Sunflower Sutra’, interpreting queer theory, and that it is essential to ideas of gender and sexuality that are necessary for radical solidarity, Allen being a gay activist his principles of his character seem unreasonable or destructive in contemporary political circumstances in America’s sexual

It also dealt with deep-rooted issues with his childhood. In the poem, Ginsberg dealt with the issues that arized from having a mGreentally disabled mother in a psychiatric ward. He also claimed that Howl was a history of the Beat Generation.

Where you were sick of the Tiffany-twisted minds, Mercedes bends, and the pretty pretty faces.

Good art never dies, but rather lingers on in the minds of the society. Allan Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” has relevance many years after it was written. “Howl” is a poem, and a story about the history of the beat generation, and the philosophies of the beat poets. At the time that Howl was written America was in the middle of the cold war, and conservatism was the norm. The shocking nature and vulgar language of “Howl” makes the poem unique during a time when having your hair long, or even having a beard was risqué. Allan Ginsberg makes the reader think about their freedom and expression during the time when even the society is against them. By using his obscene, even by today’s standards, words he startles the read and gives them the branch to

With reference to Ginsberg's emulation of Walt Whitman's content, the Norton Anthology, Postmodern American Poetry, states that, "Ginsberg proposed a return to the immediacy, egalitarianism and visionary ambitions of Blake and Whitman." (130). His poem "America" caters toward themes of democracy, something Whitman's poetry also does. Yet unlike Whitman, Ginsberg takes a more questioning stance on America and does not use his poem to praise the nation.

The form of Ginsberg’s poem challenges the American culture by resistance from “best minds”. Howl is separated to three sections that include long lines, which look like paragraphs. Resisting

In American history, the post World War II era of the 1950s is know as the Eisenhower years. This era is remembered two ways: as happy years filled with new music, television, and cars or as years plagued by the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and war. The Beat Generation arose as a counterculture to the suburban complacency broadcast to society. This generation was lead by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs as well as many others. These authors wrote literature that “inspired the worldwide literary, cultural, and political movement that became known as the Beat Generation” (Ginsberg 2). The Beats opposed the traditional values of American life, but lacked a voice.

This poem is sometimes referred to as a violent “howl” of human anguish. It attacks the forces of conformity and mechanization that Ginsberg believed destroyed the best minds of his generation. This poem has no real structure or rational connection of ideas, and the rules of grammar are abandoned in order to pack imagery into one line. The poem points the way toward a new and better existence, chronicling the pilgrimage of the “mad generation” toward a reality that is timeless and placeless, holy and eternal.

Therefore, in the very beginning, Ginsberg presents to the reader the subject and tone of the poem in the context of this question. Ginsberg’s questions make the audience realize the seriousness of the issues that this poem discusess, such as America, politics, war, humanity, and ethics.

"The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is an eternity! Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!...Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums!"

It is evident from the very beginning that Ginsberg is disillusioned with American society, and he is ready to turn his back on what he feels has been oppressing him. "America I've given you all and now I'm