In the baggage room at Greyhound

This poem displays quite a different picture of Greyhound station from that of ours. Starting with the speaker recognizing such busy and vibrant bus station is yet ephemeral, the speaker looks around, the baggage room of Greyhound station in San Francisco 1956, and starts to perceive the surroundings little more carefully. The speaker catches the glimpse of cherubic spirit in Spade, the baggage boy, while wondering what would be in the baggages that he is carrying and where would those end up. Ending the last part of the poem with one baggage left alone under a dusty fluorescent light, the speaker well depicts intricately interconnected world by people and tireless spirit of people.

However with the narration of Ginsberg at the very last part of the poem along with depiction of human body parts at the third section of the poem, he again is making some ridicules of seemingly ordered and important, yet transient and chaotic world around him.

America

   Typical satire of conformist America from the Beat Generation. However, at the very last part of the poem, when Ginsberg asks that all of the above is where we are heading towards, readers can grasp the sense that Ginsberg really cares about America and wants them, Americans, to wake up.

   In short, Gisberg is saying 'Stop the follies and WAKE UP!!' because this is what he is trying to convey as a free spirit and what we unnecessarily should be exactly like him but at least should be aware of ourselves.

Sunflower Sutra

   It feels like that it's more like a follow-up for In back of the real, the poem at the back of the collection. With numerous personification of industrial objects, Ginsberg bursts open his thoughts while looking at this sunflower. Although the mentioning of Jack Kerouac, another great Beat Generation figure, is yet unclear to me, this poem provokes this Mural images in my head that glorifies human and generally understates the machineries.

   Ginsberg here is trying to tell sunflower, the people, that we should not so tied with the conformity that we are 'supposed' to conform into,  but rather should search and ponder who we really are and free up ourselves little more.

Transcription of Organ Music

  It feels like that an omnipotent one is hearing what the speaker was thinking when the speaker came back home after a long time. Along with a breath of restlessness, the speaker’ｓreflective tone enables readers to resonate with speaker' s loneliness and need for connection.

  Especially with frequent mentioning of the Father, or Creator, the speaker sounds more desperate and desolated.

Over all outlook on the Book Howl

Over all I really appreciated Ginsberg:s poems. I thought they were very brave and strong peices of work. His poems reveal a truth about life that I feel here in rural Vermont is unknown, and not very prominent. They capture the movement, the power and the excitement that was within the very distinct generation that Ginsberg was a part of.
I love how, through his punctuation and sentence structure, he creates a breathlessness in the reader. He forces the reader to keep reading until he is done with his point. I love the images that he creates, they seem not to be told through lots of fancy and smart vocabulary, but more with the way things sound together and the beat of the word itself.
I think that Ginsberg has taken our language and transcended it into a medium that can be used to portray an array of senses and emotion; the poems are inspiring.

Transcription of organ music

First of all, what struck me is the poet's dictation of the word " Transcription", " door", and "eyes". Through the whole poem, those vocabularies keep reappearing and even sometimes blur among with each other. When paying attention, those vocabularies share the same idea of confronting, widening, opening, sharing, and exchanging. I'm not certain of what the character's exchanging through communication in the poems, which could be the poem itself. But the word "transcription" gave me a clue of something special that need to be transcribed by the poet so that others can see and understand.

Footnote to Howl

The repetition of "Holy" and the long line structure of the poem brought up the sense of rushing. Even though the lines are long, but the rhythm is still really fast. The tone is rather appreciating and happy. The poem is like a celebration of madness of the attitude, the passion, but not the mental illness.

Howl!!

Transcription of Organ Music

I feel this poem his about how lonely he is, and how he doesn't feel people appreciate his poetry. It is a very sad poem, that makes me look at Ginsberg in a new light. Not the normal hating the world, but a way where he is the victim of life and how no one loves him.

Sunflower Sutra

Personally I don't really like this poem it is very creepy.... and not very interesting to me. SO What are other peoples views on this?

America

I really like this poem! He basically is talking about how America tries to make you conform to what it likes, and he is saying fuck you I'm going to do what I want when I want. Which is just funny. Then he talks about how he knows he is America. Which coud mean a number of things. For example he know he should be a certain way but he just doesn't want to be. Something like that.......

In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

This poem just seems like he is explaining how we have to wait for things... mmm

Supermarket in Cali

strode- walk along with

enumerations- one after another

lethe- a river in hades who's water causes drinkers to forget their past

I think after class discussion about this poem that Allan Ginsberg wrote, he might be explaining a dream. The reason why I say that is because right at the end of the poem, he uses the word "lethe." Which means ...water causes to forget the drinkers past. Allan could have possibly wrote it and then being woken up at the end from the dream and not remembering anything. What do you guys think???

I also think that when he describes the people in the grocery store it is rather interesting too. As he explains they are not just near the food but are literally IN the food!

A Supermarket in California

With Walt Whitman's take on Realism and Gracia Lorca's avant-garde approach, Ginsberg takes an imaginary tour to a supermarket with Walt Whitman.
Along with the setting of crowded supermarket in unusal timing, the description of husbands filling aisles, wives in avocados, and babies in tomatoes provokes chimerical image of such a mundane place and triggers us to look at trivial event from different angle.
Moreover with the parenthesis and the last stanza, about Charon and the boat going down the Lethe, Ginsberg implicitly point people to turn around and be aware of novel view that can be taken.

MARKING PERIOD 5 END

Hey Y'all,

At this point I have tallied all previous posts and comments. Keep doing what you're doing. And some of you: start doing what others are doing.

Anyone want to comment about the literal SIZE of the book? Why so small?

Keep going! Woot Woot!

Lisa

A supermarket in California

something's so interesting that struck me is the use of images in the poem, especially the images of husbands, wives, babies. there are possibilities that he is metaphorically describing the reflection of the images on the shiny skin of the fruits and vegetables. the other possibility is that it was a metaphor which expressed his dreams of family, he wish it were as easy as picking a fruit out of the basket. the time that the poem took place is really significant. Late at night, as we discussed already that it wasn't a time that the supermarket could be crowded as described, but digging deeper into the ideas and possibilities i found that the situation could be understood as that the poet's dreams, imaginations of a family can only exist at night time which is the usual time for dreaming.

Markin' the Supahs

another thing i thought of was that Ginsberg wrote about the families in the grocery store but then he and Whitman were alone and in real life they were both gay so maybe he was looking at the families like the life he will never have.

Supermarket in California

The speaker is in a dream like state, maybe the poem is just a dream?

It also seems like he is with an imaginary friend.

Why did he put Walt Whitman in the poem?

A SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA

I think this is a funny poem, mostly because of how Ginsberg relates his feelings towards people as food in a store. I do wonder who the people he names are in his life.

Moloch

In the Second section Ginsberg blames all of the tragedies in the first section on Moloch. Moloch is what he calls capitalism and industry "Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is burning money!" All the strain and dispare in the world can be blamed on this Moloch, for defining the world. "Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy."

B's

I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but a lot of the locations in this poem start with the letter "b".

Battery

Bronx

Bickford's

Bellevue

Brooklyn Bridge

Thoughts on Howl-poem

I feel that Howl is about Ginzberg's friends, encounters, stories and so on but it is aimed at the people in America that were not listening to the younger generation, that were forcing laws and forms of morality upon people and causing pain for no truepurpose. It is a poem that screams for attention. Ginzberg may have dedicated it to his friends and family (solomon and others) but i feel that he wrote it for his "enemies" the people that thought his work was vulger. It is a poem that speaks for an entire generation.

Carl Solomon and HOWL

Carl Solomon (1928~1993)

: He was born in Bronx NYC. His father died when he was 9 and this profoundly affected his early life. Graduating high school at age of 15, he went to City College of NY and joined U.S. Marine around when he was 17. He met Allen Ginsberg at a mental hospital in NY. Through Ginsberg, Solomon gained fame. Their friendship lasted till their old age.


HOWL

: This poem is dedicated to seemingly insane or inept people who he saw around him in the mental hospital and in NY. While one of the stnazs is solely dedicated to Solomon ("who threw potato salad at CCNY lectureres...demanding instantaneous lobotomy"), because these desolate people lived rebellious and unprecedented life, Ginsberg points out at this unconventional yet discint way that he saw around him.

Howl poem response

An Asphodel

This poem depicts people who yearn for unattainable desire: Asphodel, yet are still in the state of limbo while procrastinating any action. However, the last stanza that still is not so clear to me.

Song

The introduction of this booklet says that ‘the wonder of the thing is not that he was survived but that he, from the very depths, has found a fellow whom he can love, a love he celebrates without looking aside in these poems. This poem repeats clearly and concisely the importance and necessity of love in our life. It gives us an opportunity to take a step back and look at our restless and often times blindly pursuing life and take a break to ponder upon what are really after for.

In the back of the real

The title of this very poem more sounds like the beginning of the first stanza than the title of the whole poem. With the wording and imagery in the poem, this sound like a Muralist paint that depicts this scene of sturdy yet impotent workers in shabby outfit. This poem also gives me similar impression that I got from An Asphodel in a sense that they both have this barren and helpless depiction.

Who is Carl Solomon?

The reader doesn’t learn much about Carol Solomon, it seems like he is an old friend and lover of Allen Ginsberg and they have been through a lot of hard times together. In the third part of “Howl” Ginsberg writes about Solomon, how he is with him.

Who are the people in the poem about?

I think that they people who were around him are the people in his poem, Ginsberg’s neighbors, friends, family, and the people in the news. They are the people who greatly effected his life as well all other people he knew. The poem shows a dark side of humanity; Ginsberg doesn’t go around the truth he does not want to cover it up.

Do it

Post.

HOWL at the moooooon

the imagery in this poem gives it a feeling of desperation and wild eyed incredulousness. it describes the underbelly of the time, the gritty dark side of the craziness that was going on. ginsberg is not afraid to use words that will get a rise out of people, talk about pubic beards or cock or balls. these are words that have the connotation of back alleys or bedrooms, not words that are used in poetry, a respected art form. ginsberg takes the preconceived notion and turns it around to make people really look at themselves and what is going on around them.

Allen Ginsberg is talking about the "secret hero of these poems" N.C., cocksman and Adonis of Denver, his mother, Carl, Moloch, and Carl Soloman. I am not sure what time period it was written in but the setting was in many different places, and towards the end, the American west. It is a really dark poem, it seems to discuss the darkness of life, especially of Moloch. Until the end when it talks of Carl Soloman and their love.

Howl

Why is Howl dedicated to Carl soloman- Who is he?

I think that he was a childhood friend of Ginsberg, or maybe he was the inspiration behind Howl.

Who are the people the poem is about?

I don't know but they are messed up! the poem could be about what the people looked like to Ginsberg from where ever he wrote this ( people watching) and how there lives could be from what he saw. Maybe friends that he thought were crazy horrible people, I don't know..... but as im reading it it seams as if there are two sides to the poem the beginning which is very dark and the ending where he is talking about making love and being with someone. Kind of like a yin yang effect or something. I think this poem is dedicated to those people because it shows there true selves... and how truthfully insane human beings are...

An asphodel:

Refers to a person as a flower and how one person lusts for another.

Song:

Song covers the ultimate love that everyone has. We are all born with it and in certain ways love guides certain people. However it is something that can overwhelm people, so it states how rest is always necessary.

Wild orphan:

The focus is on a boy with his mother who lives in an imaginary world. His father is not around but it is not certain whether he is dead or has just left the family behind. The boy's ultimate emotion is loneliness.

In back of the real:

It talks of a yellow flower, ugly and pointy, and is referred to as the world, mainly as industry. The last part is confusing though. It states how it is "with the form of the great yellow Rose in your brain!" What is the 'Rose?'

Four poems An Asphodel, Song, Wild Orphan, In Back of the Real

An Asphodel

This poem is interesting mostly since I feel that its talking about how lazy people are and how they choose to lie instead of live there lives. but that is pretty much it....

Song

The poem song is all about love, and I think it actually portrays it very nicely. I think what Ginsberg is trying to say with this is that everyone always thinks about love. Where are they going to find it, will it every come, etc.... and it puts a weight on your shoulders always thinking about it. In the end when you find it, you feel as if you are free. I like this poem a lot.

Wild Orphan

As I said in class, I think this poem is talking about how a kids father left him. Now his mother doesn't take care of him, and he wants to drive as fast as he can to his dad. Overall I think this poem has many of meanings.

In Back of the Real

This is a very weird poem and I don't really get it.... Does anyone understand what this poem is about?