Hey everyone, I was wondering if we could possibly go over Ginsberg's "America" The poem has a lot going on. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to tie the themes of Cold War sympathy, self-reflection, and American icons of FORD and Time Magazine together?
I'm having a tough time with the poem, too. Regarding self-reflection, he does write: "It occurs to me that I am America./I am talking to myself again." That could mean that he is reflecting on his own complicity in the immoral/degenerate state of America. I took this to explain his final line: "America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel." Perhaps his recognition of his participation sparks his resolve to do good works and not participate anymore. He states right above that line that he couldn't work in the Army or a factory, so he will do some unusual work: the job of nursing America back to health.
I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the themes you mentioned. His mention of the Wobblies and sarcasm toward America's fear of Russia perhaps add to the speaker's distaste for the current state of things. He feels America needs to change socially, politically, economically, etc. Time Magazine is a magazine "telling me about responsibility...Everybody's serious but me." The iconic America magazine makes the speaker feel like an outsider for not being serious and responsible enough. He is obsessed with it, though, drawing attention again to his participation in American culture even as he condemns it.
I think it's good to think about how the different parts of the poem go together. Maybe start by identifying the tone(s) of the different parts.
The less interesting essay would say something like: This is a sarcastic rant in which Ginsberg condemns everything that is going on in America.
The more interesting essay would say: The America poem, written in xxx during the xxx, shows the complicated relationship that the Beats had to to xxx. By mixing xxx and xxx in the different parts of the poem, Ginsberg does xxx...
That's a lot of xx's to fill in, but I think you'll do best if you recognize that the poem has more than one tone to it, and think about what happens when those tones get mixed.
Why might San Francisco be a place where the Cold War, self-reflection, Ford and Time Magazine could get mixed together in a single poem? Why could that happen only in San Francisco? Why did it have to happen here?
(Again, if you don't come up with anything right away on your own, go back to the syllabus and check out the pages that Professor Wilson assigned for these weeks to accompany the Ginsberg. Does this poem go against or feed from the Brooks essay in any way?
You can be more free in wandering away from the assigned readings in these essays sections than on the id's but if you get stuck those lecture headings, positions in the lecture series, and supplementary readings can help).
Also try to think about history--what was the vision of San Francisco that this poem was writing against/into. Why did the poem need to have a complex structure? Remember, before there was Ginsberg, it was all Tony Bennet (a lovely guy, but from a different time...)
I took Brautigan to be more cynical. I think he is suggesting that, though this is an ideal, it is impossible.
Evidence: - His overall tone in all of Trout Fishing and his other poems: he rarely touts technology. He does talk about a river looking like a tunnel of telephone booths, but I don't remember any other times when he mixes technology and nature in a non-confrontational way. - His three parenthetical statements show more wishful thinking than reality. They get more and more frantic as the poem progresses, from just a simple wish to the incredulous cry, "it has to be!" as if it isn't and should be. - The example given when we met in section: water and sky never touch, they merely appear to from a distance. You can never truly find the place where this occurs. - The final stanza speaks of machines relieving humans from their labors and watching over us. This gives a Big Brother-ish feel. Machines liberate us, but we are in debt. They become essential to our living, therefore watching over us. I take "loving grace" to be sarcastic. - This was a goal of the development of California. It was the great western wilderness, so developers saw no reason why cities couldn't coexist with the nature. The same with gold miners. That was not a reality. Technology doesn't live symbiotically with nature; it replaces nature.
As far as Brautigan's poem is concerned I feel that there is an even higher complexity proposed in this poem, which is further developed in Snyder's prose. First the concept that nature cannot be "programmed," and also the destruction of our ideals of pristine and "pure" nature (especially as something separate from human life). In many ways, the human realm has been viewed as separate from nature, and we try to maintain that distinction in this "Western-developed" world, and yet the two are obviously interelated as there is only one planet.
Perhaps Brautigan is also commenting on our yearning for a pure, pristine nature as being ironic considering obsessions with development straying from or devaluing this pure form of nature, or considering our methods of machinization of natural processes already in common practice (in fact, practised so commonly that we may no longer view it as a form of machinization): agriculture and the coropate agricultural industry. As Snyder say in "Nets of Beads, Web of Cells," "Happy flocks [of chickens] cannot compete with factory egg productions, which reduces hens to machines" (66). Snyder is commenting on a normalized system which already combines that which should be natural with machines.
I also feel some of this commentary from Brautigan's poem. Rather than simply saying that the two (sky and water, human and nature, technology and nature--take your pick) can never touch, I think it is better to analyze how and where they are already in direct contact. The obvious illusion arguement for sky and water (although they do not actually touch at the horizon) can be broken down through a simple run through of the water cycle. I feel like both Brautigan and Snyder wish to encourage to seek the interdependence and connections which we have already established in nature with these claims and imagery.
More supporting my inclusion of Snyder's idea of "pristine: "[The Users hold] that nature is constantly changing, that human agency as altered thing to the point tht there is no 'natural condition' left, that there is no reason to value climax (or 'fitness') over any other succession phase...So we can totally drop the use of the word pristine in regard to nature as meaning 'untouched by human agency'...Furthermore, there is no 'original condition'' that once altered can never be redeemed" (Snyder 238-240).
These are looking to be really great essays. The last paragraphs of both posts have nice strong arguments.
Please do look at complexities in the positions, partly cynical, partly serious is fine. As is a description of Brautagin as completely serious or completely cynical...
Just in case any one is worrying about this, bringing Snyder into the essay is also fine.
As you'll know from your Lit 101 classes there are a lot of ways o analyze these poems. Sometimes that involves comparing the words, or looking at the structure, sometimes making comparisons with other poems, sometimes making comparisons with historical facts, & etc. So feel free to use any that help you to make an interesting and viable arguement.
9 comments:
Hey everyone, I was wondering if we could possibly go over Ginsberg's "America" The poem has a lot going on. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to tie the themes of Cold War sympathy, self-reflection, and American icons of FORD and Time Magazine together?
I'm having a tough time with the poem, too. Regarding self-reflection, he does write: "It occurs to me that I am America./I am talking to myself again." That could mean that he is reflecting on his own complicity in the immoral/degenerate state of America. I took this to explain his final line: "America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel." Perhaps his recognition of his participation sparks his resolve to do good works and not participate anymore. He states right above that line that he couldn't work in the Army or a factory, so he will do some unusual work: the job of nursing America back to health.
I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the themes you mentioned. His mention of the Wobblies and sarcasm toward America's fear of Russia perhaps add to the speaker's distaste for the current state of things. He feels America needs to change socially, politically, economically, etc. Time Magazine is a magazine "telling me about responsibility...Everybody's serious but me." The iconic America magazine makes the speaker feel like an outsider for not being serious and responsible enough. He is obsessed with it, though, drawing attention again to his participation in American culture even as he condemns it.
Does any of that make sense?
I think it's good to think about how the different parts of the poem go together. Maybe start by identifying the tone(s) of the different parts.
The less interesting essay would say something like: This is a sarcastic rant in which Ginsberg condemns everything that is going on in America.
The more interesting essay would say: The America poem, written in xxx during the xxx, shows the complicated relationship that the Beats had to to xxx. By mixing xxx and xxx in the different parts of the poem, Ginsberg does xxx...
That's a lot of xx's to fill in, but I think you'll do best if you recognize that the poem has more than one tone to it, and think about what happens when those tones get mixed.
Why might San Francisco be a place where the Cold War, self-reflection, Ford and Time Magazine could get mixed together in a single poem? Why could that happen only in San Francisco? Why did it have to happen here?
(Again, if you don't come up with anything right away on your own, go back to the syllabus and check out the pages that Professor Wilson assigned for these weeks to accompany the Ginsberg. Does this poem go against or feed from the Brooks essay in any way?
You can be more free in wandering away from the assigned readings in these essays sections than on the id's but if you get stuck those lecture headings, positions in the lecture series, and supplementary readings can help).
Also try to think about history--what was the vision of San Francisco that this poem was writing against/into. Why did the poem need to have a complex structure? Remember, before there was Ginsberg, it was all Tony Bennet (a lovely guy, but from a different time...)
Is Brautigan being cynical in "All Watched Over..." or is he just making a comical and simple observation of what may happen in the future?
I took Brautigan to be more cynical. I think he is suggesting that, though this is an ideal, it is impossible.
Evidence:
- His overall tone in all of Trout Fishing and his other poems: he rarely touts technology. He does talk about a river looking like a tunnel of telephone booths, but I don't remember any other times when he mixes technology and nature in a non-confrontational way.
- His three parenthetical statements show more wishful thinking than reality. They get more and more frantic as the poem progresses, from just a simple wish to the incredulous cry, "it has to be!" as if it isn't and should be.
- The example given when we met in section: water and sky never touch, they merely appear to from a distance. You can never truly find the place where this occurs.
- The final stanza speaks of machines relieving humans from their labors and watching over us. This gives a Big Brother-ish feel. Machines liberate us, but we are in debt. They become essential to our living, therefore watching over us. I take "loving grace" to be sarcastic.
- This was a goal of the development of California. It was the great western wilderness, so developers saw no reason why cities couldn't coexist with the nature. The same with gold miners. That was not a reality. Technology doesn't live symbiotically with nature; it replaces nature.
As far as Brautigan's poem is concerned I feel that there is an even higher complexity proposed in this poem, which is further developed in Snyder's prose. First the concept that nature cannot be "programmed," and also the destruction of our ideals of pristine and "pure" nature (especially as something separate from human life). In many ways, the human realm has been viewed as separate from nature, and we try to maintain that distinction in this "Western-developed" world, and yet the two are obviously interelated as there is only one planet.
Perhaps Brautigan is also commenting on our yearning for a pure, pristine nature as being ironic considering obsessions with development straying from or devaluing this pure form of nature, or considering our methods of machinization of natural processes already in common practice (in fact, practised so commonly that we may no longer view it as a form of machinization): agriculture and the coropate agricultural industry. As Snyder say in "Nets of Beads, Web of Cells," "Happy flocks [of chickens] cannot compete with factory egg productions, which reduces hens to machines" (66). Snyder is commenting on a normalized system which already combines that which should be natural with machines.
I also feel some of this commentary from Brautigan's poem. Rather than simply saying that the two (sky and water, human and nature, technology and nature--take your pick) can never touch, I think it is better to analyze how and where they are already in direct contact. The obvious illusion arguement for sky and water (although they do not actually touch at the horizon) can be broken down through a simple run through of the water cycle. I feel like both Brautigan and Snyder wish to encourage to seek the interdependence and connections which we have already established in nature with these claims and imagery.
More supporting my inclusion of Snyder's idea of "pristine: "[The Users hold] that nature is constantly changing, that human agency as altered thing to the point tht there is no 'natural condition' left, that there is no reason to value climax (or 'fitness') over any other succession phase...So we can totally drop the use of the word pristine in regard to nature as meaning 'untouched by human agency'...Furthermore, there is no 'original condition'' that once altered can never be redeemed" (Snyder 238-240).
Hi Sadie and Stacy,
These are looking to be really great essays. The last paragraphs of both posts have nice strong arguments.
Please do look at complexities in the positions, partly cynical, partly serious is fine. As is a description of Brautagin as completely serious or completely cynical...
Just in case any one is worrying about this, bringing Snyder into the essay is also fine.
As you'll know from your Lit 101 classes there are a lot of ways o analyze these poems. Sometimes that involves comparing the words, or looking at the structure, sometimes making comparisons with other poems, sometimes making comparisons with historical facts, & etc. So feel free to use any that help you to make an interesting and viable arguement.
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