Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

The 1960’s: American Literature

Sara María Rueda Lopera
First Paper

THE BEAT GENERATION

The Beat generation is the name given to the group of poets and writers interested in changing
minds and defying the typical way in which literature was conceived. These movement includes
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassidy, Kenneth
Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, being these the most important ones. These artists emerge in
response to the reality they were living; the ending of the II World War, the Cold War, The
Vietnam War and in general the political and ideological tension in which United States was
involved making the US and the world a place in which war, political tension, imperialism,
interventionism in the third World and the force of capitalism were all over it.
Taking into account the following; the Beat poets created a whole critic directed to the decadent
world they were living; they questioned every aspect of their lives and created a new reality,
reinventing it. They were looking for an alternative, a new way to observe because they were
disgusted with the world, and the word “beat” makes reference precisely to this: these poets were
exhausted, they were feeling at the bottom of the world, rejected by society. So they started
developing another way to see and a new way of poetry and literature; reaching their purpose
through two principal things: Drugs and Jazz (rithym).
But, how can we see reflected in the literature of these poets the purposes and characteristics of
the Beat generation? What is the redefinition of poetry these writers developed? And, how is their
poetry different from the others before it, what makes it so unique and special? The resolution of
this paper is to reflect the poetry of two Beat poets, in this case Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen
Ginsberg through some statements on poetry from the text Poetry as insurgent art by Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, the idea is to see in the practice how the movement of the Beat Generation was built.
Poetry is the perfume of resistance
As we had mention earlier; one of the main reasons the Beat poets are simply the Beat poets is
because they use their poetry to go against mainstream culture and politics and say what they
want to say without restraints about the things they consider are devouring the world. In the
poem Pentagon Exorcism by Allen Ginsberg we can see some refinements about these aspect:
Who represents my body in Pentagon? Who spends
my spirit´s billions for war manufacture? Who
levies de majority to exult unwilling in Bomb
Roar? “Brainwash!” Mind-fear! Governor’s language!
“Military-Industrial-Complex!” President’s language!
Corporate voices jabber on electric networks building
body-pain, chemical ataxia, physical slavery
to diaphanoid Chinese Cosmic-eye Military Tyranny
Movie hysteria—Pay my taxes? (…)

We can see how Ginsberg is resisting to the activities of the Pentagon; he rejects the manufacturing
of bombs and the right of the authority to decide over the people in the terms of the war. He refuses
paying the taxes for them to be used in the industry of war; he is resisting and denouncing the acts
of the government. In Elegy Che Guevara he also rejects how the US manages their international
politics; and through the figure of Che Guevara denounces some American institutions and
personalities:
(…)Incredible! One boy turned aside from operating room
or healing Pampas yellow eye
To face the sotck rooms of Alcoa, Myriad murderous
Board Directors of United Fruit
Smog-Manufacturing Trustees of Chicago U
Lawyer Phantoms ranged back to dead
John Foster Dulles’ Sullivan and Cromwell lawfirm
Acheson’s mustache, Truman’s bony hat
To go mad and hide in the jungle on mule & point rifle at OAS
at Rusk’s egoic courtesies, the metal deployments of Pentagon
derring-do Admen and dumbed intellectuals
from Time to CIA

So we can see how he makes an apology to the figure of Che Guevara as one who is confronting
‘the empire’; economic powers like United fruit Company which is described as ‘Smog-
Manufacturing’, political figures like John Foster Dulles, Acheson and Truman of which he kind
of makes fun, he ridicules them: ‘Acheson’s mustache’ ‘Truman’s bony hat’ and institutions like
the OAS or the CIA, institutions responsible of interventions in Cuba, in other countries of the
Third World. Through this leader of the Cuban revolution he shows revulsion to imperialism and
praises the figure of Guevara like a hero.

The poet as subversive barbarian at the city gates, non violently challenging the toxic status
quo
The poet of the Beat generation is always challenging the status quo and criticizing everything
about reality, the poetry is full of sarcasm, is purely non-violent, is a very subtle critic, not too
explicit, but is always there. For example, in the book of poems A Coney Island of the mind by
Ferlinghetti we can see reflected this inconformity with reality:
(…)We are the same people
only further from home
 on freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness
The scene shows fewer tumbrils
but more strug-out citizens
in painted cars
and they have strange license plates
and engines
that devour America

In this poem; Ferlinguetti is comparing Goya’s paintings in which he portrays the suffering
humanity and is saying that these people in the scenes really exists, only that the landscape has
changed and is the people in America. Ferlinghetti rejects the decadent society but the way he does
it is different, comparing the reality with the representation of Goya’s people of the world.
The poet is the master ontologist, constantly questioning existence and reinventing it
It is really interesting how this poets are always raising topics to criticize, but they not only do
that, they go further and start resignifying things, recreating reality and produce and alternative
world. Allen Ginsberg in his poem Ode to failure changes completely the meaning of the word
failure from the traditional and common definition:
(…) O Failure I chant your terrifying name, accept me your 54 years ole
Prophet
epicking Eternal Flop! I join your Pantheon of mortal bards, & hasten
this ode with high blood pressure
rushing to the top of my skull as I if I wouldn’t last another minute, like
the Dying Gaul! to
You, Lord of blind Monet, deaf Beethoven, armless Venus de Milo,
headless Winged Victory!

Like, who would do an Ode to failure if it’s a bad thing? Well, Ginsberg re defines the ‘failure’
because all the people he names, Beethoven, Monet, Alexander the Great, accomplished great
things; so I think Ginsberg refers to failure as something that can also take you to greatness; the
important people and the ones who have done great things are also the ones who have suffered a
lot and experimented failure somewhere in their lives; but that suffering is what made them
accomplish things and be the renamed people they are now.
Poetry is anarchy of the senses making sense
The poetry of the Beat Generation is actually very bizarre, full of metaphors and surrealism and
maybe that is the reason people thought or think that these poets were just crazy drug addicts,
homosexuals who were trying to evade the world by self-destructing. But in their poetry it can be
reflected topics and things that apparently makes no sense and has no relation one thing with
another but if you look deepest; it has important elements that refer to the human condition, to
reality, to dreams and stuff that is really important in life. Ferlinguetti in his poem Dog;
something like this can be seen:
(…)The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog’s life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit or perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it

We can see how a thinking dog makes no sense, but the way I see it is like the dog represents the
poet, the one who sees and questions reality, the master of ontology, who has always something to
say about the world about all the things he sees and experiments. So there; just with a glance we
may think the poem makes no sense that is just a bunch of random thoughts placed together but in
reality it has a meaning and it makes all the sense in the world. I think poetry is like that, it doesn’t
matter what are you writing but how you write it, and is exactly how Ferlinguetti defines it: The
anarchy of the senses making sense. In this other Ferlinguetti’s poem it can also look like it makes
no sense: it seems to be about love, then about a fish and its death but in the end it’s about how the
world doesn’t care about any of this things which in the end are important things in life:
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Cast up
the heart flops over
gasping ‘Love’

a foolish fish which tries to draw

its breath from flesh of air
And no one there to hear its death
among the sad bushes
where the world rushes by
in a blather of asphalt and delay

Every bird a word, every word a bird

This is one of the most important characteristics of the Beat poetry, the majority of it has a lot of
rithym, sonority, is very musical and actually was written to be red with a singular intonation, not
just a plain reading. The beat poets believed that music could do things maybe the language
couldn’t so they were really associated with jazz music and its musicality. Ferlinguetti in his book
of poems A Coney Island of the mind, in the second part, “Oral Messages” he writes a note at the
beginning of the poems that says: “the seven poems were conceived specifically for jazz
accompaniment and as such should be considered as spontaneously spoken “oral messages” rather
than as poems written for the printed page. As a result of continued experimental reading with
jazz, they are still in state of change (…)”. So we can see how poetry and music (art) are totally
related during this movement.
On the other hand, these poets use a lot of alliterations and repetitions of sounds that gives the
poems rithym and musicality for example Ferlinguetti: “eager eagles”, “Athenian anthems”,
“dying donkeys”, and also Allen Ginsberg in Howl:
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy
in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless
in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a con-
sciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out
of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up
in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Poetry an innate urge toward truth and beauty

Every bird a word, every word a bird