Abstract
This paper analyzes the poem, "A Supermarket in California", written in 1955 by Allen Ginsberg. The author examines how the poem expresses the anxiety of this key period of change in Western history through Ginsberg's own unique form of socio-political criticism.

From the Paper
"The decade of the 1950's was the beginning of a new era. Society was changing. The industrial revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the two World Wars, and the threat of the Cold War had all pushed America to the forefront of change. Television brought ideas to the masses like never before. Progress was the ideal. "

Tags:1950, allen, beat, consumerism, ginsberg, homosexual, poetry

Abstract
This paper explains that Allen Ginsberg's poem, 'Kaddish', was written as a tribute to his mother, who had gone through many severe psychotic episodes, after she had passed away. The author points out that Ginsberg, who missed the funeral of his mother, learned that the Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, had not been said because there had not been enough men present as required by Jewish law; subsequently, two years after his mother's death, Ginsberg performed the ceremony and started writing his 'Kaddish'. The paper explains that, in this poem, Ginsberg's style of writing is almost disjointed, yet not difficult to follow, as the poet goes through many different feelings as he remembers his mother in her illness.

From the Paper
"Unfortunately, Naomi Ginsberg remained very unhappy and equally unstable throughout the teenage years of her son, and she often returned to Greystone, where she sometimes remained for more than a year at a time. Allen Ginsberg, his father Louis, and his brother Eugene managed to keep the house and the family together through all of the hard times that they faced, and they were very close to one another, which helped fight off some of the despair and the helplessness that they felt regarding their mother's condition. However, Allen had special feelings toward his mother, and he saw her condition and her insanity as being a spiritual problem instead of a mental condition."

Tags:lobotomy, prayer, style, rhythm, imagery

Abstract
The paper provides a biography of Allen Ginsberg and discusses his major poems, including "Howl!" "Kaddish" and "Reality Sandwiches". The paper looks at his political and social views and his allegiance to the Beat movement. The paper concludes that Allen Ginsberg has given the world a fine example of principled existence and art.

Outline:
Biography
Major Works
The Significance of the Author and his Work in Society and History
The Beat Movement

From the Paper
"The poet Allen Ginsberg was born during 1926 in Newark, New Jersey to second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants. His father, Louis, was a teacher and poet, and his mother, Naomi, had a tendency towards mental instability. Both his parents were interested in modern concepts such as Marxism, nudism, and feminism. During Allen Ginsberg's childhood, his mother began to suffer from paranoia, and was committed to an institution where she was lobotomized and eventually died in 1956."

Tags:homosexuals, Beat, generation, art

Abstract
This paper explains that Allen Ginsberg, best-known for his radical poem "Howl" and for his outspoken views on American society, politics and the Vietnam War, was a very influential figure in the counterculture of the mid to late 1960s. The author points out that when it was first published, "Howl" reflected some of the most absurd and decadent traits of American culture, ignored by most people, such as the use of illegal drugs that was just beginning to spread in the urban cities. The paper relates that the contents of "Howl" disturbed many people, even those in San Francisco, a city known for its non-conformity and outlandish social life. The paper concludes that Allen Ginsberg gave impetus to great cultural changes in the way young people chose to live within a society that, for the most part, rejected and denied them.

From the Paper
"Clearly, it was Lucien Carr who introduced Ginsberg to the cultural miasma of Greenwich Village in New York City, a place rampant with people from all walks of life. It was in this setting that Ginsberg's literary mind was set on fire and where he first experienced the thrill of being an intellectual steeped in an explosion of culturally-diverse phenomenon. 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.""

Tags:kerouac, homosexuality, mother, hypocrisy, middle-class

Abstract
This paper takes a look at the life of Allen Ginsberg, one of America's most controversial poets of the mid to late 20th century. Ginsberg was made famous by his radical poem "Howl" and his views on American society, politics and the Vietnam War. This paper also takes a look at New Historicism, and Ginsberg's involvement.

From the Paper
"Thus, most of the work of Allen Ginsberg can be seen as culturally significant, for it explores through verse and narrative the inner workings of the cities and how the people that worked and died in these cities during the late 1940's and 1950's experienced everyday life. In essence, Ginsberg's poetry and narrative pieces are filled with "cultural poetics," also known as New Historicism, "a theory that emphasizes the importance of history as a standard of cultural value or as a determinant of events" (Schumacher, 56).
Before commencing on the biography of Allen Ginsberg, it seems appropriate to make some brief comments on the status of America during the 1950's, the period which highly influenced Ginsberg and his writings. Following the close of World War II in 1945, America was plunged into a "Cold War" with the Soviet Union, a war based on threat instead of action. Culturally, America was in the throes of massive change, due to the victories over Nazi Germany and Japan and the economic boom that followed in the wake of World War II. For the most part, Americans were experiencing new and at times disturbing cultural trends linked to politics, economics and the rapid development of technology, especially regarding television. Also, as a result of World War II, Americans had a sense of belonging to the greater whole and began to see themselves as conformists, meaning that they never questioned authority and subscribed to "herd mentality."

Tags:Beat, Generation, counterculture, beatniks, poetry

Abstract
This paper examines the poem "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg which led to a widely publicized court case dividing readers between a view of art and obscenity. This paper discusses how "Howl" is not obscene or socially deviant writings, but instead, a valuable social critique of Ginsberg's time. By teasing out the parts that are labeled obscene, it picks the most controversial topics and explores the meanings behind them, also showing how it is more of a social critique than plan obscenity for no reason.

From the Paper
"The topic of homosexuality and blatant crudeness towards heterosexuality makes itself visible in the text, a topic that society at the time tried to shy away from and viewed as indecent. The most obvious is the image of one having anal intercourse and not feeling ashamed to enjoy it, "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy" (128), writing in this way without holding back literally shoves the idea of homosexuality in the face of the reader, without hiding from it, and makes the reader interpret it in the poem. The character does not care where the sex comes from, jumping into passing limousines "seeking jazz or sex or soup" (127), he or she seems to not care where or how they receive this sex they are looking for, comparing it to something as little as soup or jazz."

Tags:blazer, sex, jazz, obscene, society

Abstract
This paper discusses the individual and social conflict that is evident in the poem "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. In addition to the analysis of the poem in reference to its social relevance, the paper also includes a presentation of the poet's feelings while the lines and over-all content of the poem is delivered.

From the Paper
"The poem "Howl," by Allen Ginsberg is a poem that evokes emotion and social awareness of the "illness" and "madness" of the people and the American society. Ginsberg's poem is divided into three parts, and each part of the poem elicits a different kind of emotion and focus; the three parts wherein the poem is divided also addresses and talks about a different kind of audience, while consistently extending the message of "madness" (in the literal and social sense) and with the issue of social strife and chaos within and among the members of the American society. The scenario Ginsberg presents in his poem is a reflection of the social and political strife that the American society had experienced during the post- Vietnam War era."

Tags:social, strife, chaos, insanity, carl, solomon, moloch, america, government

From the Paper
"Far from being isolated from one another, the fine arts are exceedingly cross-disciplinary. Composers take inspiration from poets, who in turn take inspiration from painters. Beethoven's use of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" in the concluding movement of his ninth symphony is one of countless examples of this tendency for artists to find inspiration outside the confines of their specialty. In fact, Wagner's "music drama" is an attempt to unify all of the creative arts in a single work. Cross-disciplinary inspiration occurs no less in the 20th century than it has in centuries past. One such instance is the inspiration American poet Allen Ginsberg has found in the Surrealist movement. Surrealism, which found its first expression among artists, has provided ... "

Abstract
The paper analyzes two poems by American poet Allen Ginsberg written in the mid-1950s: "A Supermarket in California" and "Howl" in terms of both their individual content and their broader implications within the poet's work. The paper discusses how Ginsberg describes a prosperous post-World War II era America, spoiled by mid-to-late-20th century artificiality, inhumanity and modernization and by the competitive ruthless and non-reflective attitudes that accompany it. The paper shows how Allen Ginsberg expresses disillusionment in the first poem semi-humorously and in the second more seriously and sometimes despairingly about the overall state of post-industrial America.

From the Paper
"In Ginsberg's poem "A Supermarket in California" (1955) Ginsberg, one of America's greatest Beat Poets of the 1950's and 1960's, juxtaposes descriptions of one of his literary idols, the 19th century American poet Walt Whitman (a homosexual like Ginsberg himself), against descriptions of average contemporary people who might be found inside a California supermarket (e.g., husbands; wives; babies). Alongside these average American consumers, Ginsberg's speaker and Walt Whitman himself (resurrected, for this poem) shop in a supermarket in California. Ginsberg's poem offers a post-modern, sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, wholly impressionistic view of an imagined time-traveling Walt Whitman within an antisepticised, artificially-packaged, and homogenized 1950's American grocery store."

Tags:Walt, Whitman, society, post-industrial, America

From the Paper
"Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac were friends whose experiences figure in each other's works. They both made their mutual friend Neal Cassady central to their most famous works -- Ginsberg's poem Howl and Kerouac's novel On the Road. The similarities between the two writers' concerns, interests, and language are also numerous. Both of them seem to be mapping the same territory with maps highlighted by bursts of the poetry and poetic prose that the two have in common: the saxophones and bop, the drugs and drinking, the sex and the travel, the nights, the madness, and the endless conversations. Despite all these similarities, however, they produced two very different works. Ultimately Ginsberg's work is about reaching inside himself. Self-knowledge, no matter how disturbing, sad, or horrifying, is what he is after. Kerouac and his character Sal remain unknown.