Lion Of Darma Essay, Research Paper

cory soto

Although the 1950?s were a time of conservatism; nevertheless, Allen Ginsberg challenged conservative ideals through his writing and brought a new perspective on poetry, because he did not want to live by the societal constraints of his time. He did not fit into society, because he was a raving homosexual, drug user, and socialist. With other misfits of society, Ginsberg became the father of the “Beat Generation.” These “Beats” were intellects involved in a renaissance of literary and visual arts, as well as . Since a majority of the Beats were middle-class people, they had the ability to travel around the world and returned to incorporate other cultures into America?s. Allen Ginsberg brought ideals and cultures and forever changed American literature and society; he is a forgotten hero.

Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926 in New Jersey. There he grew up with his father Louis, his mother Naomi, and his older brother Eugene. With both of his parents immigrating from Russia, and strong supporters of socialism, Ginsberg received anti-establishment political views early on.

Naomi Ginsberg was a bright young woman when Louis Ginsberg fell in love with her. She attended some classes at a local college with the hope to teach grammar school. Although she was a strict but good teacher, she suffered from hyper-sensitivity to light and sound. When she would leave work for weeks at a time because of her illness, she would lock herself alone in a completely dark room. This illness put immense stress upon the Ginsberg family. Imagine two boys growing up with an occasional psychotic mother. Before she went completely insane, she wrote song lyrics and published some of them. Though not as successful with poetry compared to Allen, talented writing still ran through the family.

Louis Ginsberg was the son of a Russian immigrant, and grew up in the states. He was an intelligent man and a successful writer; the New York Times, New York Herald as well as the Modern America and Modern British Poetry published him. While he worked on his writing, Louis took care of Allen and Eugene after Naomi was sent to the Greystone sanitarium and could not help with the boys. Louis had to take Allen to his first day of pre-school, and eventually take him home, because Allen through such a fit, that the school made him go home. He was a loving father and tried as much as he could to make up for the absence of a motherly influence.

Even as a child, Allen excelled in English, reading, and foreign languages. He excelled through school and became one of the smartest kids in his class. Although English came easy for him, he worked with all of his might to earn good grades in math and science. In the period between 1934 to 1936 he felt as if he was different from most of the kids his age; other boys attracted his sexual attention. While this coming of age event was happening to Allen, his mother?s medical condition worsened. She would walk around the house naked in front of Allen and Eugene and would claim to hear voices coming out of the walls. The two brothers would often go to bed with pots around their heads claiming that the pots repelled the evil forces haunted their mom. Allen would snuggle up close to Eugene, not that Eugene attracted him, but to fulfill his physical needs and emotional comfort he felt in men.

At seventeen, Allen attended Colombia University. There he met Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, other founders of the “Beat Generation,” while Allen?s friends and his teachers recognized that Allen could write thoughtful poetry. Not only his teachers appreciated his poetry, Jack and William also admired his writings. Allen became an eclectic student on the Columbia campus; he could not afford the suits and other expensive clothing as other students could. He felt as if something was not right for him at Columbia. So when Columbia did not want Allen to come back after his freshman year because they thought that he was sleeping with other men, he realized the life of an intellectual was not appealing to him; he wanted to live life, not think about it, so he moved to Joan Vollmer?s apartment.

He immediately moved into Joan Vollmer?s apartment, eager to begin an education that required firsthand knowledge acquired from experience, as opposed to the conventional wisdom that had been handed down, only to be moderately contested by academics, from century to century. (Schumacher 55)

He needed a new purpose in life besides the classic theme of events where a person goes to school, gets a job and dies.

After realizing that life had a different meaning to him, Allen started playing with life?s constraints. He did not want to only write poetry in classical verse form, rather he wanted to express his feelings in his own way and not by recognized standards set by society. This shift in thinking is best represented by his poem, “Death In Violence.” It was a prose poem written about the conflict between what society is and whom people want to be. This poem set the mood and thought for the rising Beat Generation.

The “Beat Generation” was the name to the youths of the 1950?s. Today?s society would dream them as a group of slackers who did not like to work, and wasted life; nevertheless, these “Beats” whole purpose was to live life in any type of manor. From drug use to driving across America, they tried to find purpose. Working till their death did not seem acceptable or productive to them. They became studies of life, and for their enjoyment, they intellectualized about life and took occurrences in life as a symbol to something more meaningful. Jack Kerouac sums this up in one of his quotes from On the Road.

We seek to find new phrases; we writhe and twist and blow; every now and then a clear harmonic cry gives us new suggestions of a tune, a thought, that will someday be the only tune and thought in the world and which will raise men?s soul to joy. We find it, we lose it, wrestle for it , we find it again, we laugh, we moan. Go for the moan for man. It?s the pathos of people that gets us down, all the lovers in this dream.

A Beat was a raw, used person exposed to life?s harshness. As Kerouac says, “Go For the moan for man.”

In 1945, Allen met Jack Kerouac at Columbia University. The moment that Allen first talked to Jack, he fell in love with him. Although Allen and Jack grew close together, Jack was not aware of Allen?s homosexuality.

As Allen started to change his outlook on life, he started experimenting with altered consciousness, through drug use. The first event that triggered this fascination was a trip to the dentist?s office. Allen was having dental work done and the doctor needed to use nitrous oxide to knock him out, so Allen complied and the nitrous amazed him. The feeling of being lightly conscious in a near unconscious state over powered him and took control of all of his senses. He was intrigued to the point that every time he went to the doctor?s office he brought a notebook to record the sensation. He asked the doctor if he come back and experiment going in and out of consciousness.

The universe is a void

in which there is a dream hole

the dream disappears

the hole closes

The feeling that Allen received was powerful enough to want to experiment not only with drugs, but with life.

Although Allen tried marijuana before his new drug interests arose, he did not prefer it because he was interested in the spiritual or holucinalgenic drugs such as: peyote, lysergic acid diethylamide, cilia sybin, and mescaline. These drugs helped him to develop different ways to form lines in poetry and develop different ways of thinking in life. He started looking into the Buddhist religion and Zen ideas. In a time of conservatism and Christianity, society did not accept alternate religions or moral values. This started all in the fifties; it was a harsh reaction to harsh conservative times, and it set a platform for the liberal sixties.

“Howl” was Allen first and most successful. Written in 1955-1956, it had obscene jesters and language for the time, and so the poem and the author went on an obscenity trial. The majority of the contemporary writers of America supported Allen and his poem went on trial. William Carlos Williams, whom Allen admired greatly, testified saying that the words used were used in a literary way and not a blatant immature excuse to assert himself. Thanks to the confessions and support of other authors, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlengetti, the publisher, won the trial. Because of the trial the Beats were labeled as sinners and a threat to the united states. So in 1959, at the height of the beat movement, J. Edgar Hoover declared the beats as one of the most threatening groups in the United States, and Allen was one off the top 100 people who were a threat to the United States.

“Howl” became the basis and standard of Allen?s style of writing. He used adjectives and adverbs incorrectly, and he often used run-on sentences. Here is a clear example of Ginsberg?s style:

Who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on Benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drier light of Zoo,

Allen, when he reads, makes this whole poem sound like a run-on sentence; he tries not to take breathes at the end of every line. Much to the dismay of orthodox poets, Allen influenced a generation of poetry that still is present today.

Allen Ginsberg wrote “Howl” in dedication to Peter Orlovsky, a close friend and lover of Allen, to show how society ruined a good man. He filled each line with passion and anger, but some critics think that due to his style, the poem loses its power. Quote in on the poetry. Although critics most of the critics did not like it, millions of people have read “Howl.” Ginsberg?s cynical out look on American society did not just stop with “Howl,” he used other poems to express his anger.

“America” was a poem written about America. “America I?ve given you all and now I?m nothing” this was Allen?s attitude through the whole piece. He goes on to explain the change in the American dream, and how society truly was. He did not live in a ferry tale world; he exposed faults and inequalities in America. A closely related poem to “America” was “Death To Van Goughs Ear.” Here Allen scoffs at America and it?s imperialistic view of the world in the 1950?s. He sends a message that the government lies to the US citizens, and what people see as so beautiful is not beautiful at all; it is a manifestation of Lucifer. This distrust was a dominating theme in his writings in the 50?s-60?s, as so was the government?s distrust in its citizens.

In 1956, Allen?s mother died at Greystone Sanitarium. When his mother died, he was in Hawaii working with the Merchant Marines, so Louis Ginsberg sent the sad message to Peter Orlovsky. When Allen came home to Berkeley, Peter gave him the message. Allen walked out into the garden and started writing the “Kaddish.” After staying up for 40 hours straight on Benzedrine and other various drugs, he finished the poem. It was the finest work he ever did. Even compared to “Howl,” this poem showed his passion and sorrow.

And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember, prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of Answers-and my own imagination of a withered leaf-at dawn-

The poem leaves the reader in a trance. The power of the poem is like a tractor beam; it draws the reader in and it wont let go. He makes the poem so successful, because everyone that reads it can identify with the reflection upon a loved one.

Feeling that his poems were not reaching out to everyone, Allen started giving lectures at universities and public festivals. At the “Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In,” one of many festivals in the 60?s, Allen, Ken Kesey, Lawrence Ferlengetti, and others showed up to give political speeches and to read their poetry. Although Allen loved to give speeches, he did not like political opium; these festivals had youth of America attending, while Allen wanted them to think while having fun.

…when the Vietnam War was claiming more lives than anyone would have predicted a few years earlier, Haight-Ashbury made more sense than Washington D.C., to the growing ranks of youths dropping out of society.

This is why Allen did not like to give lectures, because these kids were there just to be there. So after the 60?s, Allen primarily worked with small groups at lecture halls, and not huge rallies with tens of thousands of people.

In the fall of 1998, Allen met D.T. Suzuki and gave him a copy of “Howl.” After this meeting, Allen stirred his up his Buddhist beliefs and stated talking to Jack Kerouac about Buddhist ways of life. Jack Kerouac prided himself with the knowledge in Buddhism and Taoism he attained over years of study. With this knowledge, he proclaimed himself Allen?s teacher. For Allen this was a role reversal.

As with some people in the 60?s, Allen became a practicing Buddhist. On May 6, 1971, at a reading with Robert Bly and Gary Synder, Allen took an official vow of the Buddhist way of life. He read and took classes on Buddhism at Colombia and practiced Buddhist ways of thought and life, but until then, he was not an official Buddhist. At his induction ceremony, he became known as the Lion of Dharma.