The Fall of America

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), one of the major icons of the Beat Generation, was most famous for his landmark poem HOWL, published in 1956. However, it was THE FALL OF AMERICA that, nearly two decades later, in 1974, won Ginsberg a National Book Award, and sealed his reputation as a major American writer. Many of the poems in this collection are evocations of the American scene, from Christmas in California to the Chicago police state to Manhattan`s garbaged loves. Beginning with a series called Through the Vortex West Coast to East straight through to the final section, Bixby Canyon to Jessore Road, Ginsberg`s creative drive leads him on an odyssey chronicled in his always distinctive voice: a blend of stream-of-consciousness, brutal juxtaposition, political invective, and arresting images that are sometimes right-on ( reptilian trucks on Jersey roads ) and often surprisingly lovely ( plane roars toward Montauk/stretched in red sunset ). We can picture Ginsberg ambling around a New England town recording what he sees in a staccato shorthand ( houses gabled sunny afternoon/Ivy library porch ), or flying coast-to-coast observing the discolored metallic pollution of Lake Erie (but also flowers in clouds ); we see him spewing out the homoerotic violence of the many-leveled Please Master, or building monuments to dead friends like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, or recording the graffiti in the men`s room at the Syracuse airport. And then he ends, unexpectedly, with a poem set in India, an outraged protest against war, corporate guilt, and the indifference of governments to the plight of the poor, that concludes with images of homelessness, hunger, and dying children. Always conscious of Walt Whitman (to whom he dedicates the book) looking over his shoulder, Ginsberg himself is a true American voice: satirical, scornful, angry, but always memorable, always himself, always with something important to say about the complex, ugly, glorious world we live in. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.