Here's a valuable bit of analysis. Interesting since poetry reviews are rare in mainstream publications, even on the web. Interesting, too, how a piece of bad, deceptive art can have a life of its own. http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2615/pub_detail.asp
p.s. Tom, what happened to that last poem you posted? and Rob - in order for you to get your substantial Kindlings monthly stipend, you have to post at least once a month. Do it for the children!
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This is a terrific article. Some very good insights. But I think the author is too quick, as many conservatives are, to embrace post-war America as merely a mature acceptance of adult responsibilities. Who can forget the scene in the 1960's classic "The Graduate" when Dustin Hoffman's character is at a party hosted by his parents and one of his father's friends comes up and asks Hoffman what his plans are? Hoffman says he doesn't really know yet and his father's friend claps him on the back and says, "I've got one word for you. Plastics!" His heart (and ours) sinks. Is that all there is to life? Intrinsically meaningless work for a house with a two-car garage and swimming pool in suburbia? There was a lot of howling going on when Ginsberg's poem came out. Think of Rebel Without a Cause when James Dean, listening to his bourgois parents arguing, clamps his hands over his ears and cries out "You're tearing me apart!" Christopher West has remarked that the 1950's culture was in some ways responsible for the 1960's sexual revolution. There was a lot to object to. There were also some things wrong with Victorian poetry. There's a reason that era only lasted about 50 years. For one thing, it was too pedantic. Victorian poetry overcompensated in some ways for the excesses of Romanticism. But the author of the article is right in pointing out that Ginsberg and his peers were wrong to jettison all forms of truth but the emotional. Again, however, this finds its inspiration to some degree in the 1950's world of "adult responsibilities" that was so uncritically accepted. There's more to life than plastics. I think Chesterton might say Ginsberg's poem is a misguided attempt to recover joy. It's interesting the author doesn't say anything about Ginsberg's sexuality. He was a homosexual. Certainly, this was something within him that was howling for resolution.
Thanks for posting this article. You're right about it being rare to find analysis of poetry in mainline publications. Maybe it's part of that revival spirit that seems to be growing. That's something I really like about First Things, too. It's good to see quality poetry alongside intellectually serious essays.
As for the previous poem on The Bard's Delight, I'll be posting a new poem each week. I delete the one from the previous week. It wouldn't hurt to clean up the blog a little by deleting the postings that aren't relelvant anymore (i.e., the Barbara Nicolosi post and your first post, "let's get to work")
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