Homoerotica:
Allen Ginsberg and His Description of His Loves
Nineteen fifty’s America was a socially ignorant time. Where people of color, homosexuals, and anyone else considered to be, a minority had to fight for their right to live freely in a land that was already theirs. A country founded on the principles of equality and freedom found itself in a decade of segregation and hate. A few people had the heart to point out these injustices. Clearly, Allen Ginsberg was one of those few. A long time latent homosexual, Ginsberg finally embraces his minority status in his poem “Many Loves”. In this work, Allen Ginsberg’s description of his erotic night with Neal Cassidy gives us an identifiable insight into the emotions, the thoughts, and desires of one America’s greatest poets.
Unfortunately, many people view homosexual relationships as somehow different from that of a heterosexual couple. They see two gay men and imagine their relationship to be based purely on raw sexual urges and physical desires. Ginsberg clearly shows this not to be the case by explaining his equal attraction of the physical and the mental. This intrinsic passion can be seen immediately in the first line of the poem where Ginsberg recollects “Neal Cassidy was my animal: he brought me to my knees and taught me the love of his cock and the secrets of his mind” (164). He gives equal importance to the love of cock and mind in this sentence. However, he does not stop there he reiterates the point halfway through by writing, “Thus I met Neal & thus we felt each other’s flesh and owned each other bodies and souls” (165). His description of Neal’s character is never far behind his description of Neal’s body. In fact, he often blends the two together. He starts with physical: “and his middle torso narrow and made of iron, soft at my back, his fiery firm belly warming me while I tremble” (164). However, he immediately transitions to a poetic description of Neal’s character and sorted past, through the same body part- his stomach.
“His belly of fists and starvation, his belly of a thousand girls kissed in Colorado/his belly of rocks thrown down over Denver roofs, prowess of jumping and fists,/his stomach of solitudes,/ His belly of burning iron and jails affectionate to my side:” (164).
A little later in his erotic escapade, he uses similar descriptive techniques when recounting Neal’s ass. Again, he initiates the narrative with images of Neal’s physicality, “I first touched the smooth mount of his rock buttocks, silken in power rounded in animal fucking” (165). Then he immediately transitions into the metaphysical world that lives in Neal’s ass:
“O ass of long solitudes in stolen cars, and solitudes on curbs, musing fists/cheek/ Ass of a thousand farewells, ass of youth, youth’s lovers,/Ass of a thousand lonely craps in gas stations ass of great painful secrecies/ of the years/O ass of mystery and night! Ass of gymnasiums and muscular pants/ ass of high schools and masturbation ass of lone delight, ass of mankind, so/ beautiful and hollow, dowry of Mind and Angels,/Ass of hero, Neal Cassidy, I had it in my hand…” (165).
Tormented Ginsberg, tormented by the memories of a malfunctioning mother longed for the love of someone that could understand him. He desired the approval of a like-minded lover, someone who cared for him as much as he cared for them. He was willing to be submissive and willing to take whatever Neal would give him. He accurately portrays that moment of other acceptance when he writes:
“I began to tremble, he pulled me in closer with his arm, and hugged me long/and close/my soul melted, secrecy departed, I became/Thenceforth open to his nature as a flower in the shining sun” (164).
Ginsberg was fed up; tired of hiding. He was willing to do what it took to feel love. He shows this when he writes:
“[I] made then and there my master, and/bowed my head, and holding his buttock/ Took up his hard-on and held it, feeling it throb and pressing my own at/his knee & breathing showed him I needed him,” (166).
In a confusing age of homophobia and fear, Ginsberg found a man he could love and trust with his heart.
What makes this such a poignant poem is Ginsberg’s amazing use of imagery in words. When reading his memories of this night it isn’t difficult to have a tangible, understanding of what he is feeling physically and sensing emotionally. When Ginsberg describes feeling Neal, and “his heart slow thudding against my back” (164), the reader can sense the same pulse. Anyone who has ever lain naked with a lover can bring themselves to feel what Ginsberg feels when he states, “Our bellies together nestling, loins touched together, pressing and knowledgeable each other’s hardness” (165). I find these statements even more intense after realizing that Ginsberg wrote this poem at the age of thirty, nearly an entire decade after this “love match” (165) occurred. These feelings and memories were as intense to Ginsberg as the night it happened. So much so, that his words resound with the similarity of a friend telling you of last nights events.
Although, only one of many, this writing pays tribute to a man that made Ginsberg feel alive. Leaving this world almost at the age of 71 he lived a life full of personal journeys and unforgettable moments. Even though it was a love faded not to last, the relationship Ginsberg had with Neal Cassidy was one of the many colorful threads that filled the tapestry of his life. Neal was one of Ginsberg’s many moments. He was one of his many loves.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Monday, July 2, 2007
PAPER 2
Amanda Gorley Brown
Mr. Cover
English 110
7 June 2007
The Struggle after World War II:
How the Beat Generation Found Its Place
Even more so than its predecessor, World War II had a truly global impact. Although the war took the lives of young men from around the world and crippled the infrastructure of Europe, its effect on America was not fully appreciated until the war was over. While still in its infancy, the Beat Generation had already begun to create an alternative thought process to that of the main stream. The beats had a message but lacked an attentive audience. Post-World War II America set the stage for the beats to deliver their message. The economical advancement, educational changes, and militarization that swept post-World War II American culture, became the catalyst for a counter-culture to raise their voices.
With the almost complete annihilation of the European manufacturing superpowers, America was able to create a virtual monopoly on manufactured and agricultural exports. The money kept rolling in and Americans loved it. Americans became focused on material possessions- the newest gadgets, gizmos, and do-dads. If they could spend their money on it, they wanted it. The Sears and Roebuck catalog was like “paper crack” for the1950’s housewives. If Americans had been asked to vote to change, “One Nation under God” to “Buy, Buy, Buy! More, More, More!” the Bill probably would have passed. With more Americans working than ever before the unionization of the American work force became inevitable.
“As whole cities of American people moved from the south to the north were transformed from rural dwellers to urban, from farmers to industrial workers, and anti-colonial, anti-imperialist movement came into sharp relief throughout the world. The frenzied industrialization raised the level of productive forces so that the newly developed world girdling form of capitalism, imperialism, also gave rise to ideas in its superstructure advanced enough to counter it” ( Baraka 151 ).
Unions gained strength exponentially causing life to become work and work to become life. This shift, from working to live to living to work, bothered the beats. They saw corporate America as a carnivore gnawing on the marrow of the American worker. Kenneth Rexwroth writes,
“You, the hyena with polished face and bowtie, in the office of a billion dollar corporation devoted to service; the vulture dripping with carrion, carefully and carelessly robbed in imported tweeds, lecturing on the Age of Abundance; the jackal in the double-breasted gabardine, barking by remote control…”(Silverman How).
The beats wanted Americans to understand that life should be more about intrinsic values than material possessions. Unfortunately, America was too busy earning a paycheck, and going on strike to increase that paycheck, to realize that simple truth.
While the beats understood the importance of educating one’s self, the now fast growing American educational institution raised concern. Upon formation of the GI Bill, more people, mainly soldiers, attended American universities than ever before. Our halls of academia were turned into a drive-thru for the masses. This led to an influx of literature that the beats deemed grotesque perversion of the same dribble they had been reading for years. They longed for something more.
“The social thrust of democracy and anti-imperialism carried with it ideas that attacked the Eurocentric Bourgeois nature of American education and official arts and pushed for a multi-national and multi-cultural American culture and art expression that reflected reality. Just as the society was attacked as an oppressive exploited one, so the literature, the art, was attacked as merely reflecting that exploitation, and being equally exploitative” (Barak 153).
The beats were ready to fill that intellectual void. With the writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg, McClure, Snyder, Whalen, and Rexwroth the academic world was given new meat in which to sink its teeth.
The third area that concerned the beats, and probably more than the other two was the militarization of America. Without even knowing, American was already in preparation for the Cold War. When Eisenhower ended his term as president, he warned the Nation to keep a watchful on the military industrial complex. Americans were already building enough planes, tank, ships, and bombs to launch the third world war. The beats as did Eisenhower, saw this as a sad waste of America’s productivity and resources. By 1945, the failure of the League of Nations, was made obvious in the war and a new entity was formed. The United Nations headquarter-ed in New York City became the world’s police force. The beats despised this global group of power and control. Rexwroth wrote, “In the United nations… the superego in a thousand uniforms, you, the finger man of the behemoth the murderer of young men…” (Silverman How). This fear of a global superpower was not a mindset of a single generation. “Laying the intellectual foundation for the beat breakthrough the Rexwroth circle was a ground of opposition; well-read and international, homosexual and heterosexual, poets and artists from several generations of revolt” (Sivlerman How). Hippies would later build on this groundwork of peace but this moralistic push is deeply rooted in the beat way of life.
No one can officially say when the beat generation began. It was a collection of different thoughts from different people, born at different times, in different places. Nevertheless, in post-world war two America, their singularity of thought became identifiable. Although, never desiring a label the beat generation began to group itself into a like-minded counter culture of middle class America. America’s new economy, access to education, and military might gave the beats a reason to write to, speak with, and influence generations to come. The beats used their time on the American stage to make sure their voices were heard loud and clear. If you listen closely to the “counter cultures” in today’s America you can still hear them speaking ever so softly.
Mr. Cover
English 110
7 June 2007
The Struggle after World War II:
How the Beat Generation Found Its Place
Even more so than its predecessor, World War II had a truly global impact. Although the war took the lives of young men from around the world and crippled the infrastructure of Europe, its effect on America was not fully appreciated until the war was over. While still in its infancy, the Beat Generation had already begun to create an alternative thought process to that of the main stream. The beats had a message but lacked an attentive audience. Post-World War II America set the stage for the beats to deliver their message. The economical advancement, educational changes, and militarization that swept post-World War II American culture, became the catalyst for a counter-culture to raise their voices.
With the almost complete annihilation of the European manufacturing superpowers, America was able to create a virtual monopoly on manufactured and agricultural exports. The money kept rolling in and Americans loved it. Americans became focused on material possessions- the newest gadgets, gizmos, and do-dads. If they could spend their money on it, they wanted it. The Sears and Roebuck catalog was like “paper crack” for the1950’s housewives. If Americans had been asked to vote to change, “One Nation under God” to “Buy, Buy, Buy! More, More, More!” the Bill probably would have passed. With more Americans working than ever before the unionization of the American work force became inevitable.
“As whole cities of American people moved from the south to the north were transformed from rural dwellers to urban, from farmers to industrial workers, and anti-colonial, anti-imperialist movement came into sharp relief throughout the world. The frenzied industrialization raised the level of productive forces so that the newly developed world girdling form of capitalism, imperialism, also gave rise to ideas in its superstructure advanced enough to counter it” ( Baraka 151 ).
Unions gained strength exponentially causing life to become work and work to become life. This shift, from working to live to living to work, bothered the beats. They saw corporate America as a carnivore gnawing on the marrow of the American worker. Kenneth Rexwroth writes,
“You, the hyena with polished face and bowtie, in the office of a billion dollar corporation devoted to service; the vulture dripping with carrion, carefully and carelessly robbed in imported tweeds, lecturing on the Age of Abundance; the jackal in the double-breasted gabardine, barking by remote control…”(Silverman How).
The beats wanted Americans to understand that life should be more about intrinsic values than material possessions. Unfortunately, America was too busy earning a paycheck, and going on strike to increase that paycheck, to realize that simple truth.
While the beats understood the importance of educating one’s self, the now fast growing American educational institution raised concern. Upon formation of the GI Bill, more people, mainly soldiers, attended American universities than ever before. Our halls of academia were turned into a drive-thru for the masses. This led to an influx of literature that the beats deemed grotesque perversion of the same dribble they had been reading for years. They longed for something more.
“The social thrust of democracy and anti-imperialism carried with it ideas that attacked the Eurocentric Bourgeois nature of American education and official arts and pushed for a multi-national and multi-cultural American culture and art expression that reflected reality. Just as the society was attacked as an oppressive exploited one, so the literature, the art, was attacked as merely reflecting that exploitation, and being equally exploitative” (Barak 153).
The beats were ready to fill that intellectual void. With the writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg, McClure, Snyder, Whalen, and Rexwroth the academic world was given new meat in which to sink its teeth.
The third area that concerned the beats, and probably more than the other two was the militarization of America. Without even knowing, American was already in preparation for the Cold War. When Eisenhower ended his term as president, he warned the Nation to keep a watchful on the military industrial complex. Americans were already building enough planes, tank, ships, and bombs to launch the third world war. The beats as did Eisenhower, saw this as a sad waste of America’s productivity and resources. By 1945, the failure of the League of Nations, was made obvious in the war and a new entity was formed. The United Nations headquarter-ed in New York City became the world’s police force. The beats despised this global group of power and control. Rexwroth wrote, “In the United nations… the superego in a thousand uniforms, you, the finger man of the behemoth the murderer of young men…” (Silverman How). This fear of a global superpower was not a mindset of a single generation. “Laying the intellectual foundation for the beat breakthrough the Rexwroth circle was a ground of opposition; well-read and international, homosexual and heterosexual, poets and artists from several generations of revolt” (Sivlerman How). Hippies would later build on this groundwork of peace but this moralistic push is deeply rooted in the beat way of life.
No one can officially say when the beat generation began. It was a collection of different thoughts from different people, born at different times, in different places. Nevertheless, in post-world war two America, their singularity of thought became identifiable. Although, never desiring a label the beat generation began to group itself into a like-minded counter culture of middle class America. America’s new economy, access to education, and military might gave the beats a reason to write to, speak with, and influence generations to come. The beats used their time on the American stage to make sure their voices were heard loud and clear. If you listen closely to the “counter cultures” in today’s America you can still hear them speaking ever so softly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
