America (1956). Summary and Description

“America,” as its second line suggests, was composed on January 17, 1956, and appeared first in Howl and Other Poems (1956) and again in the Black Mountain Review during Ginsberg’s stint as coeditor. Its spontaneous composition is reflected in the fact that the poem has no consistent structure, switching among multiple tones and styles throughout. Ginsberg’s stream-of-consciousness technique creates a poem that jumps quickly between subjects, from personal to political, holy to vulgar, social to cultural, showing the interconnectedness of those many facets of American life. The poem is arranged as a series of crests and falls; each section gains momentum, climaxes, and then backs off and starts over again.

To understand “America” best, it is important to consider the American political and social climate at the time of its composition. By 1956, the United States had participated in both world wars and was currently involved in an arms race with the Soviet Union, one in which both sides stockpiled nuclear arms. Historians commonly refer to this protracted period of military engagement and espionage as the cold war, which lasted from about 1947 to the period leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.

Ginsberg was profoundly affected by America’s decision to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, which is perhaps what he refers to in the line “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.” Furthermore, the United States government in the 1950s had instituted a campaign for nationalism and patriotism, a campaign that focused on demonizing differing viewpoints, particularly communism. In a democratic nation allegedly founded on freedom of choice, there was very little tolerance for dissent.

Ginsberg plays on the patriotic ramblings of the 1950s and creates his own diatribe, one that turns the unfettered praise of America on its head. Instead of referring to America as an abstract concept like the “land of the free,” Ginsberg boldly addresses the nation directly from the very first line: “America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.” In fact, the poem avoids abstractions, opting instead for concrete details plucked from Ginsberg’s personal experience, right down to the amount of money he has in his wallet (“two dollars and twentyseven cents”).

The poem reflects the influence of his parents. Both Russian Jewish immigrants, Ginsberg’s parents were sympathetic to socialist causes, his mother even participating actively in the Communist Party USA. Naomi Ginsberg took both of her young sons with her to Communist Party meetings, as Ginsberg documents in the third stanza. Furthermore, while Ginsberg was a self-described anarchist at the time of this poem’s composition, he clearly demonstrates leanings toward socialism, from his sentimental feelings toward the once-powerful International Workers of the World (or “Wobblies,” as he calls them in the first stanza), to his plea to free Tom Mooney, a deceased American labor leader.

Although Ginsberg expresses revolutionary sentiments, he clearly feels a close connection to America and acknowledges his inability to divorce himself from the nation. In the first stanza, he writes, “I refuse to give up my obsession,” and he proves it in the rest of the poem. Although Ginsberg confesses that he smokes marijuana “every chance I get,” and that he was once a communist and feels no regrets about it, he still claims that he aspires to be president. At the poem’s close, he admits that while he opposes war and industrial technology, he still intends to “get right down to the job,” and put his “queer shoulder to the wheel.” But, unfortunately, America will never give back what he puts in; he merely gives of himself until there is nothing left to give.

Also noteworthy is the way that “America” fits within Ginsberg’s larger body of work. Ginsberg began composing the poem shortly after his landmark first public reading of “Howl” in October 1955. This particularly well-received reading not only admitted him to the San Francisco poetry renaissance scene but also gave him the confidence to confess more about himself openly. As in “Howl” and “Sunflower Sutra,” Ginsberg adopts the voice of a prophet, proclaiming the power of poetry to convey human experience. Still, though, he has not forgotten his influences; he still uses Whitman’s long line, and his question “America when will you be angelic?” noticeably echoes the speaker in Ginsberg’s 1955 poem “A Supermarket in California” who asks the grocery boys, “Are you my Angel?”

Furthermore, Ginsberg expresses disdain for technology, as seen in his 1955 poem “Sunflower Sutra,” in which the symbol of the locomotive portrays industry’s capacity to corrupt natural beauty. In the first stanza of “America,” Ginsberg writes, “Your machinery is too much for me.” Indeed, the depravity of America’s very material culture is a major theme in this poem. When discussing “them bad Russians” toward the end of the poem, Ginsberg writes, “Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.” Here he predicts not just a foreboding of the spread of American industry into other parts of the world but also the increasing conception among Americans that all other countries are obsessed with the United States and want to participate in American culture (“Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest.”)

At the poem’s close, Ginsberg attacks American xenophobia. Two years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that desegregated schools, Ginsberg writes a poem that is obviously aware of the pressure to eliminate racism in the United States. His awareness of racial politics is perhaps most evident at the top of the third stanza, where he writes, “America I am the Scottsboro boys,” thus allying himself with the group of African-American teens wrongfully accused of rape in the 1930s. Later in the stanza, he pokes fun at the racist domestic policies of America, writing, “Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.”

And yet, as he closes the poem, Ginsberg admits that all of his information is merely perceived from “looking in the television set.” The irony of issues like racism is that they are so firmly rooted in the perpetuation of harmful images as opposed to lived experience. For Ginsberg one of the most perplexing aspects of the obscenity trial of “Howl” was that the courts were so concerned with mere images, representations of actualities, rather than the monstrosities he attempted to illustrate. Still, as a poet, Ginsberg too, is inextricably tied up with images. By presenting the reader with a poem that jumps illogically from image to image, Ginsberg hopes to represent the irrationality and confusion of America itself.

For Discussion or Writing
1. Examine the ways that gendered pronouns operate in this poem. In particular, look at the end of the last stanza, where Russia is personified as female, while America is referred to as “Him.” Slavic people all over the world once referred to Russia as a mother, while Nazi propaganda referred to Germany as the “Fatherland.” What is the significance of being a male versus a female nation? Why does Ginsberg use these classifications in “America”?

2. In their critiques of Howl and Other Poems, the critics Lucien Carr and Richard Eberhart remark on the humor of “America,” as compared to the anger in “Howl.” Read both poems, attempting to find humor in each. Why is “Howl” considered an angry poem while “America” is not? Can both be read as funny? As outraged?

3. In the last stanza, the speaker’s voice changes, shifting into a rudimentary, grammatically incorrect English. Why does Ginsberg choose this voice, and how does it reflect upon the subject matter he uses it to discuss?