Allen Ginsberg reading "America"

[Chan790]

http://youtu.be/tEUjTpyBhOo
Text: http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html

Oh god, this is great. It was one of the first poems that made me want to read more poetry, the first time I saw the poetic-form as anything but flowery romantic crap; poetry as a vehicle for cultural revolt. This must have absolutely subversive when he wrote it in the mid-fifties, it's still a bit edgy. How come we have no great funny public-intellectual subversives like this anymore? All our subversives are serious dour people who bore the shit out of people and chastise for not being perfect enough. Ginsberg had plenty to say about that too: "America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.", "Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?" & "It's always telling me about responsibility./Businessmen are serious./Movie producers are serious./Everybody's serious but me./It occurs to me that I am America./I am talking to myself again."

An excerpt:

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
...

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you're amused, DU Lounge America.