America by Allen Ginsberg

When I first read Ginsberg’s “America” to myself, it seemed like a serious poem with a few satirical lines in it. However, when listening to the recording, I realized it was much funnier than just the words let on. This is because of how Ginsberg reads the poem; the rhythm of the words often switches, but Ginsberg highlights the humor in his tone of voice.

Allan Ginsberg is a poet of the Beat generation. The rhythm of “America,” is very similar to his poem “Sunflower Sultra,” which we listened to in class. The Beat generation valued improvisation and was influenced by jazz. This is very obvious in his writing; the writing seems almost like a stream of consciousness and all of the words and lines flow together. In Ginsberg’s reading of the poem, he takes dramatic pauses that start a new thought, or sometimes to stress a humorous line.  Also, the reading includes extra thoughts not in the written poem and gets rid of certain lines. This further shows that the idea of the poem is spontaneous and improvised. To really understand the structure of “America,” I think the poem is supposed to be heard rather than read.

The poem has very irregular meter. There is really no consistent number of stressed and unstressed syllables per line, mainly because each line is dramatically different in length. The rhythms seem to be mainly falling, but in many instances, Ginsberg will stress many syllables in a row to make a point. For example, in line 29, Ginsberg states, “America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry.” When he reads the three words “I’m not sorry,” all three words are stressed in a row. This gives off a very humorous interpretation of the line to the listeners, but also inflects that he is maybe purposely going against certain ideals about American society.

“America” has a hard rhythm and meter to discern, because it is written to be heard rather than read. The poem is very influenced by jazz and improvisation, and comes off more as a flowing stream of consciousness.