Book Review: "Selected Poems: 1947-1995" by Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg was one of those poets that really divided people. There are those out there who thought he was a genius and others who thought he was a nutcase. Me, I'm in the middle. I appreciate some of his poems but others, I feel like there is definitely room for improvement. I read the hardback to The Best Minds of My Generation when I was in university and Howl I read whilst I was in school, so some of this rememberance is coming from a pretty long time ago. I have to say that I appreciate Kaddish more than Howl and yet, Wait 'Till I'm Dead is my favourite alongside Television was a Baby. Now it's time to revisit the selected poetry of one of the most divisive poets of the 20th century...

One of the poems from this text that I enjoyed (and have enjoyed in the past) is the strangely named I Am a Victim of Telephone in which the poet details talking on the telephone, having strange emotions and narrating the life of someone who is clearly in distress about several things all at once. I think Ginsberg must have been disillusioned with the advancement of technology and it reminds me of a stand-up by Seinfeld in which he complains about all the features of telephones in the 1990s. The weird thing is that they both kind of predict what life in the 21st century is going to be like - where everything is felt at once, life's emotions all blend together causing one unwavering tsunami of sadness.

Another poem I like is quite a simple one for this poet's usual writings, it is called New York Blues. This poem is about the reality of living in New York and is structured mostly into quatrains. The repetition of "I'll be dead and buried and never pleasure win" is something of a truth for our own time as well. Compared to Ginsberg's own time, people work more hours and spend more money than ever before but, much of their money is tax and bills rather than the pleasures of life. He looks at crime, and at love, but he doesn't shy away from the reality of life: that we will often die without pleasure, without happiness and without anything. It is a grim and melancholy poem which in its simplicity, tells us everything we need.

I was reading In Society by Allen Ginsberg when I went to go and have a look on what the deeper meaning was. It must have some sort of significance since it is the poem that opens the anthology but I'm not sure it is the first one he wrote. The poem begins with the author walking into a cocktail party and most of the narrative does come off as bland. This is where I found, on my walks around research, someone on Reddit was complaining about the bland nature of Allen Ginsberg's poetry. It's funny how you run into your own thoughts on the net. Be that as it may, the poem In Society was definitely something I wanted to look into more because it didn't seem to have a deeper meaning, which in poetry-talk means that it definitely does. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but I read this poem and thought it was about how personalities of fame etc. seem to dominate even though they are perhaps the least intelligent of the bunch. The dominate often as they feel their opinions are worth more even though they are no authority on any topic. But that's just my reading of it.

All in all, I had fun with this anthology, I still don't know why In Society starts the anthology but that's for another reading at another time. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my re-reads this year because I'm definitely enjoying writing about them. Sooner or later, I am going to read some new books, I promise but for now, you're going to have to deal with me depression-rereading things. It's also autumn so I hope you're enjoying some of my recipes and have also hopefully saved them to your own collection! I've had some fun with this collection and I'm currently reading something even more divisive...