Contradictions and Confessions in Ginsberg’s “America”

Allen Ginsberg Protesting

Allen Ginsberg’s poem, “America,” is a monologue addressing the entire country of America, as if it had a conscience of its own. Similar in tone to Whitman’s more prophetic poems, the speaker in “America” is interrogating the country with political-themed questions. Important to note is the unreliable speaker; in the beginning of the free verse prose style poem, the speaker is quite hysterical, almost like the manic fits Whitman seemed to convey in his poems. The first line of the poem goes like this: “America, I’ve given you all and now im nothing,” and the relationship between the figure of America and the speaker only grows more interesting as the poem goes on. “America” is an authentic, personal representation of America from the perspective of someone in the queer community. But the queerness of the poem doesn’t even come out until the last line. 

Something that may be confusing about this poem is the realization the speaker comes to when he/she says, “It occurs to me that I am America. / I am talking to myself again.” This may be confusing because the speaker has just spent that first forty lines arguing with America, saying things like “I’m sick of your insane demands,” and “Your machinery is too much for me.” The identity of the speaker is a central theme in the poem and this realization is extremely important because it is the first time the speaker identifies with America. But, because the speaker also admits to many things like, “I smoke marijuana every chance I get” and “I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations,” and “I don’t feel good don’t bother me,” it is pretty hard to believe anything he/she is saying anyway. Coming to terms with this wishy-washy narrator may illuminate the significance of the way the speaker is characterized by his/her relationship with the figure of America being addressed throughout. In 1950’s America, you couldn’t just say “Alexa, what’s the news today?” and hear a list of significant happenings around the world. Back then, people would gather around radios and actually buy the newspaper to figure out what was going on. And when they did find out what was going on, it was terrible and often hard to face.

Many of the issues that the speaker addresses in the poem are, like I mentioned earlier, centered in the politics of the time when it was written which the speaker notes in the second line, saying, “America two dollars and twenty seven cents January 17, 1956.” As readers may notice from early on in the accusatory poem, the speaker has a bone to pick with the political climate of America. Many may have learned in history class or from their parents or grandparents that the 1950’s were a turbulent time for politics. As turbulent as any time, really. World War II had ended only a few years before, which had raised Russia and the United States of America to be the top dogs of the world’s governments. The Americans had dropped Atomic bombs on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing innocent people by the hundreds of thousands. No wonder the speaker spits out one liners one after another expressing the negativity of such atrocities. Ginsberg writes, “America when will we end the human war?” and immediately following, “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.” The majority of Ginsberg’s poem is made up of short phrases ending in periods or question marks, and most of these lines begin with “America,” a repetition that becomes more haunting as the poem continues. 

After it occurs to the speaker that he/she is america, there is a shift in the tone and diction. The lines change from one-lined statements and questions with an educated-sounding voice to a rambling run-on sentence, 

“America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers’ Ewig-Weibliche made me cry I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy.”

This constantly changing and contradictory voice of the speaker is what makes the poem so intriguing, and sheds light onto the confusing and frustrating politics of the 1950’s. The last line of the poem is  a confession and a promise, “America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.”