Commentaries on Beatnik literature
...elp. He also makes references to sexual advances that his mother had made on him when he was younger (this was the supposed excuse why he later became gay). Then he goes back to the random images. One image to the next; again with no order. He finally prays for his mother in his Jewish religion. This poem is very relatable. Everyone has or will experience a loved one’s death. You think about their life and death and how it influenced you. You think about the services. Then because there is so much confusion about death itself, everything jumbles together with the chaos of the loss. That is exactly how Ginsberg wrote this. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road On the Road was also another relatable piece to me. Sal and Dean’s dream is like everyone else during one point of their life. Their travels let them be who ever they want to because no one knows them. It’s like after high school and everyone goes his or her different ways. Some move out of state and some just find another school. Sal and Dean’s destination was a place where they had no problems. But when they finally got to the true end of their road, all their problems became exclusive again. Everyone feels at one time or another, that they don’t know what they want out of life. There will always be people who have “nothing to do, no where to go, nobody to believe in.” Although in this poem Sal believes that this was his culture, I believe that this was always be a general culture. This piece is also very relatable to the Dharma Bums, in regards to the uncertainty of one’s direction in life. Kerouac’s works are about the quest of who you are or to be “dharma”. Gary Snyder’s Poems pgs.289-306 Snyder’s poems were happy based. Make love and not war. He wanted to make communities bring peace. Yet the way most of Snyder’s poems were displayed on the page was disorderly and confusing, almost like war. He speaks in phrases that make sense, but seem like they are missing something. Consta...