Yes, We’re Open

Yes, We’re Open

As I read this poem, Howl, by Allen Ginsberg, I see a man who observed the events of life as they took place all around him. He is a great decoder of the moments in life that people look at but never really see (if I may be so cliché). The poem Howl embodies these moments of life as Ginsberg saw them occurring. The inescapable realness of these moments was enough to shatter the beautiful illusions that these great minds of his generation had let themselves create. For me, Ginsberg’s Howl centers itself on the collapse of these minds under the heaviness that poured down on his generation as they attempted to change or re-imagine their reality.

Each time a line begins with “who” the audience can prepare itself to be thrown into a moment of time, a state of mind or a combination of the two. One of my favorite scenes of life that Ginsberg take us on is “who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep- / athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in- / stinctivly vibrated at their feet in Kansas.”(pg. 12) In this scene I see a coup1le of people who were once delegated to a small town in northern Kansas and looking for a way out. I see them having an “epiphany” and jumping on the next train west. They now wander the streets looking for their “angry fix” of truth that they just can’t seem to find. The reality of life as a hipster who let’s “themselves get fucked in the ass” by the events they once dreamed would let them mimic the manic joy of an acid trip settles in. They must now “open antique / stores where they thought they were growing old and cried.” Life doesn’t suck but it doesn’t change all that much. Ginsberg knew this truth and saw it destroying the newly minted ideals of his generation. He sat down and wrote Howl.

Trout Fishing and The City

Trout Fishing and The City

         

In the work by Richard Brautigan, “Trout Fishing in America,” his experience with trout fishing in and around The City (San Francisco) is the backdrop for his vision of what The City stands for. The moments and events he has experienced within the bay area pepper this work. In placing the action of his “novel” within this context he is painting a picture of the San Francisco the he knows and sometimes loves. The physical attributes of the landscape weaves themselves in and out of his short prose-like poems and a description of exactly where he is and what is surrounding him often begin each short chapter.

He repeatedly places the action, such as in the chapter about fornicating in a damned up part of a local hot spring, within the context of the landscape around him. In this passage he details the rundown manmade hot spring pond as being filled with “green scum” and dead fish floating around its edges. Yet despite these vile decorations this spot has served him and his wife as a romantic getaway from the trials of urban living. He even waits until the dead fish passes under his wife’s chin to start making love to her, as if it was a green light. This theme of decay engulfing the landscape, or at least it’s rough and neglected edges, is a recurring theme. Brautigan does not run from it but instead embraces them and finds “excitement” of all forms in it and uses it as a muse for his work.

 Furthermore, Brautigan often begins his short chapters outside. This constant interaction with the open, outdoors of the City makes me think that he did not find comfort in the large urban setting of the city. The outdoors almost seems to be his living room. One such short chapter where he does his living outdoors is the one explaining his after work routine: he goes to the park across the street from a church, buys a bottle of sweet port wine, and he and his friends sit and drink and compare the relative advantages of opening a flea circus to checking into a mental hospital. They sit for hours, until the sun begins to drop and the air take on a chill, to venture home. He lives, drinks, plays and fucks outside in the free spaces that pocket the bay area. This is his definition of life in San Francisco.