Reflective essay on personal experience and learning

¶ … old when the music of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits introduced me to the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, and gradually to the entire Beat Movement. I had always been keen on poetry but had never imagined that such depths and emotions could be achieved or induced by it. Moreover, despite the fact that I believed in Oscar Wilde's "art for art's sake," I had to acknowledge militant art which can make a difference not only on a personal level, but on a global one too. And these are not big words. My personal experience with the Beat Movement, its vision, imagery and literary devices have allowed me to realize that even if poetry cannot change the world, it has the power to reform mentalities and that is exactly what the Beat writers achieved. By escaping patterns and bookish naivete, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, and even Bukowski and Brautigan managed to shape an entire generation and deeply influence not only modern American literature, but also the American generations to come.

The person I would like to talk about in this essay is Allen Ginsberg, who was an American poet and leading apostle of the Beat Generation, as well as a social activist and member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His work, both in terms of poetry as well as social activism has inspired me to take a stand and try to fight injustice with my own weapons and according to my own personal beliefs. The fact that nothing - incarceration, censorship, several rejections from editors - ever kept Ginsberg from taking part in virtually every major countercultural or radical movement of his era, has taught me to stand up for myself and what I believe in and to follow my own set of moral rules. I had always been outspoken and had crusaded according to my own means for the causes I believed in, but Ginsberg's determination both on paper and in his personal life encourage me to stay true to who I am, and to believe that making a difference is much more than a cliche or an ideal. I embraced every opportunity to speak out for freedom of speech and expression, and became more involved in class debates on issues such as human rights, social injustice and even religion, or art. I started writing articles on these topics and encouraged my classmates to do the same, and become more open to new ways and ideas. Moreover, I was introduced to an entirely new universe of literature and thought which laid before my eyes in the form of both Beat writers, but also their influences and literary mentors: William Blake, Ezra Pound, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and Walt Whitman to name only a few.

A also remember the day I felt closest to Allen Ginsberg. I was sitting in my room reading from a collection of his poems. Although I found the majority of his poems to be truly fascinating, my favorite would always be "A supermarket in California." I imagined him strolling down the allies of the supermarket, eyes wide open touching the vegetables and fruit and dreaming of a conversation with Garcia Lorca. Then I saw him sitting in his bed - very much like I was sitting that day - thinking of William Blake and then slowly leaning over the window sill and gazing outside, his eyes piercing through the wilderness and livelihood of the Lower East Side on a hot summer day sometime in the 1950s; the intense brown of the few pieces of furniture in his room melting into beige walls and glowing in the afternoon light. For me, that afternoon was like a raid siren in the dead of the night as I could see Allen Ginsberg's poetry come to life in front of my eyes; also, I am positive that afternoon changed my perception not only of poetry, but of art in general. I became interested in the life of the artist, and the period of time a particular piece of art was created.

I can now look back and attempt to accurately evaluate the impact of Ginsberg's work on my life. Nonetheless, I am not sure how objective I can be in this assessment. Since Ginsberg has become an integrated part of my system of thought and belief, it is quite difficult to separate myself from what I believe in, and evaluate my own mind. What I can say though is that thanks to his poetry, I was able to get a more profound and meaningful understanding of a certain era in American and even world history. It might sound pretentious, but it was Ginsberg who made me more aware of the importance of history, and of the fact that one cannot even attempt to grasp the present without looking back. His life and work have increased my interest in the study of civil rights, his tireless crusade for an end to the Vietnam War determined me to aim at acquiring a wider perspective on war in general, and his Communist Jewish family background has deepened my interest in politics and cultural influence. There are two things I am completely sure of as far as Ginsberg. The first great thing about Allen Ginsberg was his refusal to be embarrassed or to deny himself be it in terms of political belief, social position, or even sexual orientation. The other great thing was the poet Allen Ginsberg whose work spoke in so strong a voice that his talent could not be denied.