Baron Wormser: Vistas
I don’t doubt that somewhere in the United States some class or reading group, as a way of girding their collective loins for the upcoming election, is reading or rereading Democratic Vistas, an 1871 essay in which Walt Whitman surveyed American democracy’s prospects.
Allen Ginsberg: Sunflower Sutra
Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery.
Claude McKay: America
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests … Continue reading
Audio: Allen Ginsberg reads “America”
“America” appears in Allen Ginsberg’s first collection Howl and Other Poems (1956). Much of the poem consists of various accusations against the United States, its government, and its citizens. Ginsberg … Continue reading
