The Influence of Walt Whitman on Allen Ginsberg

Walt Whitman as a Transcendentalist and Allen Ginsberg as a member of the Beat Movement are thought of as two of American’s greatest poets. Ginsberg as a modern poet looked to Whitman out of admiration, finding great influence in his works. The writing styles of Whitman and Ginsberg share similar characteristics, including: structure, language, and expressing the America of their respective time period.

Ginsberg’s A Supermarket in California: “is perhaps the most obvious Whitman influence upon Ginsburg’s poetry. Ginsberg directly references Whitman throughout the poem, imagining a relationship between them developing among vegetables and shoppers, and spreading out into the streets, rueing a Lost America” (Bisser). Ginsberg describes Whitman as a father figure, ”Ah dear father, graybeard, lonely old courageteacher” (Ginsberg, 30), to whom Ginsberg questions for answers to his doubts of consumerism. Here we see the generational time difference in the poets’ writings; Whitman wrote before the Civil War and Ginsberg did not write until after WWII. Ginsberg describes this commonplace scene with disgust for the overly commercialized America of the 1950s: “What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!” (Ginsberg, 29). In the following lines it can be seen how Ginsberg searches for answers from Whitman in the supermarket as Ginsberg portrays Whitman seeking the truth: “I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas?” (Ginsberg, 29).

Ginsberg and Whitman share a common theme among their poetry as they each write of the America of their time. Whitman is more of a naturalist, but Ginsberg is also unhappy with his surroundings and the American way of life in the 1950s and 1960s. “[Whitman’s] Song of Myself, created a tradition of opening up and embodying America using lists to build imagery representative of as much of the country and people as possible” (Bisser). The influence from Song of Myself can be seen in Ginsberg’s Howl. These two poems show the structural similarities between the poets; Whitman and Ginsberg write in streams of thoughts with punctuation governed by breathing. Song of Myself depicts America before the dawn of consumerism seen from Ginsberg’s poetry as: “A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth, /A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian” (Whitman, 16). Here we see that Whitman’s style of poetry focuses on the more natural aspect of American when compared to Ginsberg, however Ginsberg draws influence from his use of commonplace language and imagery. Howl shows this influence when Ginsberg depicts modern America: “Moloch! Solutide! Filth! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!” (Ginsberg, 21).

In Howl and Song of Myself each poet gives a description of himself, which give insight into the lives they lead. It is interesting to see the great similarities in the description given my Whitman and Ginsberg. Song of Myself describes Whitman as: “Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,/ No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart them,/ No more modest than immodest.” (Whitman, 24). His word show the same obscene lifestyle of Ginsberg, and is perhaps one of the reasons Ginsberg found such influence in Whitman. Ginsberg could relate to the former poet as his generation: “starving hysterical naked… wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go… lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup”(Ginsberg, 9-12).

Walt Whitman’s life and works served as a notable influence on modern poet Allen Ginsberg. Similar lifestyles brought about works that share structure, language, and views of America from different time periods in history. Ginsberg admired and learned from Whitman which is reflected in many of his works.

Works Cited
Bisser, Kirsty, and David Wills. "Whitman and the Beats." Beatdom 2007: n. pag. Web. 2 Mar 2010. .

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and other poems. San Franscio: CITY LIGHTS BOOKS, 1995. Print.

Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself”. Princeton University, Web. 2 March 2010. edu/~batke/logr/log_026.html>.