America/In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

In "America" by Allen Ginsberg, the reader once again sees the recurring theme of how much pressure society puts on individuals to be just like everyone else. But beside this being his main theme throughout most of his poems, another interesting aspect of Ginsberg's writing is his style of writing. Ginsberg's words seem to come alive and are quite vivid. Much of how Ginsberg writes is by heart and very personal, as the reader can see in America. For example, "I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.", for Ginsberg to include something like this in a poem is very unique. Ginsberg explains and shows the reader how passionate he is and how he will only write "till I'm in my right mind".
Looking at "America" as a whole the reader can sense a strong resentment against American culture and its values. For example Ginsberg says, "America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.", here the reader clearly sees how Ginsberg is completely against what America as a government and society is doing. Ginsberg then says "it's them bad Russians", which is likely referring to America as turning into somewhat of a communist country as well. This is Ginsberg main message, he is preaching anticommunism and how conformity in these countries will ultimately be their downfall and how he doesn't want America to fall down this path. Another example of how Ginsberg doesn't want to be pushed into someone he's not is, "I'm sick of your insane demands.". Here Ginsberg refuses to conform into somebody he just refuses to be.
This poem by Ginsberg could be seen as somewhat of a sermon to the American people, almost like it is his duty to speak his word. I personally believe there were lots of people just like Ginsberg in his time they just failed to speak up. "America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel", here Ginsberg shows that he was tired of keeping his homosexuality a secret. Ginsberg's main message was to show everyone that you can keep your beliefs or way of life and still be proud to be an American. Ginsberg showed that he didn't have to compromise his own beliefs for the sake of society not accepting him as an American and wanted others to do the same.


In Ginsberg's poem "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound", the theme is not so present as in past Ginsberg poems. However it still is a classic Ginsberg poem. He has written it just like Howl. Ginsberg seems to be just ranting about random things yet he shows organization by putting it into different sections. Also another point of this poem, is how vivid and clear his words are for the reader. For most reader's, chances are they have never been in a baggage room at Greyhound, maybe at an airport. And so Ginsberg really shows the reader what he sees, for example,"A swarm of baggage sitting by the counter as the trans-continental bus pulls in.". Any average reader could easily picture this. Ginsberg also mentions a lot of different people in this poem, whether they had an affect on his life, I'm not really sure, yet they must have done something that day to catch his eye.
For example he talks about Spade who unloads buses and reminded him of an angel. "Yet Spade reminded me of Angel, unloading a bus, dressed in blue overalls black face official Angel's work- man cap". Ginsberg remember lots of the details when the baggage room was full of people busying around, "or the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the buses waving goodbye,nor other millions of the poor rushing around from city to city to see their loved ones," now millions of people would be an exaggeration however there must of been hundreds of people there. This statement also clarifies a bit of what Ginsberg's purpose behind this poem may be. He talks about the weeping relatives and the people rushing to see their loved ones, could mean that Ginsberg shows a bit of loneliness. Just as he does in past poems, Ginsberg still feels like he doesn't quite fit right in with everyone else. And if this is true that is why Ginsberg had time to watch and critique what people were doing and pay attention to so much detail as well.