Customer Reviews

The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971 (City Lights Pocket Poets Series)

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Well, you probabably knew it already. This is the first Allen Ginsberg book I have ever read. Asymetric beauty, astonishing aesthetics and original symbolism and metaphors meet personnal reflexions of the fall of the modern and capitalist America. You can really feel the beat, the music of this poetry. Allen Ginsberg sings as he travels through country landscapes and encounters, through smokestacks and cities.The vision of a sensitive man, looking at what this country is falling into and what it shows to him. A deep emotional book testifiyng a falling empire through the mind of a literary genius. A must. You'll never feel the same.

Allen Ginsberg brings his magic of the english word to the pages of fall of america, with his assaults of verbatim consciousness.A must read for any stream of consciousness poet.

Allen Ginsberg peaks with this volume of wonderful, meditative poetry. Although many would claim he hit his prime early, circa Howl, The Fall of America, though not as stylistically dynamic as Howl or Kaddish, is more meditative, maturely political, and tender. Many of the poems in this volume are diaphonous reflections on Ginsberg's American travels, presumably without Kerouac(don't get too excited, hipsters). His poetic stylings seem to be dream woven, with a touch of substance induced mania and distinctly Ginsbergian patriotism thrown in for good measure. The themes of his poems range widely from a picnic with Einstein at Princeton to a shadowy image of Richard Nixon peering eerily into the righteous protest of a diverse group of anti-Vietnam activists, Ginsberg, of course, included. Whereas Howl and Kaddish are more anthology worthy poems, in contrast to most of the poems in this volume, The Fall of America is a richly spirited glimpse of America from a modern Whitman, a true American, Allen Ginsberg. Aum. Aum. Aum. shanti shanti shanti...

ginsberg takes kerouac's spontaneous bop-prosody and whitman's america and makes one of the classic books of poetry of the 20th century. whitman's spirit is breathed through these poems. as whitman's poems defined the civil war era, ginsbergs poems in this volume define the vietnam era. the sad thing is though the names have changed the song remains the same.

i read this collection on a roadtrip from seattle to chicago in '04 or '05. this put me in a bad funk. america is beautiful, if only we give it a chance. this is like an adolescent's raving; HOWL remains to be ginsberg's best collection.