American History

The deaths of the popular American gay writers William S. Burroughs, Herbert Huncke and Allen Ginsberg cannot be deemed as the end of the Beat Generation which is considered as the most influential literary movements in the history of the country as such their influence is still very evident in todays poetry.
    Beat Generation is a group of American writers who came to prominence during the 1950s which basically tackles issues about experimentation with drugs, sexuality and other social implications which are less given importance by some of the conservative writers of the said generation (Campbell 2001).
    One of the classic examples of the works of the Beat Generation is the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg which is best considered as the poem of mental hospitals, jails, secret and overt gay sex, drug taking and transcontinental Bohemian fervor for it opened the mind of the people to these pressing issues in the American society during his time (Ginsberg 1959). 
    The poem tackles human discontent, despair, morality and social ills. Ginsberg perfectly discusses in his poem the freedom from sexual repression and traditional behavior, recreational use of drug, rejection of authority and censorship. In his poem, he persuaded the mind of the people by using irony in his statement that he saw the best mind of his generation. However, the people that the author is referring to as the best mind are the people who have rotten minds and mad consciousness whom he met along his journey in the jail, mental hospital and streets.
    During Ginsbergs time, issues on homosexuality, drug addiction and censorship were kept secret by every people for these are not discussed openly in the public. The society reserved to be traditional and conservative with these issues. However, nowadays, censorship is evident in the society people are not allowed to talk against the government. Moreover, people cannot discuss concerns that are against the moral standard of the society. Through the publication of Ginsbergs poem, nevertheless, people came out of their closet and had the courage to talk about these sensitive issues as the poem opened their minds about the realities in life. Ginsberg successfully educated them through his poem that homosexuality, drug addiction and censorship are parts of human existence. Through the poem, facts about these issues were revealed and brought into realization.
    Furthermore, Ginsbergs Howl is considered as a perfect manifestation that Beat Generation is still evident in the works of the other writers after the prominence pf the Beat Generations poets. Many writers were being influenced to write about sensitive issues like homosexuality, insanity and drug abuse. One of the typical examples of a writer during the 1980s who was influenced by the Beat Generation is Robert Duncan who wrote the poems Poems from the Margins of Thom Gunns Moly, These Past Years Passages 10, My Mother Would Be a Falconress and The Torso, Passages 18.
    These poems of Duncan are only some of the poems that emerged right after the writers of the Beat Generation broke the conservativeness of the American literature. Duncans poems are indeed a great parallelism of Ginsbergs Howl as such the Duncans poems also tackle about homosexuality. All of these literary pieces had successfully revealed the creativity of the writers in bringing the issue of homosexuality to the people without the hesitations of being tagged as malicious and immoral.
    And through the courage of these writers from the birth of the Beat Generation up to the present time, many writers have realized that the issue on homosexuality an drugs can be also used creatively and freely through the intricate and beautiful language of poetry. The footprints of the Beat Generation will remain an indelible etch in the American history up to the present time for its poetry does not only reveal gay writers emotions but it also tackles social and political implications of America.