oh god it's wonderful

Influenced by urban scenery, spontaneity, and modernity, Frank O'Hara paves the way for the New York philosophy with one of my favorite poems, "Steps." He begins by addressing a personified New York, for it is funny today "like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime." O'Hara's comparison of New York in the moment is representative of his whole philosophy of poetry writing: that poetry should be written on whim and not taken too seriously.

Ever the observer of urban life, he continues to muse upon the scenery that he encounters on the city streets. Lana Turner is out eating somewhere; the park is full of dancers; Pittsburgh baseball fans are cheering because their team is winning. After this description, O'Hara seems to get to the heart of the poem, "in a sense we're all winning / we're alive." This is a New York School and particularly O'Hara-istic purpose of poetry: to celebrate life and its pleasures.

Even as O'Hara details the terrors of city life, "even the stabbings are helping the population explosion," in the wrong country and noticing the corruption of government with the "liars at the UN," he is never one to dwell on these things; he doesn't need liquor. He just likes it. This celebration of the ordinary day is taken to even further depths as he celebrates spending the morning with his lover. He is content with coffee, cigarettes, and love.

Poets & Painters

This painting, titled Katie in an Armchair, is a Fairfield Porter work from 1954. Although we've discussed that the New York School was heavily influenced by abstract expressionist art, it is still notable that there were many still life portraits still produced, and perhaps these still life portraits reflect as much as the more abstract works. If we take a look at the picture, we see that Katie, the subject, is staring into the distance. She is observing what is outside of her surroundings, as she does not gaze at the painter, or the chair in which she sits. Much like the gaze of this young girl, poets find inspiration in observing the outside world in order to reflect inward. Although the Confessional Poets concerned more on internal affairs, the New York School observed the urban setting in which they lived.


Although the re-sizing of this picture produced a less appealing quality, I found it important to study Katie's face in relation to poetic inspiration. The first thing that I thought about when I saw the picture is that she doesn't look quite human. I hope I'm not being too hard on Porter, but I believe this could be intentional, as writers and artists possess a certain "queer" quality that sets them above the folds of nominal society. They are separated from society, yet they observe it with more detail than for example, the average businessman.


Although Katie is a small girl, it seems as if she is engulfed by her surroundings. The chair is much more massive than she is, yet she is still the focus of the painting. Perhaps this could inspire the prevailing humanity over material objects in a poet's work. According to Wordsworth, it is impossible to write poetry without emotion, as he claimed it was the "spontaneous overflow of emotions." Whether you agree completely or not with that assessment of poetry, it is undeniable that poetry reflects the courses of life, even as inanimate objects overpower man's size.

Skunk Ideology

Through the journey that is Robert Lowell's Life Studies, the reader has become rather properly introduced to Lowell as both a poet and a man, as these two titles are interchangeable in the realm of confessional poetry. Throughout the collection, Lowell chooses to include the most intimate of details concerning his personal life, including death, madness, and those existential questions that beg to be answered. However, the last poem of the collection is simply titled "Skunk Hour." Why is Lowell choosing to end his somber journey with the image of a skunk?

First of all, the poem does not immediately begin with the image of pungent skunk odor. Rather, like many of Lowell's previous poems, notably "Waking in Blue," Lowell begins with detached descriptions of the inhabitants of a given area. In "Waking in Blue," Lowell described characters found in the mental hospital in which he was committed for three months. The characters have passed the prime of their life and are unable to accept the futility of age and decay. Therefore, the character of Stanley "still hoard[s] the build of a boy in his twenties," and the character of Bobbie has reverted to childhood as he "swashbuckles about in his birthday suit and horses at chairs." The characters of "Skunk Hour" echo the former poem, as they experience their own sort of decay. We find:

--"Nautilus Island's hermit heiress" in her dotage. Longing to relive the decadence of her youth in the Victorian area, she continuously purchases "eyesores," only to let them fall.

--The "summer millionaire." Past his prime, his wealth is shamed at an auction.

--The "fairy decorator." A man whose work is unfulfilling and fruitless longs to marry, yet there are no prospects.

There is decay and failure in each of the characters' lives, as they cannot accept life as it progresses. They construct a world of fantasies and property values only to learn that their constructed lives have expiration dates. Similarly, Lowell himself has a moment of fantasy, as he hears "my own ill-spirit sob in each blood cell," lamenting his loneliness after hearing a love song on a car radio and observing "love-cars." The climax of the poem is the moment that Lowell realizes that "nobody's here." He is utterly alone, depraved of humanity. However, the poem only shifts into self pity momentarily, as Lowell discovers that he is indeed not alone, as skunks begin their night feeding.

These skunks have no romanticized qualities; Lowell states that the mother skunk "jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream" that she has discovered in a garbage dispenser at midnight. Survival is of the utmost importance to these creatures. They feed at midnight to elude predators, and yet they are unashamed to consume others' waste. Unlike the human characters whose material centered lives have distinct expiration dates, these skunks are not afraid to eat the curdled sour cream of life, as it is the only thing that ensures survival.

At the end of the poem, Lowell breathes the "rich air," littered with the smell of skunk. It is in this moment that the revelation of the book occurs. As we can tell from poems such as "My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow," Lowell has dealt with the events in his own life by detachment and formalization. Each event is sterilized, as he dons his "formal pearl gray shorts" for his mother's esteemed family and describes his mother's corpse "panetone in Italian tinfoil" in "Sailing Home from Rapallo." For the first time in the collection, Lowell is freely identifying with a group without force. It may seem to be ironic that he is identifying with such an abhorred animal; however, through the depictions of his previous poems, humans do not seem to fare better than his black and white comrades, as they are shallow, concerned with monetary gain and the retention of youth. In one moment, Lowell chooses to disregard all notions of false security in life, whether by riches, detachment, or sterilization and chooses to survive in the trash that is life, as the skunks have chosen to do.

Unity and Resolve in Ginsberg's "Howl"

As we discussed earlier in class, the first distinct section of "Howl" is a vivid combination of both true stories and fantastic, sometimes grotesque, imagery. This is Ginsberg's method of introduction, as he opens the first line of "Howl" proclaiming that the "best minds of [his] generation" are driven to madness by the unaccepting society in which  they are surrounded. Ginsberg presents this struggle as a war between the spiritual (himself and his peers) and the mechanical (society). By the end of the first section, there seems to be hope still abounding in the desperation as Ginsberg seeks to find the "absolute heart of the poem."

However, this tone does not remain present as Ginsberg shifts "Howl" into its second section. Perhaps it does not seem fitting to try and resolve a poem dedicated to the pursuit of spiritual transcendence by mentioning the murder of spiritualism and even humanity within a society, but Ginsberg has a purpose. Ginsberg names this mechanistic force "Moloch," which is fitting, because historically, children were sacrificed to the god Moloch. Children are representative of the futurity of the human race; therefore, we can deduce that Ginsberg's context of Moloch is also a destroyer of humanity. For Ginsberg and his loyal readers to fight against this mechanical god, they must know its nature. Therefore, Ginsberg describes Moloch as "Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!" This is a harsh juxtaposition to a high level of spiritual transcendence, a disgrace to Ginsberg. He even goes on to say that Moloch's followers "broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven." Moloch has invaded the spiritual plane, as Heaven is no place for the mechanical, but the spiritual. Ginsberg even admits that Moloch "entered [his] soul early." Therefore, Moloch seems to be inescapable; however, Ginsberg responds to the reader with hope, for all is not lost. He addresses Moloch: "whom I abandon!" This resolves the notion that Moloch is an omnipotent god, for Ginsberg is able to escape its influence. However, many are not able to transcend the force of Moloch. At the end of Section 2, Ginsberg talks about the "American River." This river symbolizes time, and this time is carrying the spiritual side of humanity ("Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation!") down its stream. Note that this spiritual side is not just one of happiness, as there are suicides and madness. It is rather a representation of human feeling. This section, I feel, is Ginsberg's commentary in the present state of the world and society in the poem. 

The third section once again shifts tone, more akin to the first section than the second, as it is an address to Carl Solomon, to which the poem is dedicated. His repetition of "I'm with you in Rockland," a mental institution, assures the reader that he is still mad and burning with human feeling, rather than lifting Moloch to a spiritual plane and perverting transcendence. His lines, describing madness, are true stories, allowing the reader to know that this attempt at transcendence is reality, that spirituality itself is a reality for him. He then resolves the poem with two important lines:


I'm with you in Rockland
         where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself   imaginary walls collapse   O skinny legions run outside   O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here   O victory forget your underwear we're free.

I have bolded key words in this section. I believe that Ginsberg has resolved the oppressive state of section two, proclaiming that spirituality is the clear victor is this “eternal war.” This line is full of heavenly imagery, as even the bombs of war are angelic. Also notice that punctuation and grammatical structure are forgotten, as the spiritual is escaping from even written language standards. The poem itself cannot even describe the transcendence. There are no rules anymore, for they are free to fight, free to love, and free to even forget their underwear.

I'm with you in Rockland
         in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night.

Ginsberg states that Solomon is back from a “sea journey.” This is in opposition to the river of time that destroys the spiritual in section 2. As the river has one direction, the sea is limitless, bringing the resolution of the poem. Even tears are a victory, for a mechanical world is without human emotion and passion, and solace is found at last.